The "Too Good To Be True" Run

I posted the other day about being signed up for two Half Marathons in the next few weeks and I have been upping my long runs in an effort to get ready. I set out on Saturday in the unfamiliar situation of running blind as CheapRunnerMichelle was getting our defective Nike GPS watches replaced in Chicago. I am a total stat geek and couldn’t bring myself to run totally blind, so I decided to use the Nike+ Running App on my iPhone and I even got to listen to some tunes while running for the first time in…well, a long time.

So I dropped off the kiddies at my parent’s cottage two doors down, popped in the headphones, tucked my iPhone in my back pocket and simply forgot about it. I was off and felt great right away, despite not having a clue what my pace was. I found myself subconsciously checking my naked wrist every so often only to smile and mutter something self-deprecating. I was cruising along listening to some tunes I had no idea even existed on my phone (note to self; create some playlists) when all of a sudden a delightful female voice spoke up over Johnny Cash to inform me that I had just completed 1KM in a time of 4:17, with an average pace of 4:17/km. Alright! I had my stats! Maybe this run wouldn’t be as blind as I had thought. I kept running and found myself putting the miles behind me at a quicker and quicker rate and soon realized I was going to have a great time if I could keep it up. I was enjoying my run, enjoying my music and enjoying the charming woman with her kilometrely (okay I made that word up) updates. I took my gel at 13K as I had planned (Tri Berry GU…wasn’t my favourite) and waited for the anticipated pick-me-up, not that I really felt like I needed it that day.

It was at about the 18K point that I knew my time would be much better than the 1:36 Half I did the previous week, a time I was already happy with. I gave myself a little fist-pump as the sweet voice of Kim Kilometre chimed in with “21KM complete in 1 hour 27 minutes and 6 seconds, average pace 4:09”. I had beat last week’s Half by 8 minutes! When I got back to the cottage I took my iPhone out of my zippered back pocket that it had been hidden away in and noticed a message on the screen saying something about the GPS being spotty but that there was enough data for the run. Okay okay who cares…what were my times?? I was absolutely blown away when I saw my results…6 new records! Fastest Half Marathon (1:27:59), fastest 10K (39:36), fastest 5K (19:06), fastest mile (6:01), longest run (1:45:21) and farthest run (25.4km). I killed it! But wait, farthest run 25.4km? I ran the exact same route last weekend and it was only 23km…what’s going on here? I really wanted to believe that I was this fast…but I knew. This was the “too good to be true” run. Kimmy Kilometre had spurred me on to the exact same time I did last week, a 1:36. Let me be clear, I am very happy with that time and I was happy to duplicate it and feel great doing so…but it somehow felt like a letdown.

So this morning with great sadness I deleted the run from the Nike+ website, saying goodbye to all my fraudulent records. Goodbye 1:27:59, maybe I’ll see you again someday.