This weekend the Leadville guys(John and Rick) were out of town so we organized our own run today. I sent out some emails after figuring out a few details with Katie and Chad and hoped for the best. We met over at Starbucks and was very happy to see a nice group of people show up at 5:30 am on their weekend and Spring Break to join us for a run. That is dedication. At 5:30 we headed out in of the largest groups we have had for a long run – Chad, Katie, Jane, Jay, John, Josiah, Phil, Anne, and myself. 9 people out Living Uncommon. We ran downhill as navigated some road to make our way to the river running through the East Village. It was good to mix up our regular run routes and run some new roads.
As we made our way to the Arsenal Bridge we decided to change our intended path and go bridge to bridge, but once we jumped on the bridge we realized the bridge was open to go all the way across. You will notice a slower time on mile 4 and that was our turn around getting everyone on track with our planning mistake. It was not a big deal, but next time perhaps we should look ahead and be sure the bridge is passable.
We made our way to our halfway point in 45:27. That was a good pace. I was not planning on running too fast, but we started off at a good pace due to running downhill and it just took off from there. We made sure everyone made it and we headed back. We took off and made some good time.
We really picked up the pace on the run back. The great thing was that it felt nice and smooth. I did not feel like I pushing my limits. I felt really good. As we made our way up the Middle Road hill I thought my heart was going to shoot out of my chest, but it was good push. As Byrne always says this is a Character Builder and this hill is a good one. We ascended the top of the hill and I tried to calm my breathing and finish the run strong and was able to do so. We ended up cutting off 6 minutes on the way back. That is a great negative split. I was very happy and the 10 miles seemed like nothing. We were talking about how it was not that long ago that our workouts were 3-4 miles and here we are running 10 miles and it feels good.
It was a great morning and a great run. It was awesome to see Josiah join us. He was a great source of motivation for during my first marathon last fall and without him helping me along I am not sure I would have made my goal of under 4 hours. He ran well today as he told me it was a faster pace than he has ran in a while.
After everyone made it back we headed indoors for some coffee. I like this part best as we just take the time to not only train, but to take a few minutes to shoot the breeze and get to know each other a little bit better. I think this helps with the training. As we get to know each other more and more it helps us stay motivated to showing up and helping each other feeling more comfortable with pushing ourselves beyond our own limits of our mind. Being that we had some new people join us – Anne and Josiah and Jay for a long run it is nice to take time to get to know them.
After some coffee talk I grabbed the donuts for “the kids”. I did sneak in some tasty pastries, but the kids were excited to have donuts. I dread the day I go for a long run and forget donuts.
I hope everyone has a great week. I head for vacation tomorrow and hope to get some miles in the water and along the water, but that may not happen. I am treating this week as a rest week as I have not taken a day off since February 4th. It is important to rest and I must give the body time to recover. I still have two bike rides to get in before leaving in addition to the extensive To Do list that was created by Amanda this morning.
Good luck training. Good luck to everyone running the 5K next weekend. I look forward to coming back and seeing some amazing times. GETTING IT DONE! is in effect and we took care of things this morning.
I had fun today, hopefully this is the start of many!