Spittin' Space

Made it to my first TNT Group Run on Saturday morning. I'm going to spare you another description of how painfully cold the weather has been. In fact, in a scary sort of way, I'm starting to enjoy cold-weather training. After a couple of miles into the 6 mile loop at Stony Creek Metro Park, my bones stopped aching and the cold really wasn't an issue.

I learned that my main issue involves pacing. In addition to a thawing body, the 2 mile marker also pointed out that there are certain groups of people in this program who appear to run at a set pace. The benefit of these group runs is to have others there by your side, pushing you, motivating you, providing support. It also simulates race conditions. This helps, tremendously. Outside of the handful of races I've run, I've never had the opportunity to run in groups of people. Saturday gave me that opportunity. I want to give a special thanks to Long Strides, Pony Tail and Tippy Toes for keeping me from applying the brakes throughout the loop. After nearly an hour of trailing this same group, I got to nick-naming for my own amusement. Right now, my idea of pacing involves keeping the group in front of me within visual distance. As the distances get longer, we'll see how this works out.

I'm also learning that I'm developing a serious habit of spitting while running. This combined with the occassional snot rocket may prove damaging to my group running. I also raided the post run buffet of goodies like a toddler in a candy store. Instead of Sweettarts, jolly ranchers, and Snickers bars, I dove into a whole wheat bagel, banana, and Soy-protein power bar.