Fast is the new Slow

I have always been a rather conservative runner.  I wanted to be faster, but I wanted it to happen without me having to feel uncomfortable in any way.  Which basically means that I wanted to magically one day wake up and be fast.  Without any effort on my part.  At all.

I think I was afraid of how it would feel – the gasping and sucking air, the feeling like I was about to have a heart attack, or at the very least pass out.  That didn’t sound *fun* to me, and so I didn’t put out the effort.  Even in the races that I ran, I made sure to save lots for the end.

And then I started to run with Liz, and a whole new world opened up for me, and its name was Competitiveness.  When I wanted to push the pace, I ran with her.  And I discovered that sucking air and gasping isn’t so bad, and that feeling like you’re going to pass out goes away pretty soon after you stop, and that afterwards you kind of feel like Wonder Woman.  Strong and invincible.

Last night I ran with  Machon, a mutual friend of mine and Liz.  The three of us will often try to run together.  Machon and I are fairly well matched for pace, and it’s nice to run with her.  Saturday we ran a speedy 3 miler, and agreed that Sunday night (last night) we would run a bit longer and easier.

So I met her at her house late in the evening, and we headed off to run 5 miles at an *easy* pace.  Except that we hit the 3 mile mark even a little earlier than we had hit it the night before.  Which meant that not only were we not running *easy*, we were running faster. 

And it felt good.

So good, in fact, that I experienced something I haven’t felt in a while.  As we were running and I settled into the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement and the even and steady sound of my breath, I hit the “sweet spot” – the Zone.  That place where you feel like you could just run and run and run, and it feels almost effortless.  It was sweet indeed.  The sun had set but the streetlights hadn’t yet woken up, it was quiet, and for the moment we were not talking.  And we just ran.

Here’s where it gets even better.  Remember that run I did with Liz a while back?  Where I was heaving like a water buffalo (or some such large African animal)?  Machon and I ran the same distance as Liz and I had on that previous run.  And we ran it at pretty much the same pace.  And this time I felt awesome.  No heaving.  No black spots in my vision.  No wishing a passing vehicle would accidentally hit me so that I could stop running.

And that makes the sweet spot that much sweeter.