Chicked on my Long Run

It’s been a while since anyone overtook me on one of my training runs, it’s been even longer since a chick did it. However, on Saturday morning after my long run I found myself resetting my consecutive-days-without-getting-chicked counter back to zero. It happened early on in my twelve miler, which gave me over an hour to reflect on what a failure I was, and also to think up some good excuses for why it happened.

I was right around the 3 mile mark when I heard footsteps behind me and I knew instantly that I was beaten. The chick’s heels never touched the ground as she pranced past me displaying the air of superiority that I usually like to exude. She looked kind of manish, and should have expected that I’d describe her in such a manner regardless of whether or not it was true. She bounced along ahead of me in a singlet and short running shorts, obviously a seasoned runner from the lack of anything resembling body fat. Seriously ladies, you’d have hated her, but it doesn’t matter because I hated her enough for all of us.

My first excuse thought was that she was running at a faster pace because she was only running a mile or two. However, she was wearing a fuel belt that indicated otherwise. Next it occurred to me that she was doing quarter mile intervals and that I’d witness her stop or slow down shortly, but that never happened. Finally I concluded that there were only three possible explanations for her overtaking me:

1. Steroids, and lots of them.
2. She was some type of running cyborg sent here from the future by my future self to motivate me to run faster. I’m clever like that, at least I will be in the future.
3. Some combination of 1 and 2.

It’s that simple. So if you’re a woman and think that you’re faster than me you might want to get a blood test or an x-ray to make sure that you’re not unwittingly on the juice or actually a robot. If both of those come up negative then I hate to tell you this, but you’re a man.

Other than that little snafu, my long run went really well. I was able to push the pace down under 8:50 miles for the last part of the run which was very encouraging, and I felt pretty good. I’m feeling good about my chances for a PR in the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon in 2 weeks, but I’ll have more on that at a later date.