Disappointment

10.05 miles, 1:11:31, 7:07 pace, Avg HR = 159, Max HR = 170

Congratulations to the Wildcats of Kentucky who defeated my #1 Fightin' Tigers in triple overtime on Saturday evening.

I'm disappointed that we lost, but we lost to a formidable opponent who earned a top ten ranking. I'm disappointed because our quest for a another national championship is, at best, derailed, and more likely over. I'm disappointed because we continue to commit the same mistakes since the first game of the season: dropped passes, needless penalties, overthrown passes. But it's my amateur opinion that the reason why we lost this game isn't because of the mistakes, but because we failed to respect our opponent. I'm disappointed that we had a feeling of invincibility.

But failure and disappointment is a part of life. And if it's handled properly, it can be a very positive motivator. I had a good run today . . . much better than when I ran the same distance on September 29. That didn't happen by accident. I spent the two weeks between those runs feeling poorly about the quality of my running and my lack of progress. I channeled that disappointment into motivation to beat my previous time. As a result I decreased my mile pace over the ten mile distance from 7:25 to 7:07. It's possible that a small portion of that improvement is in actual conditioning, but more likely that the improvement resulted primarily from within my mind.

I hope and expect the Tigers will channel their own disappointment into a victory next Saturday against the other tigers in the SEC -- Auburn.

I chose to run 10 miles for another reason as well. There were two 10 mile races in the Houston area this weekend, and many of my Kenyan Way cohorts ran one of those two races. I was on the fence about racing, but decided not to do so mainly because I didn't want to pay the entry fee and "race" on tired legs. So I ran my own 10 miler, which I will compare to the two races when results are available. (It's not fair to the competitors for me to compare my time to theirs, but I hope they understand my need to compare.)

Ten for Texas (Woodlands) -- I would have placed 51st overall and 3rd in my 30-34 age group(1112 finishers). Two ladies would have finished ahead of me by a couple of seconds.

United Space Alliance 10 Miler -- I would have placed 11th in my age group.

7:14, 7:00, 7:05, 7:04, 7:08,
7:08, 7:12, 7:14, 7:07, 7:07