The Pros and Cons of "Slow"

It's interesting that slow can be a good and a bad thing.

Wanting things to slow down...
Here I am at one moment complaining how crazy work is and has been for the last few months and that I can't wait for it to slow down. It seems like we've been going almost nonstop since October and there still isn't really an end in sight. I decided not to take any vacation days this week thinking that not only could I get caught up, but I could even get ahead. Everyone thought this was wishful thinking, but it's amazing how much you get done with no one around bugging you every 5 minutes. I think I may have achieved my goal. January is likely going to be awful so the more I can knock out of the way now, the better I am. I was able to get overly organized on my project from hell and have pretty much documented everything I possible can. I am now almost at a point where I am pretty much waiting on other people for definitions, explanations, or directions and all of that has been sent off to the appropriate people (and cc'd to the other appropriate people so there's no "but I didn't get the email"). I'm almost ahead of the game.

Wanting things to speed up...
And then I switch gears to training and complain that I don't seem to be getting much faster. Or that I'm not getting faster at a fast enough rate. Sure, if I look at the numbers, they are generally getting smaller, but we're talking a few seconds here and there. It certainly doesn't feel any different. Yesterday I had a 10 mile run to do. I figured that this run would show me the improvements. I wasn't rushed into squeezing it in, so there wouldn't be any reason for cutting out a mile or 2. I slept in so I was well rested going into it (or at least supposed to be in theory). It was slightly warmer than it has been so I was less likely to hit my 1 hour freezing joint time limit. And there was the reward of being able to eat whatever I wanted to for the rest of the day. But it really wasn't all that different. I actually felt a little more tired going into it than my last few runs. I even felt a little rushed since I was technically supposed to be at my dad's house at a certain time even though I had already told them that this was unlikely. So it was a pretty slow start and I wasn't sure I'd be able to do my Z3 set without some real pushing. I had 3 miles in Z3, with a 2 minute walk break between each. This is actually one of the easiest Z3 sets there is and I was already dreading it. It is exactly 4 miles from my house to the main entrance to the Res and I usually just keep going onto the gravel for my longer runs - it's a little break from the pavement and there are a few rolling hills to keep me honest. But my first two miles were supposed to be out and back. This meant that the first would be going up the hill past the Res and the second would be going down the hill. This doesn't make for very even splits which is what I was aiming for. It also wasn't helping my motivation. At the last minute, I decided to pull into the Res and just run along the road there. A wise choice. The flatter course was much more motivating. There were some people ice-skating on the frozen Res, which seemed stupid, yet kind of fun. It's been so long since I've been ice-skating, which I used to do all the time. But it was a nice distraction as it was sort of a holiday theme and brought back nice memories. Suddenly I was ready to turn around and head home. And this always gets me. When I turn around, I am now facing the mountains and again, am just awestruck about where I live and how lucky I am to live here. This of course turns into how fortunately I am in general: to live in this beautiful place, to have supportive family and friends, to still have a job, to be able to run. I tried to enjoy the rest of the run as best I could. It didn't matter how slow I was, at least I was running. And you tend to see a little more when you run slow - this is what those fast runners miss out on. Sometimes it's good to be slow.

Sometimes slow can be a good thing. At it seems like right now, this is what I need.