There was a very interesting thread on Twitter yesterday and now I can’t for the life of me find it. But I do remember the gist of it – slow runners should stop apologising for their slowness. A slow runner is a runner and pace should never matter.
We are fixated on pace, I know, and that brings me to the other side of the coin – fast runners should stop such remarks as “I had a dreadful ParkRun – averaged 6 minutes a kay” or “my 10 kay was awful – only just managed to get in under 60 minutes”.
It’s like a supermodel standing around with a bunch of curvaceous ladies saying “I feel so fat today”. You want to slap her.
We all have our strengths and we should play to them, not apologise for what we can’t do. Distance is my bag but don’t give me time restraints. Show me a speed boundary and I won’t even sniff at it, but show me a distance boundary and I will immediately want to push against it.
You want me to try and do a ParkRun under 30 minutes – forget it, the very thought makes my eyeballs bulge. You want me to put one foot in front of the other for days on end – I’m there, wagging my tail.
The funny thing is, this idea that distance is my thing only crystallised in my mind while I was thinking of cycling.
The furthest I’ve ridden on my mountain bike is 25 kilometres. I haven’t been thinking about bettering my speed, oh no. I’ve been wondering if I can do a 50 kilometre ride on the Easter weekend, just to see if I can. No time restraints.