The Leader of the Pack

It's hard to figure out why some days are better than others.

The last time I went to Happy Hour the night before a long run, and had a few beers, I felt like shit for 16 miles. There wasn't a single point in the run that felt good. Perhaps it was because I forgot to use those beers to wash down dinner. All I had to eat was a bag of Doritos that night. Not so healthy...

Last night, I had a few beers. But I remembered to eat dinner. A whole wheat crust veggie pizza. I went to bed early. Like, EARLY. Earlier than I've gone to bed every other night this week. Which is kind of sad, because last night was a Friday, but that's part of the game, I guess.

I woke up feeling fantastic. And when we started to run this morning, I just took off. Running fast. And strong. All the way down Great Highway. And all the way around Lake Merced. I turned around at one point and realized that there were only a few other people with me. And half of the group was pretty far behind. We looked at our watches. They read 70 minutes. Then we checked the route map. It said we'd gone almost 9 miles.

HOLY SHIT.

Luckily, one of the guys running with us had a Garmin, for GPS tracking. And the Garmin confirmed that we'd gone 9.1 miles.

Again, HOLY SHIT.

That is not my normal long run pace. But it felt fabulous. So I have to wonder, why ISN'T that my normal pace? Was today just a good day? Or do I normally just let the others lead and settle into what someone else thinks is a good pace for the day? Should I be running at this pace more often?

We kept the 8:00 pace up for a few more miles, even running a 7:30 at one point, which honestly, I'm not sure I've ever done before. We eventually slowed a little when we turned up MLK Drive and up the hill into Golden Gate Park. But only down to 9:00 pace, which is still a great pace for the weekly LSD run. Most of the group dropped off at 16 miles, so I ran an extra 5 today on my own. Hauling ass all the way to a strong finish at Mile 21. 3 hours after we started.

Nic, the Leader of the Pack.

Vrooom. Vroooooom Vrooooooooom!