Faster or Poor Counter?

I am a terrible counter. It's an embarrassing problem to have for a 30-something-year-old, I admit. I must have missed a good solid 5 months from preschool when we learned to count. I can never remember what lap I am on in the pool. Don't ask me to count cups of flour or sugar when baking. And never give me a the bill at a restaurant and a stack of bills to count. I will always get it wrong. Sure, I can remember tiny details from 1986, spell really hard words, make an mean Excel spreadsheet, or bake a billion biscuits in 12 minutes flat, but counting -- it is my Achilles heel.

On Wednesday at our track workout, we did a 2-mile time trial. We did a similar trial about 14 weeks ago when we started training. Last night, we repeated it to see how much we had improved. 2 miles involves 8 laps around the track, and more importantly, counting to 8. I started off strong, counting 1, 2, 3, 4. I'm half way there. My pace seemed good and consistent for each lap, about 2:15. Then as I started to do the calculations about what my overall time would be, I started to feel unsure if I was on lap 5 or 6. This is how it always goes. I start to doubt the count. And then I forget where I started doubting, and then I'm completely at a loss as to what number I am on.

Using my brilliant coping skills developed after years of being counting-challenged, I just ran and ran and ran until most people in my group stopped. Assuming I wasn't lapped by these folks, which is actually a big assumption, I *probably* ran all 8 laps. I looked at my watch and saw 17:40. My heart sunk. I must have miscounted and only ran 7 laps. 14 weeks ago, I did the 2-miler in 19:40. No way I could have improved that much. Crap. I did get lapped.

But then I started to use my excellent multiplication skills. If I averaged about 2:15 a lap, that's 18 minutes for a 2 miler. . . . So maybe I did do all 8 laps! Wait, not only did I actually do all 8 laps, I did it in less than 18 minutes. And more significantly, I improved my time by 2:00! Woohoo!

So, I officially ran an 8:50/mile, which for me is completely unheard of. I am slow, always have been. For me, breaking the 9 min/mile barrier is the equivalent of breaking the sound barrier or the time-space continuum.

I'm still in a bit of disbelief. I kept the 17:40 on my watch to show Chris. I even took a picture of it. I'll post it later to prove it ;-)

I'm not going to win any races anytime soon, but I'll take what I can get!