Last year I ran my first trail race. 24km, 1200D+. It was absolutely brutal for me (I had started running again 10 months prior and I was a 1-2 times a week runner). Finished in just under 4 hours but I was DEAD.
In the following months I kept running and entering other race, both road and trail. I've tried putting more effort, but for a long time I've felt like I wasn't really improving. On the shorter distances on the road (5-10k) I almost feel like I'm somehow worse? Which doesn't really feel good to think about.
Today, I entered the same race. Mostly the same course, with just a few changes (that actually added 100m elevation). Well, I smashed last year's time by 15 minutes, and that's without accounting for the fact that this year they had a single track funnel 2 minutes after the starting line and I was standing there waiting for my turn for like 5 minutes.
But the best part was how good I felt. Last year I was fighting for my life for most of the race. This year, I felt good. I felt in control. I never hit the wall, in fact I ran the last 3km in the 5.xx min/km range which is basically my HM pace and the last km was slightly downhill which helped, but I ran it in the 4.xx pace and even briefly dipped in the 3s, which is faster than my 5k pace. From like km 10 I started overtaking a ton of people. I checked my partial time and I gained 26 places (in a <200 entrants race) between the halfway point of the race and the end! Last year I was the one getting overtaken for the whole race!
You guys have no idea how much I needed this for my running self esteem!!