Jones Retires From Running!!!!

Yesterday, was the first time I’d ever questioned whether or not it was time for me to hang up my running shoes and switch to fishing or spending thousands on a high priced road bike and start wearing spandex and coned shaped bike helmets. How and why did this all cross my mind? Last year, I posted some of my fastest times in more than one running event. I got a PR in the LA marathon after previously running it seven times. I won top two or three in my age division twice at different 5k events and my first time running the Point Mugu 11k trail race, I was just minutes from coming in the top three in my age division. This year, I expected to just return with even more success but it certainly has been anything but success and yesterday, I started to wonder if my days as a running were all but gone.

After running the Point Mugu 11k trail race last year, I was sidelined from October until February of this year with a knee injury. The hardcore downhill running there just broke me down and I had to spend day after day hoping and wondering if I would bounce back and I did, completing another LA marathon while extending my streak of complete the race eight consecutive years but my time was nothing like that of my PR last year. I went on to challenge myself by running the Malibu Creek 22k trail race in May and I couldn’t have been happier with my performance there but since then, it was been a nightmare in terms of my overall performance and mood in every race I have completed. Yesterday, I returned to Point Mugu with a goal to get in the top 3 in my age division but after the race I was left wondering if my running days were behind me.

I started off the race with a quick sprint and some spring to my step type but within five minutes I seem like I was running in reverse. I realized as runners began to sprint by me, something was wrong. I tried to respond but my legs wanted no part of the incline and they seemed to be unprepared for the task at hand. It was at that point my competitive spirit and whatever edge I thought I had, was all but gone. I did not compete, I did not challenge myself and most importantly, I gave up. I found myself trying to understand what was happening to me while still trying to run while I felt like I was pulling a thousand pound safe. Around mile 3, I tried to push myself as hard as I could and I did. I began to make a move and I was starting to make up all the ground I had lost to several of the runners who sprinted past me. I knew that the killer 2 miles downhill to the finish line was where I did my best work but when I got to the downhill, I became incredibly frustrated and upset that runner’s refuse to move to the side which is a basic and common courtesy and understanding in trail running, especially on the single-track trails but yesterday’s most of the runner’s seemed inexperience as well as selfish and refused to move. I couldn’t run the way I wanted to run and with less than a minute to finish line, I stopped. I stopped on the trail and I walked. I walked to the finish line with no desire to do anything but get to a place where I could forget what just happened. I wanted to choke at least twenty of the runner’s who had block me from finishing strong but was it really their fault?

Upset, confused and disappointed, I thought maybe it was time for me to just throw in the towel and hang up my running shoes but then I realized something. I was thinking like all the other people who just decided to give up and all the people who have tried to encourage me to give up running because their running careers have ceased to exist. What happened to me? I had a bad race but this was not the first bad race I had had this year. I blamed all the other runners for clogging up the trail on the downhill but I knew the strategy to the race and that was to avoid this by getting head those slower runners. The race result was my doing and I have to take responsibility for that.

Last year when I was running PR’s and winning age divisions, I was also training better and I was prepared. This year I have played catch up with my training and I have refused to miss running events even when I knew I was in no condition to run them. The end result was just misery. I had come to expect to the best without putting in the work. Who did I think I was? I forgot that nothing in this world comes without hard work. I started skipping steps and I got exactly what I put in.

I think it is important to have failing experiences in life. It teaches us to work that much harder to overcome those shortcomings and to prove that you belong. Running is such a rollercoaster. One week you can be on top but in order to stay there you have to continue to put in the hard work and the effort in order to achieve your goals. It is funny, last year Point Mugu sidelined me for months with a knee injury this time, it sent me into an epiphany about my running career. Down and out is not who I am. I am going back to the drawing board because the best thing about a board is you can erase it and start all over again. Next race, I will be better, stronger, and ready to do what I do best, which is compete.

I have to thank Elizabeth for showing me that nothing comes without hard-work and for encouraging me to go back and train and put in the time to get back to where I was last year. She rocked the race yesterday by finishing first in her age division and she was the second female overall in the race. She is one of the best runners, male or female. Sometimes you have to take notes from the best in order to be the best.