Slow

I have a busy schedule.

So most of my running happens well before the sun comes up. Some days, I'm waking around 4:30 to get myself dressed and ready in the dark. I sit on the curb under the street light waiting for the GPS to kick-in. Then I'm off around Jersey City. Sometimes, when I'm feeling lazy, I push the sleep a little further which allows me to run along the waterfront as the sun rises over Manhattan. It is a complete reversal of the late-night person I used to be, but it is worth the fatigue and occasional exhaustion to see what I see.

I have a busy home life, and a work life that I do my best to manage in a reasonable amount of hours per week. My 3 year old deserves all that I can devote to him.

Because of this, I know that I will never have the time to run the distance that I would like. So, I have to learn to run further in the time that I have.

The problem is that I would be considered slow. I have been since I was young.

When my little league team would run drills, our coach would have us run the bases. He used to scream out at me as I rounded second that he could time me with a calendar. I was forever running through quicksand.

When I played soccer (I believe that I was pretty good), I was a "smart" defensive player... never a fast one. I was better at reading a play and being in the right place at the right time. This kept me from having to sprint with the little racy forwards that could easily pull away from me.

Yesterday, I ran my first 6+ mile run with a time under 8 minutes per mile. I still don't believe the watch, but I know the distance I ran and the time in which I ran it. Maybe things are changing for me. As I round the corner to 40 years, I'm finally finding a pace I never could before. Funny that my 39 year old self could outrun my 14 year old self in both distance and pace.