In Pursuit of a PR.

Who doesn't love a new PR?

Come on, all you 'I'm-so-zen-I-don't-care-about-race-times' people...admit it...you know you love your PRs, right?

I went out for a 10k race today, organized by the good people of the Run With Me Foundation (www.runwithme.in).

When I registered, I intended this to be a 'shake-out' run, something to test the progress of my recovery after the exhilarating Airtel Hyderabad Marathon that I ran a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to run this one at somewhere near my current average tempo pace of 4:45 to 4:50, and see if the mild piriformis twinge that I had been feeling until a few days ago was gone for good.

Nothing ambitious...

Until yesterday, when someone casually asked me, "Aiming for a PR?"

I replied with a cautious "Maybe..." But honestly? "Hell, yeah!" would've been more apt. My fastest 10k so far was 46:50, and I told myself I would break 45.

I confess, I'm kinda just writing this to brag about the PR I got. Yay!

But also, in all humility, I'm writing to place on record two things I did today because of which I almost didn't.

First, and most important, is that like a complete moron, I started out too fast. 

I must have read reams of good things about negative splits, about the importance of conserving your best effort for the second half of the race, about starting out at a controlled pace just slightly slower than your goal pace and finishing strong, about how for every minute you bank in the first half of a distance run, you may lose two in the second half... but somehow this is something I just cannot seem to get a grip on.

After an exceptional race in Hyderabad, where I controlled my pace every step of the way, and as a result, crushed my previous best by about 35 minutes, meeting my goal time almost exactly, one would think I had learnt my lesson.

But no. I flew off the start line like a bat out of hell at a sub-4 minute pace... By the km 8, I was paying the price, my pace now dipping to slower than tempo every so often...

...at which point I went and made the second foul-up - a bad mid-race reassessment of goal.

Seriously...with 80% of the race done, I was actually still on track for that goal, but because I was running on empty at this point, this is what was going on in my cranium...

"Screw this, man! No way I'm getting that PR... a time of 50 is what I'll get. That's respectable, right? It's good enough. Can't get a PR in every race...is that a hill? Who put that there? I swear it wasn't there on the way out! Well, whatever...that puts paid to the PR for sure. No way I can run up Mount DLF Golf Course at a pace faster than 5. I'll get a time of 55... if I don't die before km 9, that is...ha ha. 55 is respectable, right?"

It's difficult for me to keep negativity out of my head when I know I'm running a bad pace plan. And that just makes a bad situation worse. I never for a moment had such thoughts over my last Marathon distance, but here they were now, messing up the last two kilometers of a distance that I consider easy-peasy. Since I couldn't generate any positive thoughts, I did the next best thing... stop thinking.

It worked, I suppose, albeit partially. I still missed a sub-45 10k, but managed to get that PR. By less than a minute... but got it all the same.

Well... I have a few races lined up over the next few months before my next Marathon. I resolve to not be greedy for a PR every time I stand at the start line. In the one race that I will be going all out, the Airtel Delhi Half in November, I'm going to unwaveringly implement a pacing plan, and for once in my life, nail that negative-split down.