….and My Story Runs On….

and the rest will follow.”  Anyone remember that En Vogue song from 1992?  This post has nothing to do with the song other than the fact that when I freed my mind about this race, everything really did just follow….

Yesterday I completed my 4th Women’s Half Marathon.  I have always loved this race.  It’s mainly all women and I love the medal and swag.  I’ve also had a personal record (PR) at this race every year.  I had a huge aha moment when I PR’d it last year and blogged about it in my:  Purposely run a race Garmin-free? post.

I decided to wear my Garmin yesterday but kept my learning lessons in mind from last year.  I decided, as much as I wanted to PR this race again, I was not going to obsess or even think about it.  If I PR’d it, great…..if not, all good too!  I made a choice to set my mind free and have a peaceful run.

So here are my learning lessons:

• Detach from the outcome.  I learned this concept via ChiRunning and Deepak Chopra’s Seven Laws of Spiritual Success meditations (Friday is the Law of Detachment).  So as much as I wanted to PR, I detached from that goal and decided to focus on the journey by staying as present as possible.  I also purposely did not check what my last PR was for this race or any others. I had an idea but not the exact number.
• I rarely listen to music when I run but for some reason, I felt like it this time.  If I do, I just hit shuffle on my MP3 player…this time I created a specific playlist with songs that I wanted to listen to on my 13.1 mile journey.
• Strategize!  This was a big AHA moment for me.  This course has been the same for the last 4 years (I hear they are changing it next year).  There are several hills to consider towards the end of the course.  My goal for this race was to run it as efficiently as possible.  So my strategy was to save my energy as much as possible and use it when I needed most.  Again, I was not focused on PRing, but just wanting to have a smart, efficient run.
• Technique was key!   As a ChiRunner, technique is always a crucial part of my running.  But I admit that I focus on it more at times than others.  Yesterday, (even though I was listening to music), I was very aware of my form.  Lately I’ve been working on my arm swing.  I mainly focused on this but used other Form Focuses that really helped me with my energy conservation and efficiency.

So at about mile 10, I realized I would be close to PRing this race.   I focused hard on not letting my ego come into play and continued to use my learning lessons above.  I actually walked a few more times in that last 3 miles than I did the entire race.  I gathered the energy that I saved throughout the run, found some more and went for it.

Greatest thing is that I didn’t even know I PRd until later in the day when I had a chance to confirm it.

The other lesson is to always remember to celebrate!  Several of us (including some of my running friends that did another race this day) ended up at Rula Bula downtown Tempe celebrating our journey…..and yes, beer was involved 😉

Here are a few pictures and you can see the rest of them here on my Easy Fitness Solutions facebook page.

All in all, it was one of my best races ever.  What have you done to have one of your best races?

From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)