Unofficial Pacing & Cat Naps

Today is Saturday so that means of course that it’s a park run day! It was a warm sunny adventure in cow pat dodging at this morning’s run on the town moor (there were some especially fresh splats on the path at the start, bleurgh!). We had fantastic shorts & t-shirt running weather with the temperature around 55 F, or 13 C, with a not too harsh bit of sun to soak in a good dose of Vitamin D and a little dainty breeze to keep us from melting along the way. You can’t complain about those conditions one bit (unless you stomped through a pat, hehe).



I had an especially enjoyable run today because I had an unofficial pacing buddy. I latched onto her midway through the run and it helped me hugely (big thank you to her!). It was such an encouragement to have someone just ahead of me almost pulling me along towards the finish. We ran side by side for a bit and when she’d pull ahead it spurred me on to kick in that extra 10% and try to gain even standing again.


Through funnelling all my energy just to keep up with her, my mind was focussed on this goal alone and in turn this kept me from dwelling on any negative thoughts. Any momentary ideas about lack of energy, aching legs or the beginnings of a stitch niggling its way into my ribcage were banished. Negative thinking be damned, I was going to be her shadow, to stick to her like glue or linger like a bad smell!


We finally spoke to one another after the run near the finish line and I enthusiastically explained that, perhaps unbeknownst to her, I had attached myself to her pace and that it was her pacing that had helped me to finish well. I was happy to hear that she enjoyed the extra push as well. It seems that my determination to stick to her kept her on pace through to the end of the course too. Our unspoken and unplanned teamwork paid off in a true win-win style. Who knows, we may have the chance to help each other again and that may even be the winning combination to my achieving a new Personal Best!


After all that exertion of energy I’m feeling the need for a lil’ Saturday afternoon cat nap, or perhaps that’s just my cleverly constructed segue to allow me to include a photo of Zoot taking a cat nap in this post, you decide.

Either way, here ya go:

Zoot's Nap Swirl - disturbed from his slumber by the papparazzi