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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Group run with MRTT

In an attempt to get my butt back into gear, last night I joined my local Moms Run This Town running group for an "easy three miles" followed by drinks and food stuffs. It sounded like a great way to motivate myself and ease back into a running schedule.

There was a moderately sized crowd that showed up for this, maybe eight women. First thing I realized, I need to get some sort of reflective vest thingie. Everyone else was wearing them. I had my blinky light on my shoe, and there's reflective bits on my hat and Jacket, but that was about it for me and visibility.

We started out at a comfortable pace and I fell in with a couple runners and chatted for a bit about random things. I was actually having a relatively good time. About half a mile in we started going uphill. This almost immediately started slowing me down. I started hanging back with one of the other runners, who almost immediately told me I didn't have to hang back for her. I laughed and told her I was just glad there was some one else in the group that ran closer to my pace.

I made it up that hill, and we chatted on the way down the other side. We settled into a nice comfortable pace for us, and let the rest of the group pull ahead a bit.

Right around two and a half miles, I started having a hard time. We had been keeping a really fast pace, for me, and that combined with my lack of running for the past month was really taking it's toll. Me and the girl I was running with (who I totally forgot to ask for her name) dropped further back from the group as we turned a corner and started heading uphill again.

I knew where we were and knew what was in front of us. A really long grueling hill. When our phones beeped to let us know we'd hit three miles, we were still no where near the restaurant which was our start and end point. We could still see the rest of the pack up the hill ahead of us (they actually kept stopping to wait for us, which while nice made me feel awful for holding them up with my slowness.)

Not too long after the three mile mark, me and the girl I was with called it, and started walking. We would do short bursts of running interspersed with walk breaks. That hill is a beast. An entire mile of up, capped with a quarter mile of steeper up.

We caught up to the group again at the top of the hill (where they had waited for us) and kept pace with them on the down hill back to the restaurant. Turns out we had ran a little over four miles.


I grabbed my wallet from my car and headed inside with the group and some women who had missed
the run but were joining us for drinks. At this point however, I was tired, and more than a little upset with myself for how hard the run had been.

It was also starting to get late, the run had started late (we had met up for the run at 6:30 but waited till about 6:45 for some stragglers), and we had run further and longer than intended, so it was about 7:45 when we were seated. At first I intended on having a drink and some loaded fries, but when I did the math on the time it would take to order, get my food, eat it, and drive home, I decided to duck out before orders were taken. So I finished my glass of water, said my goodbyes and headed home.

I had my dinner and drank another large glass of water with some Mio in it, and watched some TV on the couch. And then, as we were getting ready to head to bed, I had a headache attack. That's pretty much the best way to describe it. One minute I was fine, the next, raging migraine style headache. I have no idea what caused it, but it was a monster. Luckily it was bed time anyways, so a couple of advil, some melatonin, and a back rub later I slept it off.

As much as I'm happy to have gotten the run in, I still feel a little dispirited about how the run went. As nice as everyone at the run was, I still have a hard time socializing and running. I'm sure that'll come though, as I get faster and stronger and more able to keep up with the group.

4 comments:

  1. Man...I wish we lived closer together! My pace is almost dead on with yours. We could be running buddies!

    It sucks to think you are slow, I know it does. But remember the Meg who couldn't run ONE mile let alone FOUR MILES? That Meg is no more. This new Meg may not run as fast as she thinks she should but SHE RUNS.And she runs FOUR MILES. Do you know how far four miles is? It's really, really far, Meg! That's an accomplishment.

    Don't get too down on yourself. You'll find what works for you.

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    1. Thank you for the encouragement. It is sometime hard for me to remember how far I've come. Especially when I'm staring at the rapidly shrinking backs of the rest of the pack :) I tend to be overly (and secretly) competitive, or at least, I want to not be the worst/slowest/last at something. It's something I'm working on!

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  2. Dude, you did great! Sorry about the headache though but still fast or slow, you did it! And 4 miles! Running Meg is right! That really IS quite an accomplishment!

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  3. Bummer on the headache, but great job on the run! I'm a slower runner too, so I feel ya!

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