posted by Chris Barber
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This weekend I ran a fun 5K, the Skirt Chasers – Raleigh.  The women start 3 minutes before the men who then have to “chase the skirts.”  I enjoy running these types of local 5Ks because they are a lot of fun and keep me competitive.  This race kept me more competitive than usual because I was chasing down women.  It was a good change though, women are usually the ones chasing me.  I actually have used chasing down women as a motivational technique in a race before.  Seriously.

This past March I ran the Georgia ING half marathon and was late to the start.  I got to the race on time but was using the restroom when I heard the start gun.  I finished what I was doing, ran towards the start line but there were tons of spectators and I couldn’t get to the front group where I needed to be.  I decided I had gotten as far as I would so I jumped in the middle of the crowd to walk toward the start line.  I was sandwiched between old men and Moms.  No offense though, I love Moms, I even have one.  I had my Garmin Forerunner 205 with me but I had forgotten to turn it on at the start.  Also, when crossing the start line I wasn’t paying attention enough to see what the time I was starting after the official start time.  I had no idea what my time was, just what my body remembered my pace should be.  However, although I didn’t know my distance, I was able to track about what my pace was using my Garmin Forerunner.  I had to make sure I kept my pace and pushed myself harder.  There wasn’t any other runners around me that were running the same pace or trying to attain the same time.  I was all alone with a goal to break 1:25.  In order to keep pushing myself I decided I needed to find a motivational technique to keep me at my max pace.  I saw a good looking female in front of me so I told myself I would catch her.  Once I ran past her I looked for another female.  My motivation was that I knew my time was not what it should be if there were females around.  So I made sure I passed her.  I continued this technique until about mile 10 when I ran out of females to catch but I then applied the same principal to males that I thought looked older than me.  This technique worked for me and I still use it when I race.  It was a little more difficult this weekend with the females having a 3 minute head start but I manageg to beat a good portion of them.  Sometimes you need a little more motivation to beat your competition.  Determine your technique and run your maximum pace!

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