Taking Your Foot Off the Gas

One of my favorite places to run in Bend is Shevlin Park. It is a large and

forested park about a mile from my house. The park is bisected by Tumalo

Creek and it reminds me of the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico where I used to

hike and fish.

It had been awhile since I had run through Shevlin. I looked forward to losing

myself in the run. As with most of my runs things started out a bit sluggish. As I

dropped down into the park I began to feel things wake up. Usually I would pick

up the pace and fall into a rhythm. Today was different. It wasn’t that I was

fatigued. In fact I would say the opposite. My senses were alive and taking in

everything around me. I had the trail to myself. The air was warm, the creek

was burbling, the birds were conversing, and the park seemed like it was waking

up from an extended winter slumber. It was there I found myself making a

conscious decision to enjoy my surroundings and to take my foot off the pedal.

Recently I heard veteran triathlete Linsey Corbin describe how difficult it was to

ease up during a training run. While I can’t necessarily say I have been burning

up the pavement, I have gone out on each run with the purpose of bringing my

time down.

Each time out on a run I would find myself focusing solely on running at a certain

pace. With each run I was trying to run faster and faster. I don’t necessarily

think I was losing focus but I do think that part of me felt like I just needed to go

out and enjoy a run for the simple sake of running.

When I thought back on my training programs for swim and bike there were times

when my goal was to kick it up a notch and others when I was simply backing off

a bit and doing a regiment at 75-80% of overall effort. It would only make sense

that every so often I should back off a bit on my overall effort for running as well.

I think in my desire to run at a faster pace I lost sight of the fact that my training

journey covered a wide spectrum of time. My improvement in all aspects of my

race had come with time and effort. In looking at the anecdotal evidence I could

see how my times had dropped and my fitness level had improved.

While there is still room for improvement in all aspects of my race I think that it is

also important to remember that it is ok to every once in awhile take my foot off

the pedal and simply enjoy the run.