Pacing and Consistency

A little bit more about the Mother's Day Race for Breast Cancer, and how I survived it. As per my earlier posts, I was able to race with my friend Sara. She saved my hiney in the Solstice run and did the same for this run too. She is an inspiration to me. I met her back in 1988, worked for her kayaking husband for many years, was a dweller in her attic one summer, and she tipped me off to my job on the unit. Sara is as solid a citizen as they come. She works her butt off as a Mental Health RN, she has two fantastic boys in grade school and junior high, her house is to die for (they built it), and she is always going on wild adventures. Drive down with a friend and the boys to Florida for a week? Sure. Go to New Zealand on her honeymoon and climb mountains and leap off tall hills with a parachute. Yep. Squeeze in a ski week out in Montana with the whole family. Of course. She runs, mountain bikes, skis, kayaks, camps, and was a rugby player. She can also antique and garage sale with the pros. She was the best RN I ever worked with in Mental Health (she has since moved jobs, but not far). She could set a limit, find contraband, confront naughty behavior, and take down an out of control kid like nobody's business. Tough, funny, straight talking, and kind. She told me throughout my pregnancy that I was going to be fine and my child would not suffer too much from having such an inexperienced mama. She even passed on that most important piece of equipment for travel, the porta-prison. And a few wet suits for Alex to grow into.

So, back to the race. I was determined to follow my heart rate monitor and not blow out, but instead I followed Sara. And still did not blow out. We ran and talked the whole race. We were way in back, but we did not walk and we "got 'er done". I discovered my heart rate can go a lot higher than I thought (and the charts predict), and I have not been crazy sore or sick in these few days past. Creaky, yes. Tired, yes. A wee bit unmotivated. Yep. And HUNGRY. But not sick or super sore. And we were not the LAST racers on the course, so that is saying something. We ran the whole race at a faster pace than I have been training at, but I still had a little juice left for a sprint at the finish. Much better to place that at the finish than the start! I will probably resume training soon, with my new heart rate limits, and the discovery that I can go a bit faster than I thought I could.

In my life I have started at least 10 half-assed running programs that I quit within a month. I would be all gung-ho, then get overworked and quit. I never paced myself or was consistent. And I never set decent goals. With pacing and consistency in mind this last year, and Sara and the Mother's Day race on the calendar, I finally broke the half-assed habit. It feels good. And yes, it's really true, slow and steady wins the race.