I'm a Pacer

This Saturday I was all excited to run my 8 miles. ESPECIALLY since I found out I was going to be in the 9:00 mile group.

So we got into our little sub-groups. Mine included both advanced runners and beginner runners because we were basically doing the same loop. (But the advanced people were doing it twice). Steve called for pacing mentors. He had one for ten minutes. He called for an 11:00 pacer. No one volunteers. He looks at all of the mentors. Silence.

Finally I was like "I'll do it."

I know I didn't sound very enthusiastic.

I didn't know if I was even going to be able to pace 11:00 miles. Luckily I had my Garmin. Well, I did end up pacing those four miles. We were right on track the whole time: 11:03, 11:08, 11:01 and 11:00.

What frustrated me though was that there were other mentors in my group that were running this pace because this was their pace. Why didn't THEY volunteer to pace? I know pacing makes people uncomfortable, but it makes me uncomfortable too. I'm no more qualified than they are. And then I was in a quandry over what to do because I felt like I didn't really work out as hard as I should. Should I run 4 more miles at my real pace? Or should I just chalk this up to an easy run for me and do my 8 miles tomorrow?

I decided to ask Coach Christine.

We ended up talking about my goals for the season. I told her almost everything about my running history and she asked what my goal pace was for the marathon since I was doing 9:00 miles for my long slow distance runs. I said "8:50." And she made a weird face. So then I confessed that I had no idea because I used to run a 12:00 mile and after this test we had on Tuesday I was in the 9:00 mile group.

She said I was underestimating myself and that if I was running 9:00 miles for my LSD that my goal pace would probably be an 8:30.

I was like "WHAT?! You're kidding, right?"

She said there are lots of factors to consider of course, but that shouldn't be too hard for me to do. I told her how I psyche myself out all the time. She said that we would work on that this season. The most important thing was to train with the advanced group on Tuesday nights (speed and hillwork night). I told her that I think that was what made me so fast this year. She said that I need to keep in touch with her all through the season and we'd work towards my goal, but that I should work towards an 8:30 pace.

I was floored. That seems insanely fast.

But, Christine knows what she is talking about, so who am I to doubt her?

She also told me that I need to run the other 4 miles today. Obviously it wasn't ideal to pace the 11:00 group and that she understood if I was frustrated, but adding on 4 miles to a 4 mile easy run this early in the season would be fine. I should finish the run at my pace and enjoy my night (not having to worry about getting up in the morning to run).

She said that it is important to be a mentor and to do mentor things (like pacing with a slower group when it is needed) but that it is important to her that the mentors get to reach their running goals too.

She made me feel a lot better :)

So I finished my 4 miles in the blistering heat with an 8:45 average pace.