Listen to your mother

Thursdays are interval workout days at the high school track for the running club that I belong to. Yesterday was no different. After a 1 mile warmup, our workout consisted of:
* 1600 meters at threshold
* 6 x 400 meters at slightly faster than threshold
* 1600 meters at threshold

As the coaches have been drilling into our heads, the purpose of these workouts is not to do an all-out effort, but to learn to pace yourself. Sounds good - but although my brain understands definition of threshold, my body is a whole different story.

My first 1600 felt good and I finished up at about 8:10. I ran a slightly faster pace than I'm used to but wasn't winded and miserable at the end. Now came the 400s. My times were all over the place (everywhere from 1:47 to 2:05) - not exactly the intent of this workout.

Just before we started the last 1600, I realized that I was paying way too much attention to the sounds of other runners' feet and breathing and the pace at which the people in front of me were going. All of the sudden I remembered my mom telling me as a kid, "Why are you worried about what everyone else is doing? You need to be your own person and do what's right for you." So that's what I did. I tuned everyone out and ran at my speed and what do you know - each of my four laps were within 2 seconds of each other.

So once again Mom was right: I need to think and act for myself. I should listen to my body and not force it to run at a pace based on what everyone around me is doing. Who would have ever thought that the things that Mom taught me as a chubby, band geek kid with Coke bottle glasses would apply to running. Not me that's for sure. I'm sure that she'd be thrilled to know this, but I'm not in the mood to hear "I told you so" so please don't tell my mom.