Last weekend was the first time I ran a race in an attempt to "coach" and focus on pace for my friend and I. Using the pace that we had set on our 13.22 mile run the week before, I thought we'd stick at a very comfortable and relaxing 12 minute mile so that she could feel safe throughout the entire 15K.
When the gun goes off, there's a great deal of excitement built up in our bodies. We've been dreaming/dreading this race for a while. We're surrounded by other people as crazy as us, as competitive as us. There's electricity in the air and we all GO! Most of us typically start out at a race (by someone I mean arm-chair distance runners, not Kenyans), FAST. Our bodies are pumped with adreneline. We're so excited, it doesn't FEEL like we're going too fast. We're just going with the flow, doing what our bodies want us to do. If we don't pay attention to that, we could burn out by mile 2. I wanted to keep my novice running partner from hitting the wall before our race was over.
But I wasn't successful. I got a little too racey. The excitement was kicking in full force. While I was able to be pretty conservative for 7 miles, and by that I mean, I still sucked at my job because we did 11:25's. But by mile 7, I just couldn't control it anymore and let it out.
The good news: I felt fanfreakingtastic the entire 9.3 miles.
The bad news: I suck at pacing.
I gotta work on this....
