• It’s a matter of perspective •
[1½ MIN READ]
When the team lead asks a member to deliver, one does, right? Especially if the team member likes the lead. So when Lead says ‘That deadline that you were targeting? It just got moved up’, you get to delivering more quickly.
Forbidden Drive at 7:30 on Saturday morning with the usual SRC-ers was shy of runners because 6 of us were getting familiar with the official Philadelphia Marathon route by running it. Though we didn’t do the whole thing, we did do versions of 14, 17, and 20 miles.
Team member Lynette did her version by completing her first 14 this training cycle; and that with a 4-mile jump from her previous long run, 2 weeks before. Caiter did 17 by turning back on Kelly Drive. A.A.Ron, Rob Ray, and Thaddeus did 20 by turning back shy of Manayunk.
I planned to stick with Lynette for her 14 — do professional mentoring, so to speak — and add on out-and-back for my own 20. I was trailing the other 3 20-milers when A.A.Ron called me: “Wherever you are, it’s a good time to return. People have things to do back home still.” When the team lead calls, you deliver. I immediately turned back and ratcheted up the pace. Negative-split conditioning kicked in and I made it back in impressive time, clocking an increasingly brisk pace over each segment of my return for the fastest pacing of the entire distance. And since A.A.Ron happened to reach me just as I was hitting my target, I got my 20 also.
As we debriefed post-run, it turned out that Rob had the “things to do” and made A.A.Ron do the calling to me. So, it was the VP getting the team lead to light a fire under the last team member. I would have delivered regardless of whether I like A.A. Ron — or Rob Ray, for that matter — but I gotta say, it seemed to make the effort easier: We made the delivery in excellent time.
–CtCloser (Calvinthe) #negativesplitorpositivesplat #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Text by Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-published: Facebook Shawmont Running Club (ZY Weekly Newsletter 9/27/25), Shawmont Running Club website, Ruminations by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Rumination with added caption
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