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Friday, May 20, 2011

Being Slow

I used to be fast. I have two medals from my grade school - 70m hurdles and 70m sprint. I would always start slow (and look ridiculous - I've seen pictures) but I could always concentrate and push fast at the end.
I used to find that easy, because I could see the end in sight, after all - it was only 70m away!
[I still find it easier to sprint at the end of a race - provided I can see the finish line]

At age 20 21, I'm pretty slow. I have probably never run more than a half mile at anything faster than 10:00 pace. And I am okay with that.

In fact, I am so okay with it, that during my short (2k) and slow (10:33 mile pace - 6:33 km pace) run today, I came up with a few perks for being slow.


  1. You will enjoy the scenery more than a faster runner, as you will obviously have more time to soak it in :)
  2. (Some could argue) it is less effort going slow, and your mind can wonder instead of focus all your energy on moving forwards.
  3. You can say you ran for 2 hours and people will be impressed because that seems like SUCH A LONG TIME (when in fact you may have only run/walking/combo-ed 12km)
  4. I've heard it said that the same distance burns the same amount of calories despite how fast you cover it. So... same calories burned with less impact.
  5. Do slow people get stress fractures? I'm just wondering on this one (I would like mileage with this one, not necessarily speed.)
  6. You can run slowly with your friends! Have you ever heard of 'conversational pace'? Well, you can't carry a conversation if you're sprinting the 200m! Bonus: more people will be convinced to run with you if you tell them you're going slowly - newbies will be able to keep up :)
  7. Slow running = your body can supply enough O2 = aerobic running = no creepy panting noises.

1 comment:

  1. LOL! Great post and your list is dead-on accurate! John "The Penquin" Bingham from Runner's World would add this ... you paid so much money to participate in the race/marathon, take as much time as you can to get your money's worth from the event! John Stanton from The Running Room advocates walk/running because "no one ever got hurt running slow." You have the right head space for running, IMO! :)

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