Monday, May 24, 2010

Sunday AM, Running with a New Group of Friends

Sabbath from the Sabbath



This last week has been busy, the Mrs. has had medical issues ( she's back home now and doing much better!) and work has been turned up a notch. Running last week was held to a minimum and I could feel it in my head. Stress was starting to take over. I rarely miss church on Sunday, but with the week being so full I thought to pull a "vacation day".

I knew my day off needed to include running, that was the whole point of the day; Relax, stretch the legs out and do some serious endorphin generation. The question was where to run? My favorite running store, The Balanced Athlete, has free group runs many times a week. One of these runs just happens to fall on Sunday morning. I woke up early Sunday and decided to see if running with a group is different from running solo.

I'm kind of apprehensive about group runs as I'm not too competitive but I don't want to hold the group back - well, it turns out I needn't be concerned. The group runs are comprised of folks with many different types of runners, slow, fast, short distance, long haul. No matter the ability, all are welcome.

I had not logged a run Friday or Saturday, I was itching to put some miles on. I wanted to stay with the group distance wise. It turns out we were spread apart a lot. I was not the longest but I was not the shortest either, I was pretty close to the slowest, although this was definitely NOT a MAF run.



The heart rate was high, but maintainable, I did not hydrate properly, Eric Sach admonished "Next time bring a bottle, and if the run is over an hour a gel would help out to, it will make the run more enjoyable". Word to the wise is sufficient! But all in all it was enjoyable, and much needed. The run ended back at the store and we all went across the street to Cafe Felice for various morning beverages. A great morning meeting new people and creating a goodly quantity of endorphins!