My home base with the tri club is running with my Tuesday morning group. They are great-- awesome coaches, everyone's super nice, and the pace is good (this is the group I started with last year). A few times this year though I've decided to be a little extra ambitious and run with the Thursday crew (i.e. the super fast people). The time different between the two groups is pretty substantial. I'm basically at/near the front of the pack (when focusing more on running and less on gossip!) on Tuesdays and riding the caboose on Thursdays.
I've gone all over the speed spectrum with running in the past year and (almost) a half, but I think there's something valuable in embracing being last. In any group, someone always comes in last, but if you're coming in last, well, you still beat everyone who's on the couch or hasn't even woken up yet in the morning. Being last is having the chance to catch up to those ahead and knowing that with the constant dedication, one day, you'll break through and catch up. That's kind of how I feel about Thursday run group. Even though they are really fast and I'm at the back every time, it's kind of exciting to know that if I keep it up maybe in a few months or a year, I'll be in the middle of the group and hey one day maybe I'll be up front.
The best part about running though and running with a group is that the competition in the end is always with yourself. Today we did a 2 mile track time trial to check up on our progress. Of course, I came in last for the group, but first for my own purposes! The 2 mile time trial is basically what the club uses to gauge our progress (especially since most of the triathlons we train for only require a 10K run distance).
Last year in January, I'm not sure I could have even run 2 miles in a row. If I could, it was super duper slow. By the end of the season last year (June) I had improved quite a bit and have my 2 mile time trial down to somewhere in the 10:15min/mile range. The fall came around, and I became more serious about running. Then this year I decided to train for the half marathon and by the beginning of tri season (beginning of February) I did the time trial in 8:10min/mile. Now, just this morning, I did it once more at an all time best of 7:31min/mile. A tiny bit of that improvement is probably because today was on a track and in February it was on pavement, but that's still a huge time improvement regardless.
On the jog back to the gym after the time trial today I was talking to one of the coaches about speed. She said to do track workouts, hill repeats (at least 5 times or it's not worth it), and force yourself to do bursts of running faster intermittently in every long run. I think this is what I'm going to try and do more. I'll still keep on long run per week to maintain endurance, but for now, I want to work on speed speed speed.
Stay tuned-- planning on doing a Friday Night 5K tomorrow. Super excited-- it's been ages since the last time I did one of those. I know my time won't be a PR, but looking forward to it. I ran cross country in high school (and then became a slacker, stopped running, and gained weight), but back in the day my PR for 3.1miles was 21:55. Yeah, not happening tomorrow, but dream big!
I've gone all over the speed spectrum with running in the past year and (almost) a half, but I think there's something valuable in embracing being last. In any group, someone always comes in last, but if you're coming in last, well, you still beat everyone who's on the couch or hasn't even woken up yet in the morning. Being last is having the chance to catch up to those ahead and knowing that with the constant dedication, one day, you'll break through and catch up. That's kind of how I feel about Thursday run group. Even though they are really fast and I'm at the back every time, it's kind of exciting to know that if I keep it up maybe in a few months or a year, I'll be in the middle of the group and hey one day maybe I'll be up front.
The best part about running though and running with a group is that the competition in the end is always with yourself. Today we did a 2 mile track time trial to check up on our progress. Of course, I came in last for the group, but first for my own purposes! The 2 mile time trial is basically what the club uses to gauge our progress (especially since most of the triathlons we train for only require a 10K run distance).
Last year in January, I'm not sure I could have even run 2 miles in a row. If I could, it was super duper slow. By the end of the season last year (June) I had improved quite a bit and have my 2 mile time trial down to somewhere in the 10:15min/mile range. The fall came around, and I became more serious about running. Then this year I decided to train for the half marathon and by the beginning of tri season (beginning of February) I did the time trial in 8:10min/mile. Now, just this morning, I did it once more at an all time best of 7:31min/mile. A tiny bit of that improvement is probably because today was on a track and in February it was on pavement, but that's still a huge time improvement regardless.
On the jog back to the gym after the time trial today I was talking to one of the coaches about speed. She said to do track workouts, hill repeats (at least 5 times or it's not worth it), and force yourself to do bursts of running faster intermittently in every long run. I think this is what I'm going to try and do more. I'll still keep on long run per week to maintain endurance, but for now, I want to work on speed speed speed.
Stay tuned-- planning on doing a Friday Night 5K tomorrow. Super excited-- it's been ages since the last time I did one of those. I know my time won't be a PR, but looking forward to it. I ran cross country in high school (and then became a slacker, stopped running, and gained weight), but back in the day my PR for 3.1miles was 21:55. Yeah, not happening tomorrow, but dream big!
Thank you for posting about this!!! I have Thought about joining a running group. I guess I'm scared I'm going to be super slow. I'm going to start trying to do hill repeats too. I am comfortable in my endurance right now. I just want to work on speed. I feel like a turtle. This post was really helpful!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for stopping by and reading my blog :) I'm glad you found this post to be helpful! If you're looking for a running group, you might want to start at your local running store. A lot of specialty running store have one or two nights a week (or maybe even weekends) where they have free fun runs and all levels/speeds are welcome. I know some of the groups in DC even meet for happy hour after running! Also, some running store haves training programs for a pretty reasonable fee that involve a more structured program and coaching. I'm sure some gyms have running clubs too :) Doing more hill repeats will be great-- and after a bunch we'll be flying up those hills like nobody's business!
ReplyDelete