Time can be a funny thing.
It always starts the same. I begin a lake run with the intention of taking it easy - just a little jaunt along my favorite route. I finish my first mile in 10:23, very near what I like to call my favorite pace as it's the speed I could maintain comfortably for multiple miles.
Near the end of this first mile, something happens.
I catch my stride. My breathing evens. My lungs open wide. Any soreness I had at the start of the run fades. I note my surroundings, the weather, the lake, the sky. The hairs on my arms prickle. A smile teases the corners of my mouth. My troubles melt away. I feel free.
This feeling that I can fly is one of the things I love about running.
Suddenly that easy run becomes something else. I become a competitive beast and think to myself, Negative splits!
For those who are unfamiliar with running jargon, a negative split run happens when one completes every mile faster than the one before it. So, essentially, I finish stronger than I started.
The second mile on my favorite route is harder than the first because it encompasses a hill. It's short but steep, and regardless of how many times I run it, I'm always out of breath at the top. But because that negative split is calling me, the urge to walk for a minute or two at the top fades into the background and I take the very slight downward slope that follows the hill at a fast clip to make up for any time I might have lost in the climb. Time: 10:07. So far, so good.
I pass a golf course, some open fields that the deer seem to like, and then a steep downhill near the end of mile three. Time: 9:34.
The last mile is a doozie with some small inclines and sharp curves. I have to be on top of my game in this section. I can't succumb to the mind-numbing sounds of my footfalls and hard breathing. Instead, I have to be extra alert for traffic. Despite the 30 mile per hour speed limit, drivers like to whip around the blind curves a bit too fast, and with a mere foot of shoulder, I have to be ready for them. The last .20 miles of this mile is on sidewalk, and again I have to be careful so that I don't get hit by someone backing out of a driveway or trip over uneven concrete slabs. This is where I sprint to the traffic light, my signal that this run is over. Time: 9:15, and now I've got a wicked runner's high that will last for hours.
Success … this time.
Time is not always my friend, and more often than not, things don't go my way. I've yet to beat my 5k PR (personal record) of 23:37 that I set on Thanksgiving Day 2012 at the Cold Turkey 5k in Fredonia. I came close at the same race in 2013 but missed it by a mere 24 seconds. TWENTY. FOUR. SECONDS. Seriously?! I couldn't find it within myself to run that course less than half a minute faster? Despite taking first place in my age group, those extra seconds stung.
And then there are marathons, a completely different kind of challenge when it comes to pacing and time goals. My PR, set at the 2013 Erie Marathon, is 4:31:00. This year, I've struggled to come within even a half an hour of that time, a fact that bothers me more than it should considering I've upped my weekly/monthly/yearly mileage significantly and have run nearly every day.
For that Erie race, everything was perfect: temps in the 60s, a shaded course that's flat flat flat, and I felt amazing from start to finish. In fact, I ran my fastest mile of the course at a 9:13 pace - and it was mile 25-26. I ran the last .2 miles of the course at a 7:30 pace. It was, by nearly thirteen minutes, my best marathon time ever. And yet … my goal was 4:30. That extra minute really hurt. If only I had run each mile a little more than two seconds faster. It doesn't seem like that should be too hard, does it?
It's not just races where I'm a slave to time. Training runs can be just as difficult. I incorporate one run a week that is dedicated to speed. I usually do fartleks (a fun, Swedish word that means "speed" play), where I run for a bit (the distance between three mailboxes, for instance, or two light poles, or whatever else strikes my fancy) at full speed and then recover for a couple of minutes, then I do it again and again and again. Fartleks are fun, but they are HARD. Often, despite the fact that I've worked on speed, my finishing times for these types of runs are a bit longer than usual because I take the recovery intervals at a slower pace. Sometimes it's hard for me to be okay with this. I like my finishing time to reflect the effort I put into the run, but it doesn't always work out that way.
And then there are intervals where I will run hard for two minutes and recover for one, or whatever time I determine before I begin. I'll do these for three or four miles. They are easy at the start, but the last few intervals are tough. Again, my times tend to be slower for these runs due to the recovery intervals.
Or I'll do 400 meter sprints, or 800 meter sprints, or whatever, and then recover for 200 meters or 400 meters. These runs are best done on a treadmill where I can easily see my progress and adjust to the correct speed.
Regardless of the type of run, one thing remains constant: I'm always monitoring.
Time, time, time. I'm such a slave to it! I have trouble running without my Garmin watch which keeps track of my distance, current/average pace, overall time, and lap times. I always want to know how far I've gone, how fast I completed each mile, and my overall time. And then I record, record, record.
Sometimes I envy the Zen runners, the ones who don't give a fig for the numbers. They just go out and run. When they are done, they're done. When they're not, they keep going. They don't circle parking lots to get that last .14 of a mile to make it an even five (guilty!). They don't judge a run by what the watch says (guilty!). I can't help but think that they must enjoy their runs on a completely different level, and I am missing out.
Yet when I look back on my running logs when I first started running outdoors (sadly, I didn't record the first nine months or so of my running), it's the time and distance records of each run that really showcase just how far I've come on this journey. I used to struggle to break a 12-minute mile, and this was after running for nearly a year. I used to have trouble completing two miles. There once was a time when the longest run I could do in an hour was four miles.
If I was not a slave to time and the numbers, I wouldn't be able to see just how far I've come.
I'm sure I will reach a point in my running journey when I too won't give a fig for the numbers and will be happy with just being able to get out there and feel free. Until then, I'm okay with putting myself under a little bit of pressure to try to eliminate those extra seconds. After all, I have PRs to chase!
Thanks for reading, friends. :)
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