A Saturday Run
I JUST finished reading Haruki Murakami's "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" which I liked a lot, but I am not sure non-runners would be able to appreciate it. He writes about running, growing older, what running taught him about writing and about himself. Immediately after reading it I felt inspired to chronicle a run I did yesterday. It seems these kind of experiences are fairly typical when running.
My typical pace is 12:00 but for some reason I decided to go with the 10:30 pace group. There probably was some self-delusion involved - just the other day I had done 5 miles at an 11:00 pace, surely a 10:30 pace was not out of reach? I started off quite well, in fact it felt too easy. We passed the Georgetown waterfront, briefly went on the Rock Creek Park trail and swept by the Kennedy Center and Watergate complex. Before I started biking in the area in summer 2010 I always felt rather embarassed by my lack of local knowledge. I am basically a homebody and rarely have personal or professional reasons to visit most parts of DC. But after running and biking for almost two years the area around Georgetown and The Mall felt very comfortingly familiar.
Can I say something about people who talk while running? For me this has never felt comfortable - perhaps I don't breath correctly. I guess my philosophy is that if you're running you should focus on running - this is not the time for chit chat! But obviously many people feel more comfortable chattering away - they probably find it to be a good distraction. I can only manage it if I greatly reduce my pace, if I am trying to actually run properly maintaining a conversation is out of the question.
Around mile 5 is when things broke down. I had started falling slightly behind my group around mile 4 but I was determined to keep going until the half-way mark of the 10 mile run. Finally I stopped for a walk near the Library of Congress. BIG MISTAKE. If there is one piece of advice I can give it's this: DON'T. STOP. EVER. I know some people who delibarately plan to periodically stop for breaks and it work's for them but I don't think I could ever do that. I have the kind of personality where once I lose momentum I am completely finished. And it's the same way in my non-running life - which isn't necessarily a good thing.
The next hour was pure hell. EVERYONE passed me. Even the girls who were running for the first time. (Yes, it's true some WOMEN are incredibly fast but that doesn't mean one enjoys being passed by them!) I tried to get into a system of walking for 2 minutes and running for 3 minutes but even that proved too strenous. I wasn't physically hurt or cramped - just fundamentally unsound. Eventually even the second group of runners - who started 30 minutes after we did - all passed me. The humiliation was complete.
Finally we reached the Key Bridge - the finish line was at the end. I am one of those runners who is good at giving a "kick" at the end - I try to hold something in reserve. So I thought I would try to sprint across this bridge(around 500-1000 feet). The attempt lasted 15 seconds.
My eventual time was 126 minutes for 10 miles which gives a dissappointing 12:36 minutes per mile pace. But considering I had ran the first 5 miles in 50 minutes, this means the second half was at a truly miserable 15:12 pace. If I ran an official race at that pace I would be disqualified.
When I got back to the Georgetown Running Company and was sipping on the Gatorade a girl who had passed me straggled in. I asked her where she was and she claimed that according to her Fancy GPS Watch I had actually only ran 9.5 miles and we were supposed to go a several more blocks to make up the difference. Damn!
When I recorded the run in my training log I counted it as 10 miles. Maybe her Fancy GPS Watch is broken.
My typical pace is 12:00 but for some reason I decided to go with the 10:30 pace group. There probably was some self-delusion involved - just the other day I had done 5 miles at an 11:00 pace, surely a 10:30 pace was not out of reach? I started off quite well, in fact it felt too easy. We passed the Georgetown waterfront, briefly went on the Rock Creek Park trail and swept by the Kennedy Center and Watergate complex. Before I started biking in the area in summer 2010 I always felt rather embarassed by my lack of local knowledge. I am basically a homebody and rarely have personal or professional reasons to visit most parts of DC. But after running and biking for almost two years the area around Georgetown and The Mall felt very comfortingly familiar.
Can I say something about people who talk while running? For me this has never felt comfortable - perhaps I don't breath correctly. I guess my philosophy is that if you're running you should focus on running - this is not the time for chit chat! But obviously many people feel more comfortable chattering away - they probably find it to be a good distraction. I can only manage it if I greatly reduce my pace, if I am trying to actually run properly maintaining a conversation is out of the question.
Around mile 5 is when things broke down. I had started falling slightly behind my group around mile 4 but I was determined to keep going until the half-way mark of the 10 mile run. Finally I stopped for a walk near the Library of Congress. BIG MISTAKE. If there is one piece of advice I can give it's this: DON'T. STOP. EVER. I know some people who delibarately plan to periodically stop for breaks and it work's for them but I don't think I could ever do that. I have the kind of personality where once I lose momentum I am completely finished. And it's the same way in my non-running life - which isn't necessarily a good thing.
The next hour was pure hell. EVERYONE passed me. Even the girls who were running for the first time. (Yes, it's true some WOMEN are incredibly fast but that doesn't mean one enjoys being passed by them!) I tried to get into a system of walking for 2 minutes and running for 3 minutes but even that proved too strenous. I wasn't physically hurt or cramped - just fundamentally unsound. Eventually even the second group of runners - who started 30 minutes after we did - all passed me. The humiliation was complete.
Finally we reached the Key Bridge - the finish line was at the end. I am one of those runners who is good at giving a "kick" at the end - I try to hold something in reserve. So I thought I would try to sprint across this bridge(around 500-1000 feet). The attempt lasted 15 seconds.
My eventual time was 126 minutes for 10 miles which gives a dissappointing 12:36 minutes per mile pace. But considering I had ran the first 5 miles in 50 minutes, this means the second half was at a truly miserable 15:12 pace. If I ran an official race at that pace I would be disqualified.
When I got back to the Georgetown Running Company and was sipping on the Gatorade a girl who had passed me straggled in. I asked her where she was and she claimed that according to her Fancy GPS Watch I had actually only ran 9.5 miles and we were supposed to go a several more blocks to make up the difference. Damn!
When I recorded the run in my training log I counted it as 10 miles. Maybe her Fancy GPS Watch is broken.