Friday, October 9, 2009

Cut back that effort, kid!


Here is the short downtown loop I'm doing. It's a good enough distance to feel accomplished.

Brought the pace down to a 10:49, which is no accomplishment on its own, but it is for me, for this time.

I thought of a habit of a bad runner (that I sometimes have) and wonder if we are prone to it in life outside of running. I'm sure that we are.

It is embracing mediocrity not for its own value but rather to not raise the bar high enough where we will not be able to reach it again without extraordinary efforts.

In other words, when we take on new routes and use them for training, for the most part the first time will be the slowest and we cut time from there on, but on the third run do we cut back the effort just so that the challenge is incremental and so is the achievement, so that today we wont give 110% not because we don't want to, but because in order to beat it, we will then have to give 120% and that is too much tomorrow, so the 110% today isn't worth it.

I would say I'm guilty of this in my running life, and maybe outside of running too, but I'm uncertain. How about you?

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