So, yeah, I'm a little late on the whole Happy New Year thing. But, nonetheless, Happy New Year! If this writing were just a year in review exercise, it would be two things: very short, and very slow.
My running in 2020 was mostly short and most always slow. But I digress, or maybe I don't. Anyway, I completed 2023 miles in 2020. Yep, I "ran the year" as they say. Of the 55 recorded running years in my life, it ranked 29th as far as miles run. On the upside is the fact that halfway through the year, I had logged a mere 795 miles and was on the way to a disastrous total. Then something happened, but more on that later.
I "raced" three times, all virtual. Two 5Ks and a 200 mile race (that you had a month to complete - so not 200 all at once). The results were not that impressive. The 5Ks were blazed in slightly less than 34 minutes each (this is by a guy with a 5K PR of 15:09 - and I know that was a LONG time ago). Nonetheless, they were weirdly fun.
The 200 mile race (The Midwest States 200) was a matter of logging mileage over the month, tracking your time and submitting the results. Well, drumroll please, I finished 2nd. HA! That's hilarious. Well, first and foremost, there were only 5 finishers compared to several hundred in the 100 miles version of the race, so let's not get too excited. Now my time, of 51 hours, 23 minutes, and 7 seconds, would have been pretty darned good in a real 200 mile race. Strung out over a month..... well, not as impressive. But, I'll take it.
Mostly, these three "efforts" were tests so to speak. They were opportunities to push beyond what has become the norm of my knee injured running which is slow, slow, and slow, as not to aggravate the knee. It's something that, for now, I have accepted as the way my running is going to be. I have little or no interest at this point to follow the knee replacement course. That may come, but not now, not yet. So, I run the way I run. Slowly, often gingerly.
It is THAT decision, to just keep running that turned the year around. Somewhere in the middle of the year, I decided it was okay to be slow, okay to walk almost as fast as I run, to be slower than pretty much everyone out there. It is okay because inside me, my mind and my body, I'm still running. I feel the difference as soon as I move from a walk to a "jog." (geez, I hate that word).
Effort and speed are not the same. Just because you, or Eliud Kipchoge, run faster than me, it does not mean we are not exerting the same effort, and/or feeling the same things inside. Long ago, when I never ran a training mile over 6 minute pace, it felt a certain way to be on the run. Oddly, yet happily, it feels the same today. And that was the change.
And I'm okay with that. For now, and maybe for longer.
Run on.
