Two Tortoises, Lots of Hares.

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As promised, I bring you the report on Sunday’s 10K run.  It was a lovely day – sunny and reasonably cool.   Perfect for running, and the RF and I indeed had a great run.  We stayed on our pace the entire time, felt great, and finished strong.  I even had some sprint in me at the end.  And we ran the second 5K faster than we normally run just one.

Had we been out on our own for a Sunday morning run, we would have been high fiving each other at the end in our glee at feeling so good after finishing 6.2 miles.

There was just one little thing that stopped us from such a display on Sunday.

You see, there were only a couple of people who actually finished after we did, and some of them looked like they might need medical attention. 

I grant you, it was a very lightly attended race, and in spite of the name (the “Rookie Run”) I didn’t see many people who looked like rookies.  A lot of buff yet stringy-looking types with no body fat who run marathons before breakfast, yes.  The actual newbies and the people pushing strollers and toting dog leashes (there were quite a few of these) all apparently took the 5K option.  RF and I had never entered an official 10K race before, but we have certainly run that distance many times on our own.  I guess the 10K is more frequently chosen by the chiseled, serious, scary runners.   People who run at a 7 or 8 minute mile pace without breathing hard or sweating.

When I talk to friends about being a slow runner, I don’t think they really get it.  They think I’m just being modest or something.  I’m not – I’m here to tell you, I’m slow.  Even when it feels like I’m going at a pretty good clip, I’m getting passed.  I don’t try to run slowly, it’s just who I am.  It’s all very well and fine when people raise their eyebrows at me and chuckle, but these are generally the people who “used to” be serious runners.  I don’t see them running now, and the fact is that I actually get out there and put in the miles.  I feel good.  I do not have chronic pain or injuries.  And I can, right now, count several friends who run at exactly my pace who are also out there chugging away on a regular basis.

Sorry, I just had to rant for a minute there.  One or two people rather crawled under my skin recently with those smug looks when I divulged my pace, and to them, I can only say (it being a family blog and all)  ite-bay e-may.   

Lucky for us, they didn’t actually roll up the course before we finished.  Our daughters were volunteering during the race, and they had the honor of hollering us through the finish and removing our timing chips, which was fun.  And our good feelings weren’t tarnished very significantly by being slow.  We were steady, we smiled the whole time, and we’ll do it again.  We just have to find an event where we can hide in the crowd a little more easily!

Anyway, we got the same t-shirts as the show-offs did!

I’m willing to bet that we are the only runners who celebrated by going to a yarn store afterward.  We hit the Sow’s Ear in nearby Verona for a browse around and a lovely lunch on the porch.   Their tag line is “Needles and caffeine – feed your addictions.”  Perfect!   The proprietor was knitting a sock on the eentsiest little circular – it was just the circumference of a sock.  It appeared rather more difficult to handle than dpns, but she swore by it. 

Happy Tuesday everyone!  How’s the strength training going?

(The tortoise and hare image is in the public doman, thankyouverymuch.)

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