Fast (For Me)

Fast (For Me) and Other Tempo(rary) Thoughts

Last  night's tempo run was one for the books. Not the record books, mind you, but for the "Don't Forget This Lesson You Big Dummy" books.

Yesterday was a particularly hectic day for me at work, and as if often the case when that happens, I forgot to take care of business by properly preparing my body for what I was planning to ask it to do during my workout. I skipped breakfast, drank too much coffee, didn't drink enough water, and ate a skimpy lunch. Most usually, this does not turn out to be a disaster of such magnitude. I am usually able to coax my body to its tempo-pace by using the old "Just One More Mile" runner's trick. However, in the midst of all that busyness at work I also forgot that I had donated a pint of blood the previous day, thus sort of making that breakfast, lunch, and water I skipped EXTRA important if I was going to run anything resembling a decent pace. Major fail. Want to know a stellar way to duplicate the sensations your body and mind will feel on a 20-miler? Just read above and repeat.

Honestly, I should have realized something was wrong right away. Like in the first half-mile. Since I haven't had shin pain in literally YEARS, the stabbing pain that was shooting up from my lower-legs should have maybe tipped me off. Instead of heeding this early warning, I stopped to stretch a bit then forged ahead, calves be damned. Luckily enough, that early calf pain did subside rather quickly. However, instead of packing up and submitting to my superior willpower, the pain decided to move up a block or two to make itself heard more clearly, and, for the next 7 miles, settled rather spitefully in my hamstrings and glutes. Now, it isn't like I've had this sort of pain before because I have. However, lately my legs have been feeling much more spry and a lot less heavy during my runs. Considering that I skipped yoga on Sunday AND I'd essentially had two days of rest, I knew something had to be wrong. Enter my remembrance of the blood-donating adventure of the previous night. Now, I had the choice of doing one of two things. I could either turn around and head home, nixing my plans for my 8-mile tempo run that I really needed to do since I hadn't run for two days, or I could trudge ahead, change my goals from a tempo run to a survival run, and JUST DO IT. Guess what I chose? Exactamundo...Swing open Door Number Two!

Now, changing goals mid-run for me is not an easy thing to do. However, if your legs are screaming at you to "STOPTHISVERYSECONDYOUIDIOT!" it becomes easier to change those goals fast. And I did. Instead of aiming for "fast" I aimed for "finish." I wish I could say that this shift in focus alone made the next 7 miles breeze right by, but I'd be lying.

I won't lie. To finish this run I had to pull a few tricks down off of my very dusty marathon-running strategy shelf. Since this was about enduring the pain and discomfort, I began to disassociate and started thinking back over my day to the many running blogs I'd read. And then, I started to focus on a few words that I seem to keep re-reading on the blogs I frequent these days: Fast For Me. Fast For Me. FAST. FOR. ME. Never mind that all of these bloggers who use these terms are FAST. If you list your splits and they are below 8:00 min/mile do you REALLY have to then put in parentheses (Fast For Me)? Because really? In this girl's world? Yo, 7:45 miles are smoking fast for ANYONE. It seemed the farther I ran, slowly, and in pain, I couldn't get this phrase or these fast-but-don't-know-it runners out of my mind. And the more I ran and ruminated upon it the madder I got. I even vowed to no longer read the blog of the girl who does this the most. Maybe it's because I was in pain. Maybe it's because I'm not nearly as fast as I used to be. I'm not sure. I just know that on that day, on that run, those words really ticked me off. And by really ticking  me off, they motivated me enough to get me back home, 8 miles covered in a NOT FAST FOR ME time.

Motivation? Yep. I'll take it where I can get it.