Hard Run

Confession time: I am a competitive person.  I love a good trivia session with my dad, a race to the door with my mom or a mean game of “punch buggy” with my husband in the car. 

This might be me and the husband after a long car ride

In my running group the Suncoast Striders, I admit, I am one of the slower runners.  I am completely fine with that…or so I say.  Internally, the competitive Yvonne hates that everyone passes me.  I want to be able to keep up with them, to run a 10K in under an hour, a half marathon in under two hours.  However, as a new runner…just running is hard enough, you want me to push myself even more? 

This Saturday, I was running in gorgeous Starkey Park.  On the way back (it is an out and back trail) a friend I hadn’t seen in a while did her turn around so she could run back with me.  A few months ago, she and I had a similar pace, but recently she has been working on her speed and boy has it been paying off.  As we were running and chatting together her recent Facebook posts popped into my mind….didn’t she recently complete a 5K in 25 minutes?  Isn’t her average pace almost 2 minutes faster than mine?  What the heck am I doing trying to keep up with her?

I brought this all to her attention about a half-mile into our run, and a mile and a half from our finish.  She said “oh nope, you aren’t stopping.  Your breathing sounds good, your gait looks great, you can keep up with me, let’s go.”  Honestly at first I thought, “she is insane, I am in the woods with an crazy person.”  But as I kept running, I realized, she was right.  After a mile I had kept up her pace and I was still going! 

This is not me, but this is how I felt on that run! (this is the amazing Kara Goucher!)

After our run, I felt amazing!  I had done a hard run and didn’t need a trip to the hospital or an oxygen tank.  My friend had given me something that I couldn’t do myself.  She forced me to keep going even when my brain was saying “nah, let’s just walk here, this is getting hard”.  Her prompting proved that I could do a hard run and not die.  During my Monday morning run, the first mile was a good minute faster than my usual lumbering pace and boy oh boy did it feel great!

It is hard to stop listening to your brain; admittedly, I listened to mine on mile two of my Monday morning run and walked when I could have kept running.  However you can bet my next run I will go farther at the faster pace.  So just GO…and try to go a little faster than you think you can.  You might be amazed at how far you can fly.

Enjoy the Run!

Yvonne

Hi!  I’m Yvonne, a wife, a mom and even though I am closer to 40 than to 30, a new runner!  I am still figuring everything out and blogging about my experiences along the way.  I try something, I learn, I write!  Come join the fun at www.whyarun.wordpress.com