Find your pace + lane

The idea of pace has been all over my brain as a I tackle a new training method- a smarter training method- for my tenth and final Alaska marathon before we move down to the desert . I knew that I had been training improperly for years but it seemed to work just fine . Speed-work wasn't important to me and tackling those long runs at my goal pace just worked... until it didn't. Eventually our bodies burn out and the next long run we just don't have it in us. Last week I began my focus on goal paces for speed , tempo runs, and (get this) a SLOWER Long run pace. Yep I sure do know this is the right way to train I am just stubborn ok? My number one goal as a runner is to do it until I am 90. There is no race or distance worth injuring myself so longevity is key, and this training style fits that perfectly. AND guess what? I can already feel the difference. The balance of harder short runs and easier long runs... it feels really really good.

Somewhere along the path on my first 12 miler of this training cycle I really started digesting the analogy to life. Thanks to this book which I am taking the training method from " Run less run faster" I understand a lot more of what pace I can actually be at for each distance throughout training.  Before I just jumped in pretty blind and hoped for the best! It got me thinking of this pace of life I hopped into about two years ago this spring. Life was pretty manageable having added our baby girl to the mix and balancing the little side-work I had through photography as well as all the Army wife/Mama roles on my plate . It was a good pace. 

One little "yes" to a new responsibility picked up my speed to what felt ok and manageable. Everyone says that we're supposed to get uncomfortable sometimes right? That is where growth happens. Another YES and another and next thing I knew my life was too busy to even breath. My standard long run pace of life was becoming more like a sprint. Any given day was filled with demands from everyone around me hour by hour , that sprinting pace of life was quickly drawing me to burnout. That fast speed isn't made to be sustained my friends! I knew my 'long run' pace , the one that is best for my health as well as the ones closest to me, but I exceeded it for no ones glory but my own. 

Something that I love about running is that every single person has their own individual lane to be in. Some can can handle going 6 min miles for a marathon, some 8, but most are more in the 10 minute mile+ range.   It really doesn't matter how fast the person next to you is but just being the best at what your body is capable of. Staying in your lane.  Isn't this so applicable to our daily lives? Some women can handle two full time jobs, 4 kids,  single parenting, volunteer work, gourmet meals, and go to bed at the end of the day having it all together ( the 5 minute pacer we all hate to love and hate for all the reasons) without burnout. On this last long run it hit me that I had been going too hard, trying to keep up with the people I saw around me that can handle that fast pace with grace and ease. It was never my lane to be in ! I knew what I could handle without burning myself out but fought through it trying to keep up with the 'elites' so to speak. And guess what? I crashed hard. 

It has taken a lot of conscious work over the past 12 months to come away from that place of overdoing. I knew my lane and hopped out of it at a speed that wasn't sustainable for long. That pace or workload was fine for a sprint or a 'season' as everyone likes to say today, but it couldn't be kept up. I see this in so many women around me right now both virtually and in my community. Sure there are probably plenty doing less than they are capable of but more often I see women exhausted from carrying on too much - pushing that pace more than sustainable without injury. Injury in this case isn't normally as visible on the outside but lies within.

There was a much more eloquent way of saying this that came together beautifully in my ON-SWITCHED brain during my quiet run but now it's back to Mom-mush as usual. So this is what you get people #sorry!  I just want to encourage you , friend, to evaluate your pace and your lane. Don't worry about the pace of the person next to you or behind or in front- find your steady pace and try to stay there. It's ok to be uncomfortable for a little bit doing too much or too little but remember that it is not made to be sustained for long. Find your pace. Stay in the lane that is perfectly made for you and no one else. Don't try to be someone else because God, the detailed designer and creator of all living breathing things, designed you perfectly to be as YOU as you can be.