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  • Alex Voigt

    Alex Voigt

May 31, 2011

Voigt: A great race, but not quite my best effort

By Alex Voigt The Free Press

Is it possible to be ecstatic and disappointed in a race result at the same time?

That’s the question I’m contemplating as I reflect on the 10Kato Memorial Day Run, of which I was one of more than 600 runners and walkers to participate in it.

By any statistical measure, the race went surprisingly well for me. I’m not in the same league as the Todd Landgraffs of the running world (very few are), but my results were respectable. I finished 10th overall with a time of 40:48, a drop of more than 20 seconds from my time in the race two years ago.

It’s not like I was out of shape two years ago either. At the time, I was three weeks removed from completing my first marathon and was still running pretty regularly in preparation for the three triathlons I wound up doing that summer.

I should be thrilled about this. Personal-best racing times don’t come along every day and I haven’t exactly been keeping a rigorous running routine lately. I still run fairly often, but it’s more for leisure than anything else. I’m not training for a marathon at present and biking has really been my dominant activity this spring.

And if that wasn’t enough, I even had a minor injury to deal with before the race. I pulled my groin playing softball last week and I’ve spent the better part of the last few days icing and doing some light stretching. I wasn’t even 100 percent positive I’d be able to run on it until race day, let alone run well enough to set a personal best.

I suppose at this point, you’re probably wondering how I could possibly be disappointed with that result.

If anything, I should be writing a joy-filled column on it being the best race of my life. Heck, I even won a free mini-cooler as a door prize.

But as far as strategy execution goes, it wasn’t my best race. Not even close.

My initial goal of the race was merely to avoid injury. But when things are going well, the human tendency is to get greedy for more. And after breezing through the first four miles in 25 minutes, I started thinking that a sub-40-minute finish was well within my reach. My legs were feeling good and I’m well-acquainted with the hill on Glenwood Avenue.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

The considerable humidity started to get to me once I turned onto Glenwood, and my legs went from being loose and limber to feeling like they were anchored in quicksand. At that point, I did what normally would’ve been unthinkable during a race: I stopped to walk. Once I got moving again, my legs still didn’t want to cooperate and I wound up slowing to a walk on three other occasions.

Goodbye, sub-40-minute race time. Hello, bruised pride.

I realize that slowing to a walk is nothing to be embarrassed about. It happens to the best of runners and most people can barely even fathom completing a 10-kilometer race.

It also shouldn’t put a damper on what has been a first-class event for a number of years. I’ve always been impressed with 10Kato, right down to the gratuitous-sized goodie bags race participants get rewarded with. The Mankato community is one with a rich running culture, and in a lot of ways, 10Kato is one of the races that helped develop that culture.

Make no mistake, it was a wonderful race to participate in and I am currently wearing my 10Kato t-shirt with great pride.

But for the seasoned runner, walking usually isn’t part of the race-day strategy.

I guess the disappointment just means I’ll have to get out running more often.



Alex Voigt is a Free Press copy editor. He is at 344-6389 or at avoigt@mankatofreepress.com. He also has a health & fitness blog at alexvoigtfitness.blogspot.com.

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