Emotion Will Take You Only So Far

“Emotion Will Take You Only So Far, and Other Lessons Learned from The Woodlands Half Marathon” was going to be the title of this article, but I went for brevity over completeness!

My wife and I last year registered for The Woodlands Marathon and Half Marathon, respectively.

Because my wife is an endurance walker and I was still recovering from two training-killer illnesses since Christmas week, I was leaning toward walking the Half with her.

Given that the Half is simply one of the loops of the two-loop Marathon course, and given that race officials would “convert” me to a Half’er if I were to cross the finish line after one loop, this made sense.

However, when I went to pick up our bibs last Friday at the race expo, emotion got the better of me.

Surrounded by fellow marathoners at the expo, chatting with a guy who was about to run his first marathon, and feeling free from my two illnesses, my excitement for the Marathon rose. I thought, “I registered for the Marathon. I feel good. Why not?!”

The next morning I saw Ed Campos, who had written a testimonial for Gratitude Power for Runners and Walkers, in the shared Marathon/Half Marathon corral. Ed was registered for the Half, and I told him before the gun about my race-expo excitement and that I was still not sure whether I would attempt one loop or two.

I asked Ed for his advice, and he replied:

“Emotion will take you only so far.” (Lesson #1)

This cinched the deal. I told my wife that I definitely was walking the Half with her, and off we went — well, some seven or eight minutes later, once we reached the start line!

Ed’s advice was spot-on (Thank you, Ed!), and it was the biggest lesson that I learned last Saturday. Restated less eloquently, if you are not physically prepared for an endurance race, then no amount of excitement is going to propel you the entire way. Your excitement might be the spark plug that will ignite your start, but you must have preparation fuel in the tank to take you the distance to the finish line.

Here are some other lessons that I learned. Although Ed’s advice is universal, these other lessons may not apply to you. Most are about knowing one’s personal preferences.

In contrast to my previous article (“Are You Sequestering Your Happiness?”), in which I wrote that too many rules for happiness can constrain your happiness, I believe that clarity about what you prefer and don’t prefer — some rules, in other words — can expand your happiness.

(Personal) Lesson #2: I prefer low-crown, smooth streets.

The course last Saturday was smoothly paved with nothing but low-crown streets, and walking (and a bit of running) on them was a rare pleasure. I never worried that I was going to hurt myself because of a problem with the streets. They were smooth, they were clean, and they were nearly level from side to side. Congratulations to The Woodlands Marathon Management for choosing such high-quality streets!

(Personal) Lesson #3: I prefer Saturday races to Sunday races.

There is something nice about having the remainder of the weekend to recover after a Saturday-morning race. I recognize that Sunday street-closures are often the easiest, and I honor those whose Sabbath-observance activities on Saturdays would keep them away from Saturday races, so this is not a deal-breaker for me. It’s just that, everything else being equal, I’d pick a Saturday marathon or half marathon over a Sunday one.

(Personal) Lesson #4: I prefer lots of scenic variety.

With all due gratitude (Thank you!) to the spectators who braved the windy cold (for the greater Houston area) to cheer us on, those spectators were few and far between compared to the crowds at several other endurance races. In that respect, this event has a hard time competing, for example, with the Chevron Houston Marathon.

Texas Marathon and Half Marathon is another example of an event that has few spectators, but this January-1st event has a scenic-variety advantage over The Woodlands event. It lets runners and walkers see one another several times as they go in opposite directions along the same, narrow concrete-path-based course — effectively with parts of the 6.55-mile loop collapsed onto itself. I love sharing moral support with fellow participants as we see one another repeatedly along the Texas course!

Finally, as gloriously sunny as last Saturday morning was, the multiple miles of nothing but concrete and pine trees before turning onto another stretch of nothing but concrete and pine trees was too much for me. I prefer to see lots of different homes or businesses, as I saw in Sugar Land, Texas, at USA FIT Half Marathon in January, or at least to have more twists and turns (as the Texas event has).

(Personal) Lesson #5: When under stress, ask.

Deep into The Woodlands Half Marathon, I handed my hydration belt and gloves to my wife and stopped to use a portable toilet. A non-participant from the nearby water station cut in front of me, but I decided to wait rather than continue down the road in search of another toilet. My wife continued walking, but I waited and waited and waited, determined that I was going to use THAT toilet. Eventually, a water-station volunteer noticed me and said something to the effect, “You’re waiting for that toilet? I’m sorry. It’s really for the volunteers. There are several toilets down the road.” At that point, I took off running. When I finally found those toilets, I saw that my wife had stopped nearby. Not that we were trying to set any new PRs last Saturday, but my failure to ask right away about availability of other toilets set us back by at least five minutes from my wait alone and probably another five minutes from my wife’s loss of momentum from standing and waiting for me to catch up with her.

In contrast, asking saved me probably thirty minutes last Friday at the race expo. The lines were long from the expo’s opening, apparently from Internet-access issues at the laptops used for managing dispersal of bibs and goodie bags. While waiting in line, I asked a staffer how to get my wife’s and my bib numbers, given that there were spaces for these numbers on a form that was supposed to let me pick up my wife’s bib. Five minutes after I got the bib numbers, the packet-pickup organizer announced that the only people who could get their bibs were those who knew their bib numbers. I immediately moved to the front of the line, got our bibs, and was out of there!

What lessons have you learned?

What lessons have you learned from a recent race? Did any of the above lessons resonate with you? Please leave a comment below, and then click one of the “share” links on this page to post this article to your favorite social-media site. Thanks!