What's your approach to racing?

A costume and a stroller, helped me not take this Jingle Bell 5K so seriously.

I love to race. I like it because its exciting and challenging and fun. It brings out the best of me and sometimes the worst. I like that it's a competition sometimes with yourself and sometimes with those around you. I like the strategic aspect of it: the pacing and chasing. I've won a couple races, not because I'm exceptionally fast, I just happened to be the fastest girl who showed up that day. I don't go into racing thinking I'm going to win; both of those wins came as a surprise. But I do go into races to run my hardest and best. Which is why I didn't race very much last year. Each race I went into was strategically placed on my training calendar and in each race I was shooting for a PR.

In the past I haven't run many races for "fun," when I've tried the competitive side of me takes over and I get aggressive. In 2014 I'd like to race more. With a lot of races on the calendar, running every race for a PR is the perfect recipe for injury or burnout. I want nothing to do with either of those things, but I do want to race. Which means I need to learn to loosen my grip on the desire to always better my best. It means developing the discipline to run easy in a race. I don't think it will be easy. But honing the ability to put aside my competitive side could be a good thing.

I've registered for a few races already and I'm excited about them. Some I'll be racing to better my best, some will be a tempo or training run and others will simply be an exercise in letting go.

What is your approach to racing? Are you always chasing a PR? Do you simply run for the experience? Can you turn that competitive side on and off, or do you get caught up on race day?

I recently had the opportunity to write for Title Nine's on their blog, Timeout with Title Nine you can check out my article HERE.

--Sarah

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