I successfully defended my title as the reigning 5K overall female winner today.....
Which translates into
Fast is a relative term.
Seriously. I have a serious case of speed-envy for anyone who breaks 20:00 for a 5k (hell, I used to be sooooo jealous of people who could break 25 minutes- and then I worked my ass off and got there).
But being the overall female winner at 4 of the last 5 races on base has earned me a little reputation (which makes me blush like boiled lobster). It makes me a little uncomfortable because I know there are much faster people, heck, some are on base but rarely show up for these fun runs.
My whole point here is that fast is relative. I am fast by Miami County standards, and wicked fast by Grissom ARB fun run standards. But all I need to do to feel slow is to go south 20 minutes to Kokomo, and I am reminded just how relative speed can be. My NYE run, a PR at the time (25:15) didn't even get me a place for age group, and when you add all the females, I think I was somewhere like 19th place.
So, yeah. My husband's coworkers think I'm fast. I know I'm faster than I used to be, thanks to a year of hard work. But I also know to enjoy what is speedy for me, to take pride in my PRs, even if at the same time I am painfully aware that I'll never make a living as a runner.... though, I'm pretty sure that would take all the fun out of it anyway.
Tonight, I will bask in the glow of a course PR of 24:53, 3 seconds faster than the 5k I ran there just 4 weeks ago. And given I ran 4 quick-for-me miles yesterday, I'm pretty pleased with that.
I qualify you as fast...fast for me was a 5k in under 30...hoping to improve upon that this summer! It IS relative, you're right...at least we mostly measure against ourselves though, right?
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