Shoutout to the GHP athletes who competed at the PIAA State Track & Field Championships on Memorial Day weekend of 2021, who this year all run for Allderdice HS. It was the first time for all of them at the state track meet, 1 of them is even a freshman! Big shoutout to Jack who matched his personal best in the 1 mile run and broke seed by several places (ranked higher than the rank he came in with). Most of the kids ran top 3 times for themselves in their events.
So, earlier this morning, I ran at the Allderdice “Dragon Race” 5K. It’s their annual spring fundraiser for their XC/track team. It's a wonderful event. But what happens, as far as I’m concerned at least, is that a bunch of adults donate money to see just how much faster 17 year olds are than them.
It's cute until you think you're kind of fast, but then get lapped on a 1km loop.
I was humbled very quickly, like half a mile in, at how much faster someone running a 17min 5k is than me. At the beginning of the race, I ran up next to one of them, Evelyn - who by the way ran one of her best ever times at States yesterday - and had the nerve to taunt her:
“Hey Evelyn, how ya feeling today? Ready to race?”
“I feel fine. Haha I don't know, we’ll see”
By the 1 mile mark I’m not totally certain she would’ve heard me if I yelled to her. Whether she decided to race or not, I couldn’t keep up long enough to find out.
I ended up running a 22:19. One of my better times, but far from my desire that I'd be around 21:00.
During the run I was reflecting on a lesson I learned successfully at my half marathon a few weeks back, that I clearly did not take heed to this time around:
Long breaks without running seem to make the next run feel really hard.
Have you ever felt this before?
Today's run felt pretty hard. I literally couldn’t will my legs to move much faster and I had plenty of motivation to do so. This week I did a poor job of controlling my schedule and somehow hadn’t run in 7 days since I had that crazy weekend (16mi, yoga, ultimate, flag football).
I notice this often that after not running for a few days, the next run feels more labored than usual. Especially if it’s a faster run.
This felt like that for me. Not that I think I would’ve run significantly faster if I didn’t randomly take the week off, but the run definitely wouldn’t have hurt so bad!
Which made me think, this must be partly why people go on run streaks. Some people I follow on Instagram: the world of comparison, distraction, or inspiration - depending on how you use it - have had running streaks lasting over 6 months.
If you never have a day that you take off from running, you never have to knock the rust off! Ahhhh, I get it. Even if it’s just getting 1 slow mile.
I’m tempted to try a summer run streak. Even if it’s just a mile a day.
Are you in?
I wasn’t trying to pressure you, but I’m more willing to do it if you are! 2 weeks? 1 month? All summer?
Reply and let me know. Or, at least if you’ve ever experienced the labor of running again after a (long) break!