In the bag

Today I ran with a different group. I've been running with the third of the four training groups, but I've been the slowest person in the group. 

Hm, I think I am going to put actual numbers in this post, even though I feel shy and self-conscious about my running speed. Here's the deal: to stay uninjured, I need to go slowly. If I work at it, I can train for a sub-30 5K. But it seems to be a certainty that my body will rebel along the way or shortly thereafter. I figure it's better to run 12-minute miles all year than to run faster ones part of the time and sit on the couch nursing my newest injury the rest of the time. So my plan with this half-marathon has been to do the long runs at about a 12:30 pace in preparation for a 12:00 pace on race day, or maybe 11:45 if the stars align. The third group is supposed to be people who are running at an 11- to 13-minute pace, but it's really the 11- to 12-minute group plus Jamie. I have felt guilty about holding one of the mentors back, I have been frustrated with myself about being slow, etc. You know a little about my brain by now, right? Give me a stick and I will beat myself with it. 

I've been wondering if I should drop down to the slowest group, but I wasn't convinced I wanted to slow down even further as a regular thing. Today was the perfect day to try it out, though. They were meeting at 6:30 instead of 7:30 this morning, which would work better for our schedule today. I thought a slower run would probably leave me a little less fried for our family goings-on later today.

It turns out, you guys, that I can go painlessly for a long time at a 13:30-14:00 pace. It was easy. I could have done another couple of miles (or more?), no problem. We chatted the whole way. I started feeling some muscle fatigue and hip/knee whininess about three-quarters of the way in, but NBD.

Two observations: I am much, much, much, much⁴⁹⁵ more comfortable in the role of encourager than I am in the role of struggler. As the miles wore on (this is the second observation) I had more and more trouble staying in the 13:30-14:00 range; my body wanted to default to its comfortable pace in the 12:30-13:00 range. (Isn't it weird that needed mental energy/attention to go slower, and my pace got faster as the mental tank drained?) I was running with a woman who found this difficult but doable. I enjoyed those last miles SO much more when I was not the person flagging.

I suppose that for effective training a long run is supposed to leave you flagging, but I'm not going to fret about that today. Next Saturday we are covering the actual race course, doing all 13.1 miles. I'll have to think about that.