It's always fun to write a RR when you feel you've run a good race.  But what happens when you don't? I usually try to pretend it didn't happen.   But, maybe it's better to remember these things, so here I go.

Short version:   Nursing sore legs and fatigue,  I decided to enter this event for "fun."   I ended up grumpy and even more sore.     Final time was 2:07:04 -- almost exactly 7 minutes slower than I ran this same race last year.

Long version:

Background.  Last year was a big year in my running life.  I ran more miles than I ever had before and every race was a PB.   The year culminated in a December marathon, which was pretty much my dream race. Although I knew I was physically beat up, I longed to build on that.   So I decided that i "needed" to get my base back up to 35 mpw so I wouldn't lose the fitness I had gained.  I tried, but it never felt right.  I was slowly logging the mileage, but I was getting slower and slower, and feeling more and more beat up.  It didn't help that late winter and spring is a busy time on my farm.  I was squeezing in my running after spending hours hoeing, weeding, planting, wheel-barrowing etc.   I constantly felt tired.

The Race.   I have run this race every year for the past three years. It’s a flat course and usually a goal race for me. My thoughts as to how I would approach it this year changed dramatically as the race neared.   At first, I thought I could build on my marathon training to use it as a PR attempt.  As I got closer in, I knew that wasn't going to happen.   I couldn't find the energy for speed work. Also, partly because of some of the outdoor work I was doing, my hamstrings had become sore and tender.  I debated whether to run it at all, and finally decided to run it just for fun. I took several days off beforehand to try to get some life back into my legs.

Race Day.  I felt OK the morning of the race.  Standing in the starting chute with hundreds of other excited runners had me feeling happy to be there and eager to go.  The weather was good, but not great.  My car said it was 55 degrees when I arrived at 6, and the forecast was for it to climb into the upper 60s by 9 a.m.  Humidity was around 80%, but there was zero wind.  I had decided to use my garmin just as stop watch, run by feel, and loosely keep track of my time against the mile markers.

The first few miles felt just fine.  It was good to be out amongst other runners again.  I wasn't worrying at all about my pace, but was checking at some the mile markers to get a sense of where I was.  Through the first 7 miles I was averaging around 9:20 mm and was perfectly happy with that.   When I looked later at my actually splits, I can see now that miles 2 and 3 were too fast, but my readings against the actual mile markers were slower than that and it felt ok at the time.  Around mile 7, I saw a spectator holding a sign that read "If it were easy, it would be called your mother" which made me laugh.  Maybe that's an old one, but it was new to me.

Somewhere after mile 8, the whole race changed.  The increasing tightness I had been feeling in my hamstrings had started to turn into pain.  It wasn't enormously painful, but it worried me, and I decided it would be smart to walk for a bit to stretch them out, and then start running again at a slower pace.   Except that when I went to run again, I couldn't get into it.  It seemed the more I tried to slow down and take it easy, the more tired I felt.  Also, at this point in the course, I was running directly into the rising sun.  I had brought my sunglasses, but because of the humidity they kept fogging up on me.  I kept taking them off and putting them back on.  I felt hot and uncomfortable.

Looking back on it, I think some of it was mental.  I was not in dire pain, but I just couldn't seem to make myself run any faster.  Part of it was a legitimate concern over not wanting to push myself on sore hamstrings, part of it was the consequence of going out faster than my condition warranted, but another part of it was that, once I had given myself permission to ease up, all my desire to keep running disappeared.  It's hard to explain.  I recognized that I was not as sore or as tired as I had been in the concluding miles of my last marathon, but I couldn’t even conceive of pushing myself to hold my pace as I had then.

People were passing me right and left, some shouting out encouraging words.  I felt, and must have looked, pretty pitiful.  I tried to put myself in the mindset of this being a slow, long run and to try to enjoy it.  But, somehow my race for "fun" had become not so fun.  If there had been sag wagons, I would have bailed.  But this is a small race and those options weren't there.  So I kept slogging forward.   My legs felt like concrete.  My hamstrings hurt. I have never worked so hard to run so slow.

Finally the finish line approached.  Dozens of triumphant runners streamed by me in the last few hundred yards, as I doggedly chugged along.  Then it was over.  I staggered over to the post race area, collected a chocolate milk and a banana, and then levered myself down onto the edge of curb   I tried to make sense of why I had run this race.  Pure curiosity, i guess.

Three days later, my hamstrings are still sore, but improving.  I don't think I've done them serious harm, but I didn't do them much good either.   Right now, I'm resting up and re-grouping.    I love running so much, it is very hard for me to take down time.  I think this race was a wake-up call for me as to just how necessary that is.

Here are my splits to see the details of how my fun run turned into a death march.

Those early year races can be tough.  I don't know about your neck of the woods, but around here there aren't a lot of winter races and it takes a couple of them to feel what it's like to run at race effort again.  Three months is a long time to go between races.  Not to mention getting through the holidays then training in the winter.  No doubt all that hard physical labor wore you down as well.  You'll get your legs back once life settles down and you can rest a little more.  Sounds like you're tired physically and mentally.  Still, 7 minutes off of last year isn't that bad a race.  My first HM last year was 18 minutes off my PR.

Speaking of which, thanks for posting this.  Sometimes these "bad" race reports are more interesting to read than the good ones.  I should have written one after my aforementioned mentioned HM but just didn't feel like it.

(edit for typo)

Thanks for taking the time to write this. Sorry you had such a tough time.  Although you initially believed it was overtraining, it just sounds like life has ended up exhausting you.  Life and all those other work and commitments do take a toll on our training.  That maybe you should've lowered your mileage to accommodate that, yes.  But hindsight is 20/20.  I hope you recover well and can start getting back on track.

We all do.  I do that often as well.  I DNFd San Francisco last year mostly because I failed to see it.  A week off and some easy running had me ready for Chicago.  You'll be back in no time!

Any time I have tried to force miles after a marathon, I have gotten injured. It's best to just take the downtime, lose fitness and then work to get it back when you're fully recovered (mentally and physically). For me this can take 6 weeks. (not 6 weeks of no running, but 6 weeks of less and not pushing it, and taking a day or two off when I'm not feeling it.)

I do not think this race is indicative of anything. Not your fitness, not your training, none of it. It just came at a bad time and oh this just in; half marathons are not a walk in the park, especially when you are not mentally sharp. 

You are great racer, you proved that last December while throwing up a negative split in your marathon. Sunday was just not your day but you suspected it wouldn't be last month, two weeks ago and again last week. Pardon me while I play the role of Captain Obvious but you were right.

If I were you I would put as much distance between myself and this race as legally possible, and just chalk it up to one of those days. That's what I am doing. 

Thanks so much for posting this. It will inspire me to do the same the next time I have a race that doesn't go the way I want it to. There will be a next time as some races will go well and some races just won't for any number of reasons.  Keep the faith that things will pick up again and when your confidence flags remember that awesome marathon you ran.  Take some much deserved easy time now.

You'll get over it. We all have a bad race from time to time for whatever reason... weather, injury, bad strategy, whatever. I am going to have a bad race on May 3. So bad in fact that I'm not even doing the race I signed up for. Instead of the Avenue of the Giants Marathon I am going to do the HM and at this point I don't even know if I can do that.  Hats off to you for the RR. It's easy to write about a PR but bad races... not so much. Thanks for sharing and it will get better.