Fleet Feet Running Group 3.5 Miles -- 11/11/10

Man, it is so nice to run with a group.  It has rained the last two Thursdays, which led me to skip the Thursday night running group that Runs out of Fleet Feet.  However, you couldn't have asked for a better day today, and after a really boring day at work because everyone in my office is a conference, I couldn't wait to go for a run.  Hiro has been working a ton of overtime, which led her to stay home and play with our new kitten -- Basil.  I got lucky that my new Raiders toboggan (knit cap for some people) arrived today, so I was able to wear it on my run and to keep warm.   We had a nice warm day, but the temperature was dropping rapidly.

The host of the running group

I think that there were around 10 runners in tonight's group, and one of the ladies had read this here blog.  She had participated in the Free to Breathe Whatever K as well and had found my blog post about the event.  She indicated that she agreed with basically everything that I wrote about it.  She also pointed out that none of the course was marked.  I remembered seeing cones in the street, but she pointed out that they were unrelated to the course.  After thinking about it for some time I realized that she was right.  I think that the cones were there to either indicate parking or to steer street traffic off of the course.  I remember that portion of the course was on a two lane road, which one the lanes remained open to cars.  We swapped stories about the e-mails we received about it from the organizers, which I'll detail in a later post.  It was nice to see that I was not the only person irritated by this.  Also, I was wondering how some of the more competitive runners felt about the race, and I came across this post by Pat Price, who finished the race 12th: PWP Running.  I was really interested to see the prospective of someone of his caliber because I knew that this was a points race for some people.

Anyway, after chatting for a while the group left for a 3.5 mile run down Ridge Road.  Most of the group was planning to run at around a 9 minute mile pace with some people doing intervals.  I joined the group that was not.  The pace was slower than what I have been running of late, but was exactly what I needed because I have a bad habit of getting amped up at the start of races and running too fast, which would be a bad idea this weekend at my first 10k.  So, I enjoyed the slower pace chatting with the other runners in the group and enjoying the run.  However, my legs felt too good and really want to open things up some, so at the turn I followed suite when one of the other runners pulled away and I opened it up also.  My legs felt great and the night air was nice and cool.  I ran really strong on my way back the the store.  When I returned to Fleet Feet we all got back together and chatted about: running shoes, places to run, Garmins, Races, Running gear, etc.  Basicly all the stuff that Hiro and other friends humor me about when I try to talk about with them.

I know that both Jeri and Irene have made comments that they should look for running groups in their areas, and I can't recommend  it strongly enough!  It is just so nice to be around people who get it and are just as geeked out on running as you.