I Passed EVERYONE on the Running Trail
6:58 am I climbed out of bed, trying not to wake up my girlfriend. It usually doesn’t work, but I try anyway.
As soon as I was out of the room I heard her alarm go off, which meant it was 7.
I quietly got dressed, gave her a kiss on the cheek and was out the door.
The cool, fresh air of an Austin spring morning energetically greeted me.
“Ahhh, ATX springtime, the best time of the year.”
I never really plan my runs beforehand, and I didn’t know where I was going or for how long until I stepped out of the gate.
“Let’s make today’s long trail run.”
The Butler Hike and Bike Trail is an amazing gravel trail that circles Lady Bird Lake, or if you’re an ATX old-timer, Town Lake. I haven’t run it so much because of proximity, but the other day I ended up there, trying out a new route. I knew it was going to be longer than my usual route since the full loop is… I’m not sure, I’ll have to look up the full details… but I think it’s about a 3.something mile loop at it’s shortest, meaning I’d be doing about half that plus the to and from the house.
Last time my estimate was about 5 miles; not so long but long enough for a fresh morning start.
As soon as I hit the trail I felt competitive.
“Ok, that guy has a good pace going, I’m going to catch up to him, but then I need to beat that girl who’s even further ahead.”
Done and done.
“Now that girl up there walking, I need to pass her before she reaches that next open space further up.”
Done.
On and on, I scoped out people further ahead, made assumptions about our race, and set out to win.
No one knew we were racing.
The elderly lady speed walking with headphones had no clue.
The young adult guy with his ripped off sleeveless shirt wasn’t trying to beat me.
In fact, I wasn’t trying to win against them, either.
I was racing myself.
Setting the rules of the game and racing to win against me.
Micro-race after micro-race, I pushed myself a little bit harder, a little bit faster. My competitors were just parameters for my race rules, keeping me in check and giving me the challenge of challenging myself just a littleeee bit more.
I passed everyone and never got passed.
That’s not saying too much because total there were probably only 45 people on the trail this morning, an insanely small number considering the trail sees over 4.5 million people a year.
But you know, ‘Rona life…
Up ahead was the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge, my exit from the trail that would divert me back to the streets.
I sprinted up the stairs with one last challenger casually walking up, just bending the corner to the second platform.
“I need to beat her to the top.”
I did.
Running home, I had no challengers, no competitors, no races.
I pushed myself to keep up the speed, which I think I did, but I had no tangible measurement.
I don’t run with my phone or music, usually, and when there’s no measurements of time and no competitors, who knows how fast I was going?
After running up the biggest West Lynn hill, a fairly steep incline about six blocks long… one final challenger.
“I need to beat him.”
He was maybe 50 yards out as I kicked up the pace.
It was the home stretch, about 4 miles in with less than a quarter-mile to go.
I dodged a massive Great Dane on the sidewalk, pushing to catch up to the definitely new-to-running, middle-aged, slightly overweight and definitely out of shape, phone in the armband, old white t-shirt type of guy.
I blew past him, winning my “pass him before 10th street” race rule I just made up, keeping up the pace until I made it all the way back home.
No one knew they lost because in, fact, they didn’t.
They all won for being out there early on a Friday morning getting their sweat in, earning the weekend’s massively scaled back festivities of probably hardly leaving their ‘Rona homestead.
And I won, too, over and over, challenging myself to go faster, push it a little bit harder, check off that milestone, every little victory at a time.
