A little defensive

The one thing I've always struggled with is other people's perception of my running.

I was talking to these guys on the train, and they asked about my pace. I said I typically run around 10-minute miles. They said "nice" and when I returned the question, they informed me about their incredible 7-minute pace. After giving them the appropriate accolades, I quickly added how I can run both a 3 mile and a 13 miler at a 10-minute pace. A little defensive and unnecessary don't ya think.

I feel even more awkward when someone overestimates me. I appreciate the confidence, but sometimes when people know me but don't know my running, they'll throw in a "what do you run? like 8-minute miles now?" and I have to inform them that they have severely overshot my abilities.

I hate that I can feel defensive and embarrassed about my pace, but I think I'm more competitive than I admit.

The thing is I'm not even a slow runner. I am very much aware of that. I know that I run at a 10-minute pace because it's my recovery and training pace. However, this doesn't stop me from wanting to clarify. This post itself is a great example! For someone who always preaches "pace yourself," "you need to slow down," and "don't look at your watch" I sure have a lot of pent-up emotions about pacing!

All of this goes into my run the other week. I was feeling pretty anxious and mildly mad because I had let my morning get past me and knew I wasn't going to get my long run done. This was mostly due to an overwhelming sense of fear about covering this distance which led to some poor planning. Not a good combo. I had 17 different excuses for why I wasn't going to run, and I actually listened to them. It wasn't my proudest moment.

Once I had decided I wasn't going to do my long run, I almost scratched working out as a whole from my day. I sometimes exhibit the bad habit of "if I'm not going to do X run, then I won't run at all." Like if none of the runs in my weekly training plan look enticing, I'd be quicker to be like "ope! guess I'm not running!" than to choose a run from a different week.

Anyway, I was kind of wasting time away and thought about how if I skip a long run to just rot in my apartment, I'm going to feel even worse about my decision. That's when I realized I could still get a run in and it could still provide value, even if it wasn't going to be the run I had planned on.

If I wasn't going to push myself on miles, I thought I might as well push myself on pace, so I went up to the gym and chose a tempo run. While you're not supposed to run with anger or emotions or whatever, I didn't listen to that rule this day. No more cruising or pacing or trying to be in the moment - I just needed to let off some steam. It was supposed to be 1.25 miles warm up, 8K tempo, and 1.25 miles cool down. I did the 1.25 mile warm up, but after that I stopped listening to the instructions and decided to go for it. When the cool-down came, I didn't listen. I realized I was feeling good and moving fast and wanted to know if I could keep it up. Turns out, I could. I ended up running over 7 miles at an 8'30 pace. I've never done that before - it was incredible.

I think I really needed that too. Not just because I have an ego, but because these last few weeks of running have been atypical for me. While I've increased my weekly runs from 3 to 4, I've also felt way crappier on some of my runs, stopped a long run early, and skipped a long run altogether. Not my best look.

So, as you can imagine, I'm a little stressed. But, that 8'30 pace showed me that I have more to give than I expected, so we'll take the win for now.

Run #55: Saturday, October 11th: Tempo Run - 1.31 mi 9'58 pace straight into 7.07 mi 8'30 pace