“Run Faster”

When I was 12 or so, I started babysitting for a neighbor who worked fully remote but had an energetic five year old. Three days a week that summer, I would walk down the street and hang out with her kid so she could have uninterrupted work time.

The details are fuzzy, but at some point, I remember the mom telling me that the boy knew I was into running and told his mom he wanted to learn to run with me. So, we went to the cul de sac to “practice running” and he took off like a race.

Competitive as I may be, I wasn’t going to smoke a 5-year-old. So I jogged a bit behind while he yelled at me to run faster.

“Not all running is fast running,” I tried to explain to him. (His mom had explicitly stated that the child had no concept of pace and that maybe I could teach him.) And so I tried to explain that sometimes when you run you move slower than your absolute sprint because you are going to run for a longer period of time and you need to pace yourself.

Of course this did not land. He was 5-years-old and he wanted to run down the street as fast as he could.

Silly 5-year-old, I think back as I reflect on the memory. Doesn’t know how to pace himself.

And then I think about myself as an adult and how I often think I can just sprint through things as fast as I can as if maximum effort and exertion can be maintained at all times. Reader, it can not.

And so silly 32-year-old. Perhaps a reminder that more than just running requires steadiness. Perhaps a reminder to slow down sometimes. Perhaps a reminder to set my own pace.