What's a Good Pace?

Two days late but I finally got it written for you. Lately, I have been seeing some questions about pace. The most common one is, "What is a good pace for a (distance of race)?" I thought about what my answer would be and I believe that most runners will agree with what I came up with.

Fast and slow speed is relative. What are you comparing your pace too? Are you comparing how fast you're running with the runners up ahead of you? Behind you? I believe the best comparison is how fast your were running yesterday, last week, last month, and you know what I'm saying. When I went from running an 11 minutes 30 second mile to a 10 minute 30 second mile, I thought I was going fast! Now if I compare my pace today with what Joe Runner is doing then I could be really fast or super slow. Joe may be running a 9 minute mile and there would be no way I could keep up. One the other hand, if Joe is running a 12 minute mile then he couldn't keep up with me. If you're running a 12 minute mile, don't get upset when you see others passing you and think that you are slow. You don't know how long they have been running. I only compare my speed to what I've been doing over the long haul.

I remember now long after I started walking and posted a walk/run on Facebook that one of the things that motivated me so much was my friend, Amy, commenting, "You're getting faster!" That was almost two and a half years ago and I can still remember reading that and the encouragement that I felt.

This past week I only got to run two times but I made the best of them. I ran on Hwy 350 on Saturday with the Lunatics. I ran a total of 12 miles at a 10:31 pace. I did choose the easier route by going around the ridge road but the sight was beautiful. I knew the chance of rain was good on Sunday morning but decided to go ahead and run that morning. When I first left the house, it wasn't raining. I got a little ways down the road and it started to rain a little and by the time I got back to put my phone up, it had stopped raining. I got about a quarter mile from the house and the bottom fell out! I thought to myself, "Well, by the time you get back to the house you're going to be soaked anyway so you might as well make the best of it." I did and ran 5.75 miles. It didn't rain the entire time but the rain did come down pretty hard a couple of times. That was the first time that I had ran in the rain and you can bet your last dollar it won't be my last.