This year I am participating in the Arkansas Grand Prix Series, which is comprised of 20 races throughout the state from January to December. You are scored on your best 10 races enabling you to pick and choose the ones in which you wish to participate.  This works well for my plan to compete in shorter distances this year as there are a variety of distances from which to choose. The Grand Prix also has a team component. You must be a member of an RRCA running club in order to participate. The top three male and female finishers for each club score points for their team.

As of this writing I have run in two Grand Prix races and find myself glad I trusted my gut in the first race and wishing I would have done so in the second race! The first race was the River Trail 15K, one in which I have had 3 min PRs the last two times I have run it! When I committed to run this year’s race I felt another 3 minute PR could be realistic, however my training did not go according to plan in the weeks leading up to race. I had a battle with the stomach bug just before the new year which set me back a week. After the CASA Half Marathon in December I had taken most of the following 2 weeks off from running and now thanks to the stomach bug that turned into a 3 week break.

About a week before the River Trail 15K, I decided to revevaluate my goals. My PR was 1:14:25. I felt like I should be able to run somewhere between 1:14 and 1:15 and decided that I would be happy if that was the performance I turned in. Sure enough my gut feeling was right. I ran a 1:14:12 and came away grateful for an 11 second PR! My team, The Searcy Rush, won the female division! 

Approaching the finish line of the 2015 River Trail 15K. Photo credit: John Stone

The following week I ran the Valentine’s Day 5K.  Based on my 15K performance, my coach Amy and I made a plan to shoot for a 5K time of 21:45 to 22 minutes. This race is run on the Bona Dea Trail in Russellville, AR , which is an asphalt paved trail that winds through a wooded wildlife sanctuary.  Due to the narrowness of the trail, the race has four heats which include masters women and men’s divisions and 39 and under women and men’s divisions. I knew that I was not prepared to keep up with my teammate, Kem, and was unsure how I would fare among the other tops masters runners as I have not raced against most of them. I decide that I would focus on my splits and if that put me in a position to race the other ladies then I would adjust accordingly.

Ladies Master’s start of the Valentine’s Day 5K. Photo credit: David Meroney

During the first mile I checked my Garmin pace and it had me at a 7:15 and then a 7:30 which was way off the 7 minute pace I was targeting. I pushed hard only next time to check and it was almost 8 minutes per mile. Now that’s close to the pace I ran so comfortably at the River Trail 15K so I couldn’t figure out why it felt so difficult. I kept pushing harder and at one point found myself in second place. I checked my Garmin to see how much further until the 1 mile marker and was stunned to see that it was much further than it felt like it should be. My gut feeling was that the pace and distance were inaccurate and I was running too fast. I suspected that I should back off and run by feel. However, when you have access to all that data right there on your arm it really is hard to reel it in and slow it down.

All of the sudden I looked up and there was the one mile marker and my timer read 6:40! Crap! Way too fast! Not only was I spent physically, but mentally I was struggling to get it together and regroup. I was mad. I was trying to slow down and find my pace internally without relying on my Garmin which was obviously getting a poor signal through all the trees. How could I let this happen? One of my strengths even way back into my high school and college days was my ability to pick a pace and hit it on the nose every time. If coach asked me to run a 76 second lap I was there. If he asked for 83 seconds I nailed it. 95 seconds?  You bet! I had the ability to adjust my speed up or down accordingly and could always pick my pace. Not this time though!

I don’t believe I have become overly dependent on my Garmin. Most of the time I use it to confirm where I think I am with my pace. I knew that pace in the first mile felt too fast. Why did I rely on technology rather than trusting my inner pace clock? Ugh! It’s really hard to recoup when you go out too fast. Not only was I not able to find a 7 minute pace but I couldn’t hold a 7:15 pace. If I could have hit the next two in 7:15 I would have come close to my goal of 22 minutes, but instead my 2 mile and 3 mile splits were approximately 7:34 and 7:41 for a race time of 22.37 and costing me 3rd place in the Masters division by 20 seconds.

Almost finished! 2015 Valentine’s Day 5K. Photo credit: David Meroney

The combination of being physically spent and angry with myself for not listening to that little voice within me moved me to tears as I staggered out of the finish chute. Amy was there waiting for me and encouraging me not to dwell on it. I think she may have been secretly pleased that I already have a 6:40 in me and was still able to hold it together enough to win my age group! 😉 I was also the third runner for my team and finished well enough to give us a 2 point victory over the second place team! It helps that my teammates Kaitlin and Kem finished first and second overall!

As I was writing this post one of my good friends, Tia Stone of Arkansas Runner Mom, was wrestling with her own decision to trust her gut feeling. After several months of battling plantar fasciitis, she was finally running pain free and had set her goal to run the Little Rock Marathon.  She even had a good shot at winning the female division. However, the week of the race she came down with a cold. She did all the right things, cutting back her mileage and getting extra rest, but continued to feel fatigued. Still torn on what to do, the day before the race she decided to visit the urgent care facility and discovered she had a sinus infection. She was glad that she trusted her instincts and went to the doctor. Running the marathon could have set her back in her training and turning in a subpar marathon was not worth compromising the rest of her season.

My experience through the years in both running and life in general has taught me not to ignore that voice within you that is urging you to do something different. Sure it may not be what you want to do and it may go against logic or what others are telling you, but more often than not that voice, that gut feeling, is spot on!

Case in point, when I returned to competitive running in 2011, after initial success, I began to struggle with illnesses and injuries and I never could get into a solid consitent training routine. I could hear that voice within me telling me that my diet was less than optimal for what I was trying to achieve. Refusing to trust my gut, I told myself it would be too hard and too expensive to change the way I eat. What I didn’t realize was that by making a few small changes to my diet and replacing my multi-vitamins and probiotic with high quality pharmaceutical grade vitamins and probiotic would have made a HUGE difference without busting my budget. Instead I spent 3 years chasing a dream that would stay just beyond my grasp all because I refused to heed that gut feeling urging me to make changes to my diet.

How about you? Leave a comment below and share how trusting your gut has had a favorable effect on your desired outcome.

Would you like to know more about how I learned what changes to make to my diet? Check out my online nutrition program Clean Up Your Diet where you will learn what changes to make and how to make them in order to improve the quality of your health, shed excess pounds and have long lasting results!