pace

noun

1. Pace is the rate of speed or a single step taken when walking.
   1. An example of pace is when change comes slowly.
   2. An example of pace is one step taken.

verb

1. To pace is defined as to repeatedly walk the same path over and over or to regulate the progress of something.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my pace recently.   Probably because if you remember, I’ve recently had to slow it down.   Not really by my choice and not really because I’m Speedy Gonzales.   It’s just something I was told to do by running coach.  I’m getting better at it and I’ve been spending a chunk of my runs making sure to stay on pace.  I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’ve seen some improvement in just the few runs I’ve done already.

Runner’s spend A LOT of time thinking, talking, and trying to improve our pace.    That being said, very rarely do we try to master our pace (or maybe it’s just me) and usually never spend time trying to slow it down.    It’s always about going faster, faster, faster.   Now it’s about putting on the breaks a bit.   Strange.

Often when talking to another runner and sometimes even a non runner, the question of our pace usually comes up.   What’s your normal pace?   Do you want to run your pace or mine?  I think all our focus on improving our pace sometimes makes us forget that faster isn’t always better.    Also faster is all relative.   What is lightening fast to me, would be a snails pace to a front of the Pack runner.  And what is slow to me is fast to another runner.   We need to remember the story of the Tortoise and the hare to remind ourselves that it’s ok not to run fast all the time.