A Weird Run

Last Friday when I posted that K and I "only" ran 3.5 to rest up for our long run, a running friend of mine pointed out that, not too long ago, 3.5 miles wasn't a short, easy run for me. It's awesome to go back and see how far I've come in such a short amount of time.

This morning's run was interesting. We ran a new route along the perimeter of an outdoor mall in our area. Because it's a bit farther away and I hadn't factored drive-time into the morning, we decided to do just three miles. It was nice and cool out, and we took off at a fast clip. The perimeter ended up being just under 1.5 miles, and we kept our fast pace up into the second mile. I began to feel I was lagging behind, though, especially as K began to pull far ahead of me.

What's funny about running with a partner who can out-pace you so easily is that, unlike in a race, you don't necessarily have an idea of how fast you're going compared to anyone else. There's only one person to compare your pace to...and if you're me, you sometimes forget that K can run a sub-9 without really meaning to. So, I saw K pulling ahead and assumed I was slowing down. I felt tired and couldn't seem to keep a good breathing rhythm, so I tried to let up the pace a bit for about a quarter mile, then ran the end full out (by which time, K had already finished and was waiting for me).

K told me to check my splits; she was sure I'd gone faster than I thought. Sure enough, I kept each mile well under 10 minutes, and saw negative splits in mile 2. I finished the three miles in about 28 minutes; with a 5k coming up soon, I hope this bodes well for race day.

So, like I said, today's run was interesting. I felt tired and slow, I didn't particularly like the route, and toward the end I was thinking to myself, just get through it, which is the true sign of a bad run. But, as it turned out, I ended up with a very successful run. I guess that means that sometimes even a bad run can be a good one.

ABK