This morning marked the first Team In Training entire group run. We’re strongly encouraged to make all the Saturday training sessions, so there were probably 100 of us there this morning. They emailed us earlier in the week, since there are so many of us, advising us to pick a group (runners vs. run/walk vs. walk/run vs. walk) before hand and look for that group upon arrival so that we could be matched with other people in our same range. I picked the green group, which was probably the walk/run group.

Here’s my run.
Distance: 4.91 mi
Duration: 1:01′12″
Pace: 12′27″

We met at the Cady Way Trail. It’s been at least ten years since I have been on that trail, being a sedentary person and all, so I was on unfamiliar ground, which I found discouraging; I like to have landmarks to help me gage my progress. I think the group I started with was doing a run three minutes, walk two. I could be wrong about that. I felt like it was run an hour, walk a minute. It was a crazy pace that I could only maintain for one mile. After that, I fell way far behind my group and was alone for a while. Luckily, another woman fell behind from our group, and we did the route together. She had a stop watch, so on the way back to the beginning, we did run one minute, walk three to get us back.

Kids, this run felt torturously slow to me, so I am shocked to see my overall pace was 12′27″. I guess it felt so slow to me because it’s a bit demoralizing to see the group I started with running back to the beginning long before I reached the half way point, and some members of the walking group, who started behind me, passing me. But, really, I only have to race myself. And with Samantha’s help (my new friend), we ended up having a really good pace after all.

I desperately need to buy some accessories this weekend. I cannot be so unprepared for next Saturday. Or for Monday night’s training, for that matter.

It is encouraging to have team mates cheering me on, as I cheered them on.

I’m tired. But certainly not as tired as Bob, who had his second round of chemotherapy yesterday. All I have to do is run, he’s fighting for his life. Go Bob! You can beat this!

Please, donate. Help wage the war against cancer.

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