Journey to Kona Day 53: Pacing

I'm reading Alex Hutchinson's book Endure.  I'm sure that I'll be writing a lot about it, but since I'm at the beginning, I'll start with the concept of pacing. We all are familiar with the experience of starting a race too fast.  Whether it's a marathon or the 100 meter dash, if you start too fast, your final time suffers.  I've always struggled with this in 5K's.  It's a significant challenge in an ironman as well, or an ultra event for that matter.  How about life?  How about work?  I have a tendency to give everything I do 100% effort.  Whether it's a phone call or a meeting, I can feel the adrenaline surging through my body.  Today was a great example.  I'm tired from the last week and I had a few phone calls.  All were very positive, and in some ways too positive.  I put too much energy into these calls and by 6pm I was exhausted.  This has been my pattern for most of my life.  I go all out all day at work, and come home to only feeling up to laying on the couch.  Pacing is not just for a 5K, it's for life as well.

All roads seem to lead back to meditation as I contemplate what else to say about this topic.  I've already made the important points.  If you don't pace yourself, you will ultimately not accomplish as much as if you had paced yourself.  This is a fact. It's hard to see, however, just as it's hard to understand why running a 6:30 mile during the first mile of a 5K is bad, especially if that ends up being the fastest mile you run during the race.  Going too hard at the beginning of the ironman marathon will invariably lead to walking slowly at the end, losing hours rather than minutes!  I've trained myself not to do this.  Most of the training has to do with self awareness.  A watch can help, especially if you see that your pace is too fast.  Unfortunately, I don't think that there's a Garmin for "life," although the concept of heart rate variability may be a potential option!

With the concept of pacing in mind, it's only 8:40 pm and I'm going to go to bed.  If I'd paced myself better today, I'd probably be able to stay up longer!