8 Mile Group Run

This past Saturday I ran my first group run with Houston Fit. Early on I decided that I needed to join a running group in order to reach my marathon goal. I needed the additional motivation, accountability, and pretty much I'm too lazy to organize an 18 mile run.

I was quite nervous last week when I found out the "Fall Marathon Group" had actually started training the 2nd week of May!! This meant I was 2 months behind them! I spoke with one of the coaches and she reassured me that I would be able to run with the fall group but may not be able to do their distance runs initially. After research and talking to my friend Laura (who is pretty darn amazing and has several marathons under her belt now) I decided I would be fine and really 18 weeks was still plenty of time to prepare. It's not like I hadn't been running and since I've already completed two half marathons I felt like I would be fine joining in this group.

I showed up promptly at 5:40am at Memorial Park with my hydration belt in hand. (Note that the next 18 weeks of my life will pretty much revolve around training for this biznass. Yikes. there goes my social life. Ok, lets face, I don't really have one to begin with, so better yet, it gives me an excuse to not be social ;) Just kidding.) I show up, find my group and introduce myself to a few people, mainly the "red" group coaches so I know who to keep up with. ("Red" group is for the 10min+ runners for the marathon).

Off we go! I stayed right behind the coach and another older woman who were chatting the whole time so I got to overhear their conversation while running, keeping my mind off the fact that 1. its 6am and 2. I'm about to run 8 miles (with plenty-o-hills). We're technically not supposed to run with headphones on in running club, although several people still were. I did not want to break the rules on day 1 and get kicked out.

We ran through a nice Memorial neighborhood to the Allen Parkway area doing the "clover leaf" which included several good hills and over passes. We had a set water break at about the 4mile point where I also took some "gu blocks" to fuel up for the remaining run.

All in all everything was great, we kept a good 10:30 pace for the 8 miles.

Next week is a 10 mile hills route! Woo!