Chasing the Personal Best

I had a pretty nasty bike crash last week. I was zipping through downtown and encountered a construction zone near the Convention Center Plaza. I made a left turn for a detour, thinking the detour road would be mostly smooth pavement, only to have my front tire hit a jagged crevice in the tarmac. My bike went over sideways and I crashed on my right side.

Lesson learned: never assume the road ahead will provide a smooth ride.

I slid over the pavement and felt the road peel away the skin on my right leg. My elbow and hip collided against the street with a thud. I knew immediately it wasn’t a light crash. I wished that I had been watching the road more carefully.

I looked around and realized that I was alone on that street. It was the cusp of dawn and the sun’s climb toward the horizon had rendered the streets in shades of lavender and indigo. I levered myself up and attempted to limp back home while carrying my bike. My apartment was only three blocks away. The bike derailleur broke, as did the hanger and chain. The handlebar tape tore up. The bike and I broke together.

I limped home and showered off the blood, then bandaged myself up. I had no anger or regret: the crash already happened and there’s no rewind button on time.

As the hours ticked by, my right elbow went numb and I realized that it was sprained. The sprain was not as severe as the foot injury I suffered a year ago, but I also knew that it would take several weeks to heal. By nightfall, there was almost no mobility in the elbow.

I joked that because the higher powers couldn’t injure my feet while I ran, they decided to hand me the occasional bike crash. We all need setbacks, after all.

Because of the elbow injury, I was unable to bike the rest of the week. So, I ran while maintaining my right arm in a position that was awkward yet comfortable. Each day, a little mobility returned to the arm.

This week was supposed to be my “season ending” running week. I had scheduled a 1600 meter timed run and a 10k run. I wanted to see what progress I had made over the last year, since healing my ankle injury from 2021. It was not ideal to be nursing a bunch of scrapes and bruises, as well as a sprained elbow, this week.

I believe that the body and mind treat all stresses the same: as a gravitational push downward on performance. Whether these stresses are from injury, emotions, or heavy exercise, stresses are essentially quicksand. Stresses are what age us.

My 1600 meter run was Wednesday night and when I showed up at the track to warm up, I felt surprisingly light. I still felt elbow pain but also accepted it as a part of life. Shit happens. Things break and sprain. Sometimes you fully heal, sometimes you mostly heal, and unfortunately, sometimes you just don’t heal at all.

I decided to look for someone in the race that seemed fast and just try to hang with them. I noted a young college-aged male in my group and overheard him saying that he was aiming for some fast times. So, I decided to try and run behind him for as long as I could.

I crossed the first 1600 meters (about a mile) and saw that I ran it in 5 minutes and 20 seconds. That was faster than the fastest 1600 meter run of my life, and I still had another half of the run to go! By my own standards I was flying. I felt fresh and limber. The college guy was just one stride ahead of me. I was keeping up. Everyone else was far behind us.

It wasn’t until the final lap of the 3200 meter run that the college guy pulled ahead by a few seconds. However, I finished the run in 10 minutes and 50 seconds. It was by far the fastest run of my life. A “personal best.”

I shook the college guy’s hand (he went for a fist bump and I awkwardly went for a handshake, being the old fart that I am). I was thankful because it is competition that brings out the best in us. I never would have broken 11 minutes had he not set a good pace for me.

I’m nearing age 37 and appreciate now, more than ever, any sort of personal best time in an athletic event.

The elbow is healing. Maybe when I was 21 I’d feel anger and resentment about my crash. That is the advantage of the late 30’s. Whereas earlier in life there might be a certain paranoia over outcome and control, I’ve finally gotten to a point where I can say, “to hell with it, let’s just roll with the punches.”

My 10k is tomorrow and I think it’ll be fun. I did a 10k in college and my time was 56 minutes. I know I’ll be significantly faster than that. I’ll hit a personal best time, smile, and celebrate with some coffee.

And that’s life. You hit some crashes, you do your best to recover, and you gear up for the next race.

Let’s hope there’s a next race tomorrow.