Running Your Race at a Different Pace

Sometimes I hear words that for whatever reason tend to resonate with me.  Often I will hear the same word repeated over and over again in conversations with different people.  When that happens I tend to spend a bit more time thinking about the word.  Today the word that I heard or thought of a number of times before I started writing this is "pace."  

Today is one of those days when the outside temperature was at 80 when I was having a cup of tea.  The weather forecaster said that was our low for the day.  My early plan was to spend time outside writing today but realized after a few moments that it was too hot to sit outside.  I also realized that I would need to adjust my pace for the day  

As a runner I find that I am often very focused on pace.  When I run I pay considerable attention to the pace at which I am running often making minor adjustments to either go faster or to  slow down.  Sometimes I see my pace and reconcile that with the way I feel.  At other times I become aware of my pace and I am surprised that I am either going  too slow or on rare occasions going too fast.  Almost always when I become aware of pace I make some sort of adjustment.  Rarely do I just accept the information.

I think that being a runner makes me more aware of pace than most people.  Runners have a an internal clock that tells us what we are doing and makes us acutely aware of how we are feeling.  I am not so sure that non-runners have this mechanism.  That is unfortunate as I find that a keen awareness of pace would serve everyone well.  I sometimes watch my friends and colleagues approaching burn out simply because they find themselves "running" too fast with the things they are doing.  Or I listen to friends that describe their planned activities which include far too many things that they are cramming in to their day.  I even wonder in amazement when I see parents that are running all over the place moving their children from one activity to the next while complaining that they are too busy.  I think that in all of these cases people are not very aware of their pace.  

When I was growing up we talked about summertime as a time of "easy living."  The pace was expected to be slower, the days lazier and the focus was on enjoying life.  Now we are trying to get the kids into a summer program that will improve their skills in one area or another, we take summer courses to enhance our own skills, and what we used to call summer driving is not to a vacation spot but rather it is from activity to activity.  I think we are just failing to pay attention to the pace.

I wonder what we would be doing today or this weekend if we were to view it from a lens of how we might feel about it ten years from now.  Would we make the same commitments?  Would we run around doing the things that are right now stressing us out?  Would we rather have taken the time to enjoy a lunch with a friend or coffee with a loved one just enjoying the sun or sitting in park?  

This weekend as we head into the holiday next week let's be more aware of our pace.  Perhaps you want to run the next half of your personal race a bit slower than the last one.  Or at least take a small piece of time to just slow down.  The weather across the country presents an excellent opportunity.  You will not be perceived as a slacker if you do nothing in the heat.  But call this a practice session to a slower pace.  Commit to slowing down this summer.  Life really is not a race and there is no prize given for being the person that finishes life first.  

This post is the shortest I have written in a while.  The reason is that I am watching my pace.