One of my favorite runs with my club is Tamarack 800s. We have a street in town that not only is
exactly 800 meters, but is shaped like a semi-circle, so it is around 400
meters to get back to the start. Perfect
to do repeat 800 meter intervals. We do
them in winter, at night, so it’s often dark and chilly and snowy. Of course, the street is a mile from a bar,
so that’s our warmup and cool down.
There was a blizzard south of Chicago a few weeks ago, so a
lot of people were expecting bad weather and decided not to show up. As usual, that meant that I was the slowest
runner who did.
For a lot of people who can’t easily do a sub-10 min mile, watching
someone who can run a mile under 6 minutes cruise by can feel
discouraging. On the Tamarack run, I’m
often lapped by our faster runners, since my full speed is slower than their easy
jog pace. It’s not discouraging to me,
however, because I can see they are working just as hard as I am, and it’s the
effort, not the pace, that makes us a “real runner.”
One of the first lessons I learned in running is: “fast” and “slow” are relative. My first year of high school cross country,
our top runner qualified for state. My
junior year, the top seven qualified for state.
I was nowhere near qualifying for state, but I had a different
focus: my personal best. It’s something that has carried me through
many, many tough workouts, getting lost, and being lapped. I compete against the clock and my Strava
account, not what everyone else is doing.
It didn’t matter that I was slower than everyone else. A couple of people decided to skip the
speedwork and run Tamarack Street backwards, so I never felt alone or
unsafe. I enjoyed the beauty of the
evening and the comradery of everyone pushing themselves to their limits. I had fun! When I came back to the bar, I was treated
like a runner, not a has-been. But….going
out and running, regardless of pace, is going to make me faster than sitting at
home.
