The Jig is Up

It all started in March 2011 as I crossed the finish line to complete my 7th marathon - this time, the Lower Potomac Marathon in southern Maryland. Here I am at the finish line.

(I also just have to add in this cute picture of Kathy and Dorothy - wearing their "Team Emi-Lou Staff" t-shirts that Dorothy and Neil had made for this and all race occasions.) 

I am a slow runner, but the clock showed that I had shaved 1 minute off my last PR (Personal Record for you non-runners)...completely by accident. For the last 4-5 marathons I had shaved 1 minute off each time I crossed the finish line - and it was unplanned every time. I have always been a casual marathoner. I'd love to hit most sought-after goal for any marathoner - well, the first goal is to just finish. The second goal is to finish in under 4 hours. This is called running a "sub-4 marathon." But, in truth, it just hasn't been in me. I've been happy to run marathons, never paying much attention to my time, and seeing my family and friends at the finish line. But, now, I was invested. I consistently shaved time off without even trying. Suddenly I actually cared about my running time.


I cared enough that when my next marathon rolled around in February 2012, Arizona IMG Marathon, I did something bold. I went out and bought a digital watch. The night before my flight to Phoenix, I went to our local K-Mart and picked out the watch with the largest display - as pictured below. This baby was going to be my constant companion and help me shave, yet another minute off of my marathon time.

I had never run a marathon with a watch before. It turns out that it's pretty exciting to keep track of one's time, especially if one gets 10 minutes ahead of one's usual pace - in the middle of a marathon. That's what happened to me. In fact, I was convinced that my new watch was broken and that it was not accurately keeping time, that is, until I happened to learn that I was in front of the 4'15" pacer. I had never run a marathon in under 4'20". (A pacer is a skilled and seasoned marathoner who agrees to run a marathon at a certain pace. Less skilled marathoners run with this pacer in order in ensure that they meet their PR goal.) By mile 13 I was a full 10 minutes ahead of my usual "fair-to-middlin" pace of 10 minutes-per-mile. I maintained that pace until somewhere through mile 18-21. After that, I started to slow down. In fact, the 4'15" pacer passed me at mile 25, all full of life and energy - and ahead of schedule since he had lost his dedicated pack of runners. Nevertheless, when I crossed the finish line, I had shaved more than 6 minutes off my PR set in Maryland last spring - and came in under the 4:15 time. Here I am crossing the finish line in Arizona.

That's when there was no turning back. I decided that if I could run roughly a 9-minute-mile for 18 miles straight, during a marathon, there was no reason that I couldn't do that on my daily runs.I would learn to run faster. I would become burly after all. So, in March I headed to our local Dick's Sporting Goods and got myself a GPS-enabled sports watch - this from a woman who doesn't even own a GPS for her car or a smartphone. But, I got myself a sports watch that I would wear all over the streets of Amesbury that would give me the truth about how far I run, my overall time, and my pace - as pictured below. And, that's when I figured out that the jig is up.

It turns out that sometimes the truth is ugly. I always used to figure out the mileage on my runs by using the watch on my little flip cell phone. Since I ran a 10-minute-mile, if I ran for 60 minutes, then I ran roughly 6 miles. Well, it turns out that when I run up steep hills, I slow down quite a bit. My treasured 8-mile-loop that has a few big hills is really only 7.5 miles. It also turns out that I always know how fast...or slow I am running - every second of every part of my run. It turns out that I run really slow up hills and that even when I am running my hardest, I'm not always running fast. It has also turned my neat running log into a messy display of numbers of miles, total time, and pace. Below, the picture on top is from my log before the sports watch entered my life. The picture on the bottom is after. 

The bad news is that it turns out that running in Phoenix in February, during perfect weather, on a completely flat terrain, after 2 days of no running, and while I am filled with carbs, is quite different than running through hilly Amesbury, in all kinds of weather, on usually too little sleep. It's a lot harder to make progress on my time than I had anticipated. That said, the good news is that somewhere over the course of the last 3-4 years I started to run faster on my own. I don't run a 10-minute-mile anymore on my daily runs. I am closer to a 9:30-minute-mile. Further, having a GPS enabled sports watch on my wrist keeps me honest about how well I am running, and even better -- it usually takes little effort to make modest improvements on an individual run. I may not be hitting the 9-minute-mile goal, but I often hit 9:18 on a daily run. So, while the jig may be up, there's still hope for me yet.