This week’s edition of Running Essentials Thursday is inspired by Ashley who recently wrote “Thou Shalt Not Covet Your Neighbors Long Run“.
Above photo blatantly borrowed (read stolen) from Ashley’s blog
When I first started running longer distances after college I ran with a group of people in their forties. The second “running boom” hadn’t quite yet begun and recent college grads just weren’t into running. Among our group I hardly ever heard anything about someone else’s pace or marathon finish time. It was a taboo subject of sorts. When asking how someone’s race went, their response would include every detail yet leaving out their finishing time. Adjectives were used to describe the run not numbers.
Notice at the Girls on the Run 5k there is no timing clock.
The running community and technology have evolved in the past several years. We’ve become so focused on pace, distance and time that we sometimes forget to stop and smell the sweat. By that I mean we forget that an easy effort for one person may in fact be a hard effort for another. However, that doesn’t change the fact that a hard effort equals a hard effort not matter what one’s pace. What really matters is how much sweat are you putting into your run?
Think about your last hard training run. Remember the sweat. Remember the effort it took to complete the run. What adjectives would you use to describe the way you felt during your workout?
Now let’s think about 2008 Olympic bronze medalist and the 2010 NYCM female runner-up, Shalane Flanagan for a moment. I imagine when she comes back from a hard training run she uses some of the same adjectives you just used describe how she felt.
Strip away the numbers that indicate pace, time and distance and you’re left with how much did you sweat (aka how hard did you work)? Run your own race, own your own pace and try not to get caught up in comparing numbers with other people and I’ll promise to do the same.
xo
I totally agree. I admit it can be frustrating to see how speed comes so easy to some people (like you) but I usually get over that quickly when I see how much I have improved against myself over these last two years of running.
“adjectives were used to describe the run not numbers” I think that phrase applies far past just runs. I recently went back to keeping a hand written journal to force myself to describe rather than count and add which is so easy to do when you’re already on the computer.
i love this post. I recently started running with a bunch of my friends who have been running since middle school and high school and i would get really down about the fact that i couldn’t keep up or maintain the same pace, but then i started focusing on my own achievements and how far I’ve come since i started running and I’m amazed at my progress.
It really hit home the other day when one of my running friends said “I can’t believe how far you’ve come in such a short time running” It put a big grin on my face, all the hard work is paying off.
Totally agree! Race your own race, and be proud of it. That’s exactly what I’m planning to do on Sunday – no time goals, just running proud and not running to beat someone else or anything like that. That’s not what running is to me – sure its competitive, but I’m only competing with myself. To always race strong, race proud and walk away feeling accomplished. That’s it.
Great advice Jess! Since you are a runner & I consider myself just a person that does it for cardio among other things, what do you think of compression socks? MizFit asked this on her FB page today & was wondering what you & your readers thought about them.
I’m on the fence and have been wondering what other people think about them. I have a pair of compression tights that a company sent me, but it’s been too hot to try them out. The research the company does is pretty extensive and of course says that compression does work. I’ll have to head over to her page to check out the responses.
I love this post! I’m not fast at all and when I started running, I used to be so embarrassed when people passed me. I remember being so proud of myself the first time I went for a run and passed people. It felt so good. Still, more often than not, people pass me. It doesn’t bother me as much any more but I still don’t love it.
Love this post. Thank you.
Your posts have been very timely lately! Excellent points and lately my efforts have been trying to have fun while running and actually smiling at people when I catch their eye. It changes the whole way I feel while running!
I love love love this post. You are so right about the tendency to get caught up in the numbers … sometimes just leaving my running devices at home and going out for a “tech-free” run feels so good.
Very true!!! For us (me) non-professional runners, running should be a personal accomplishment…that’s sometimes hard to remember, thanks for the reminder 🙂
I love this post!! I read a ton of running blogs and it can be easy to get caught up in the people running 8:30 min miles and calling themselves slow. 🙂 (Which I respect may be slow for them!) But I have to remember that on Nov 6th I’m running for me and the charity I’m supporting. No one else!
Exactly. Everyone no matter what pace is putting out the same effort. I hope your training is going great!