Okay, I know we JUST did a post about a training run of mine and I generally try to mix it up, but I had the BEST run on Sunday – all thanks to Southwest Airlines. Naturally I simply must tell you about it.
So here’s what happened: I was going to get up at 8am and run that week’s Rock ‘n Roll virtual 10k. However, a notification popped up on my phone as I was setting my alarm: I needed to check in for my flight home to Puerto Rico at 8:55am on the dot. (For those not familiar with Southwest’s seating policies, it’s first-come first-served, with boarding groups and numbers assigned by how early you check in.)
Not wanting to stop in the middle of my run to accomplish this, I got up half an hour earlier. But as I finished dressing, hydrating, etc., I realized I would still going to need to push myself a bit if I wanted to make my time cutoff.
So I did. Rather than attempt to curtail my early-run instinct to pick up the pace, I let myself go kinda fast. And then… I continued to let myself go fast. Not sprinting, but a good clip. No reining it in or pulling it back in an effort to keep the entire thing comfortable. Hell, by the last mile I was decidedly NOT comfortable, but I also wasn’t incapable. I kept the pace and my final mile was in fact my fastest.
You know what else was my fastest? This 10k! By a full minute! During training! Not a race! I have NEVER done that! I’m STILL pleased with myself!
I have to give a shout out to the excellent running weather that morning in Maryland, where I enjoyed upper 60s temperatures the likes of which Puerto Rico may well have never seen. And an extra thank you to the parking lot of the tech school behind the house, which has only one slight incline and is otherwise an ideal running circuit.
Now I am back in Puerto Rico, where it’s hot and humid and running fast can be a challenge. But I’ll give it a go sometimes anyway. As the professionals like to tell us, to run faster you’ve just got to… run faster. Pam was right all along!
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