Passer vs. Passee

12/31/10

10 miles

1:30:49

9:05 avg pace

I wanted to end 2010 with a good run so I decided to do 10 miles at my old goal marathon pace .  Plus, next week I’ll be doing 13 miles at 9:15 pace for my first long run of training so I wanted to ease myself back into things.

Let’s talk about passing people when running.  I rarely pass anyone (always a passee) but today I was the passer.  My passee was a guy in his mid-40s.  I was coming up on him for awhile and knew I would be passing him eventually.  When I passed, I said a friendly “good morning” to which I received no response.  And no, he wasn’t wearing an iPod.  He heard me.  Guess he didn’t care much for being passed by a girl.  This happened to me another time last May during the end of a 15-miler.  Except this time the guy caught up with me and ran the last 2 miles with me.  He was very nice and we talked about marathon training but he kept picking up the pace.  I glanced at my garmin and saw we were doing an 8:00 minute mile.  I told him I need to slow down a bit since this wasn’t exactly my long run pace.  At the end of the run, he confessed that he hates to get passed by anyone (in his head I’m sure he added “especially by girls”).  Why do guys care so much?  Yes, part of me likes to pass people (male or female).  I’m not being malicious; it just happens so infrequently.  And I could care less when people pass me.  I’ve been passed by 70-year-old men and women during marathons!

Check out Susan’s funny re-cap of being a passer.

Happy New Year!