I am not immune to inferiority complexes

The other morning I had a heck of a time getting out of bed.  My muscles were still tender from my 32K weekend run, so a Monday morning “easy run” didn’t seem so easy.  But I laced up and off I went, and I’ll tell you, it was a slog.

Now, I have been running in my little town for nearly 6 years now, so I’ve sort of gotten to know the folks that I see in the mornings, at least in that “the lady with the red coat and coffee cup” or “dude with the really well behaved yellow Lab” kind of way.  You always notice if you see someone in a different spot, or there’s someone unfamiliar.

Of course, this day, of all days, would be the day that I encounter 4 (yes, four!) runners that I have never seen before.  All 4 were skinny, had perfect morning ponytails and really cool pants, and they were fast.  I mean fast. There were two women running together – my route converged with them for a short time before I could see nothing but their backs disappearing in the distance.  We went in separate directions after while – I think; I turned to go around the block by the school, and (I assume) they turned down the hill.

When I finally got to the hill they had (presumably) gone down, I saw another runner coming towards me.  Now, she wasn’t as fast, but to be fair, she was motoring up a really steep hill, and without missing a beat said “Isn’t it nice to finally have light in the morning?” with nary a pant to her breathing, and not a glisten of sweat on her brow – while all I managed was “lovely!”

When I got to the bottom of said hill, the first two ladies were popping out of a side street that I happen to know they’d have to have run a long way to emerge from that direction…in the same amount of time it took me to loop a short block.  As I saw them coming towards me that second time, I was passed by yet another runner – like I was standing still.  In fact, she might have broken the sound barrier because I didn’t even know she was coming until she blew past me.

The pair of ladies and I turned in the same direction again, and as their backs got smaller, again, I wanted to holler “I ran 32K on the weekend! I’m just on a recovery run!  I’m still sore!  Did I mention I ran 32K just two days ago?  That’s 20 miles!” but they were gone.

Probably just as well.  I mean really, that would have caused a scene.  It’s not like they pointed and laughed – they were all quite friendly (except supersonic girl, but in her defense, there were 4 of us converging on the same piece of sidewalk at the same time, and at those speeds, you have time to avoid a crash or say hi, but not both).  In fact, it’s probably downright self-centered of me to think they thought about me for one second longer than it took to say hello.  We were all just runners, out for a morning run.

But just so you know, it was a recovery run, and I had actually run 33K two days before, but I couldn’t convert that to miles in my head.