Last Sunday I hit a milestone, broke a plateau, cleared a hurdle... insert whatever cliche you see fit. Regardless, I really did reach a new high in my "racing career." I use the word "career" loosely here. I've only been seriously running for three years. Out of that three years, I've spent 18 months pregnant and many other months recovering from being pregnant. I've run five 5ks--two while pregnant and unaware of it--and one 10k--on Mother's Day.
My husband and I ran a 5k on Sunday at our old high school. It was a small race and served as a fundraiser for the basketball team. I haven't been running much as of late, maybe 4 miles once a week, but have been doing a lot of spinning, jumping rope and weight lifting. I figured I'd go out and have a nice, easy jog on a beautiful, albeit windy, Sunday morning. Little did I know I was going to destroy any other race time I'd had before.
So I ran the race in 25:29. I know, not fast by any means, but fast for me. And I have no one to compare my race times to but my own. The last race I ran was the Fourth of July, and that one I finished in just over 28 minutes, in ridiculous heat and humidity, on a course with a ridiculous amount of hills. Sunday's course was similar, maybe one or two less hills, but what it lacked in "hilly-ness" it made up for in wind--if that makes any sense.
When I crossed the finish line on Sunday, I felt like I was going to puke--a feeling I haven't felt from running in a long time. I had a killer stitch in my side and my hands were shaking. And then I saw my husband, who had already crossed the finish line, smiling at me. He told me he wasn't looking for me because he figured I wouldn't finish for several more minutes. He was surprised and proud of me. And it was him who pushed me to that finish line, two and a half minutes sooner than I'd ever gotten there before.
Herein lies my point, which I know it takes me a while to make: find someone better, faster, stronger than you and work out with them. It will make you better. Week in and week out for the last three years my husband has been my running partner, at least once a week. In the beginning, before the babies or the thought of babies, I was faster than him. I ran more, had more time to do it and was the one pushing him.
Flash forward three years and he's the one who's been running continuously, shaving his best 5k time down to under 20 minutes. When we run together I'm generally behind him, cursing him for going too fast, struggling to maintain his pace at times, putting on my sour face because my pride won't let me quit. And lately, he's been pushing 50 pounds worth of children in a double jogger, I task I have undertaken myself, but am glad to relinquish on our Saturday morning runs.
That fact of the matter is that, despite all the pain and discomfort of struggling to keep up with someone faster, I have gotten faster. Running is easier for me now, two children later, than it has ever been in my life.
Next time you think about how much you hate running or how much you don't like lifting weights, find someone better than you and just try to keep up with them. I don't mean go out and kill yourself going fast or going hard. Learn from them. Feed off their energy and their skill. Enjoy being in the company of someone who can teach you something about yourself that you will never learn on your own: just how good you can be.
