If you know how far you want to go, and how fast you can travel, you can calculate how long it will take you to get there. For example, a car traveling 60 miles at a pace of a mile a minute, will arrive at the destination in one hour if there are no stops or delays. If you know where you want to go, and establish a reasonable pace, you can determine roughly how long it will take you to get there, if there are no stops or delays. Or, you can account for the stops and delays in your calculation, and you will still know roughly how long it will take to get to your destination.
In life we often try to run at someone else’s pace, rather than running a pace that is comfortable and realistic for us. The adjustments we make trying to keep us with the Joneses often put us further behind rather than ahead. Your life is your race. The most successful runners know to run at a pace they can maintain for the duration of the race. In long distance races, sometimes a pacer will run only the first third of the race setting a faster pace to help the elite runners start faster and finish earlier. Those who are conditioned for the faster pace can maintain it for the duration of the race, but those who are not must slow down or dropout.
Once you know your pace and how long you can maintain it, it will be easier to calculate your daily distance run. Pace is always associated with rhythms and beats. Henry Thoreau once wrote, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.” Step lively, it’s your life, your race, your pace!