That's fine. I've accepted my lack of velocity ever since I "ran" a mile for gym class at age 10 and clocked in at a robust 17:18. Granted, this is mostly due to the fact that I walked the entire thing with my friend Matt, but over the 17 years that have passed since I have not shown the predilection nor the aptitude for learning how to run one faster than that. And that's ok.
Of course, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I had, in fact, gotten faster. In high school when I "played" football -- there's a reason "played" is in quotes -- I ran a timed mile in 8:30, though I did weigh significantly more at the time. While I didn't time myself at any point, I did begin to run on a regular basis in college, sometimes as many as seven days a week, usually at a fair brisk pace and never indoors. Given that I went to school near Chicago, this was not a smart idea for approximately 11.5 months out of the year.
If you'd ever like to know what lake-effect snow in your face feels like in -20-degree weather, I'm happy to tell you. It isn't good.
But I never ran races. Never. I was not one of those people who trained for road races and became obsessed with collecting bibs, breaking their PRs or measuring my splits. In fact, I had never run a race before in my entire life, and while the idea of running a marathon was always an athletic achievement I had considered striving for, it's become extremely clear to me over the years that I'm far more interested in telling people I ran a marathon after the fact than I am in actually doing it. After all, why would I want to duplicate a feat that killed the first person to ever accomplish it? Seems somewhat counterintuitive when applied to my general goal of staying alive.
