Ran faster the next week. Mentally, I figured out what went wrong (and it's usually pretty obvious: didn't eat dinner the night before, walked for three hours the night before and didn't sleep well, was sick and hadn't actually completed 3 miles without needing a bathroom stop since Monday for a Saturday race, and went out way too hard at the start of the race.) I tend to race often enough that I don't have time to let a bad race get to me.

For the race that I hated the most, I took the next week off and actually recovered from the norovirus. By the way, don't get the norovirus, it's awful.

I started paying attention to what I ate and lost 30 pounds. Which made me much faster.

I need to declutter.  I still have whole issues from at least 96, maybe a year two or earlier, maybe even some of dad's issues from a decade earlier, but only the marathon articles, 'cause anything shorter sucks.

Dealt with it like a sane human being. It's only a race. I let it go by the time I got to the bananas. Now, if there had been no bananas, I would have been angry for weeks.

Heavy  HEAVY rationalization.  Would've had a faster time if it was cooler. (Bored the tears out of everyone in earshot with rants about the weather.)

Then I bored me.

Then back to training.  I have a marathon to run in November.

LOL I'm pretty sure the weather has caused every disappointing run and/or race of my life.

My best runs? That was all me, though

I decided to try myself at the USATF Master's National Outdoor Championships last month since it was right here in my hometown and when I looked up times I thought I could at least finish respectably.  The wheels fell completely off.  I missed my 1500m race altogether by being stupid, then my mojo was all drained out and I ran one of my slowest 5k's of the last 3-4 years.  Not going to bore everyone with all the gory details.  Still rebounding.  Afterwards, I took about a week off, probably drank too much beer and ate too much ice cream, and then decided to start on a new non-race-specific training plan aimed at hopefully shoring up any weaknesses I have as a runner and trying once again to find my "limits" before my times start to slide (at my dinosaurian age as a runner) permanently.  But I won't set any "target" races for quite some time, I can tell you that.  Right now I just want to see about getting generally better, if possible, and maybe show up at races from time to time to see what I might have.  Still rebounding.  Oh, and I'll embarrass myself further publicly by admitting that when I missed my 1500 I threw stuff and used language I normally don't and generally made a fool of myself in front of lots of strangers and, more importantly, in front of my two oldest sons who probably didn't need that kind of example.  Yeah.  Pretty much that day (and weekend) was an epic fail on every level from running to fatherhood to faith.  Still rebounding.

drank heavily and wallowed in self pity

that works for all kinds of "worsts" though