Running Preferences

A year ago today hubby and I ran the Silver Comet 10K.  It was my first 10K.  Hubby had asked me to run the AJC Peachtree Road race with him on July 4th and I had never run 6 miles.  I started adding distance and then said I had to run a 10K before the Peachtree, so we signed up for the Silver Comet 10K because it is 5 minutes from our house and our home course where we often run. I ran the race course the week before the race, just to be sure my training was adequate.  I am that girl.  I can't show up at the starting line having run close to the race distance.  I have to have run it before.  That is my preference.  I have a friend who showed up to run her first half in October and only ran once or twice a week and her longest run/walk was nine miles.  She showed up at the start and was like "I probably won't die."  She didn't, but I would have been a nervous wreck no sleep the week before, just imagining all that could go wrong and the high probability that I would fail to run the whole race. 

Today we did not run the Silver Comet 10K.  I am actually organizing a race that runs next Saturday so the idea of being up early today when I have a week of race prep and a 4AM wake up call next Saturday was not on my agenda.  BTW it is so much easier to run in a race than run a race.  I have a whole new appreciation for every person involved in every event I get to run.  I hope all of you do too.  So we waited until the runners cleared the 10K course and headed over for our long run, 8 mile run with a 1/2 mile cool down walk.  It was fun...for me.  Hubby went along with me because he knows I enjoy doing a little longer run.  His preference is about 3 miles.  I can enjoy three miles, but I also like at least one long, meditative run where your body just gets in a rhythm and you don't have to work so hard.  Distance runs is another preference.  A friend of mine on Dailymile was saying she hates 3 mile runs, she is not in the rhythm of running yet.  Her preference is 5 miles for a short run.  We all have preferences when we run and about nearly every aspect of running. 

I have to admit that when I first started running my only preference was that I preferred to finish alive.  It was my official preference to be alive at the end of the run.  When I consistently met that preference, I was able to move on to other things.  Before I ran, when my only connection to running was picking up a gift certificate for my husband every holiday at the running store, I did not get that there were so many different preferences and things to talk about.  I would go into buy a gift certificate and wait 20 minutes while the sales person and the customer in front of me debated the value of stability shoes, ear buds or headphones, minimal or traditional shoes, heel strike or midfoot landing, group run or solo, music or no music, technology or naked, Garmin or Timex, etc., etc.  I thought these people were nuts. 

Now I just think about all the debatable topics in running...and for some I even have a preference.  Never saw that coming.  Also sorry to the folks who were behind us at the running store while I was trying to find the right fuel for my half and hubby was debating the flavors of Bonk Breakers available.