Wake Up and Run at an Ambitious Pace

I woke early on Friday to go for a run. From 5am onwards people start to gather and at around 5:15 there is a quick warmup and at 05:30 the run begins. The run is without a timer so this isn’t a race. It is a persona challenge instead.

I was right at the front of the race, with the fastest of people, running at 3-4 minutes per kilometre. When I noticed I slowed down to a pace that I thought would be sustainable for 5km. As a result some people overtook me and I resisted the desire to speed up.

I noticed people either breathing hard, or visibly struggling to keep their pace. I also saw that people chose the steeper shortcut path through the forest rather than the route that we were meant to take. I zig zagged and I had a micro break several times, as those taking the short cut intercepted my path.

I follow the zig zags for two reasons. The first is that the gradient is less steep but also because if we cut corners we contribute to providing a straight line for water to run down the slope. Zig zags aim to stop erosion from having an easy path straight down the hill.

When you run in a small group you have two to three clusters of people. Some are running fast, some are running comfortably, and some are running slower, or walking. This means that you have to commit to a certain effort level to keep up. You might be running at a pace that is slower than you would run if you could run at your own pace.

That’s why these runs are interesting. You’re running with a group, but you’re also on a solo run, so you run at your pace, rather than that of others. If you keep up with someone else, then that’s nice, but if you overtake, or get overtaken, it doesn’t matter, because you’re running against yourself. Specifically, you’re running against yourself from the year before, and the year before that. It’s an opportunity to see how you have progressed over the last twelve months.

At one point I had to stop, to re-tie my shoelace so my time would have been affected by that. My time could have been 2o or more seconds faster.

As I said before, I wasn’t trying to be fast. I was trying to run comfortably, faster than usual. The fact that I barely coughed at the end is a testament to this.

If we link this back to the Toblerone Trail run then we see how running in a small fast group can push us to run too fast and hard, whereas running at a larger social event can allow us to run at a sustainable pace. With the trail run I exhausted myself. With this social run I ended feeling fresh.

And Finally, waking early is not for everyone. Some people prefer to sleep, and others are slower to wake up, and perform worse. Through shift work I got used to getting up at strange times, so waking to run at 05:30 is comfortable, especially given that I already run at 6am every Friday in Morges. Five thirty is just a little earlier.