Restarting my running?

Today was a big day in my running life. I registered for the Arnold Pump n Run in March, and the Leadville Marathon. And, my Pikes Peak Finisher’s Booklet arrived in the mail!

The biggest thing about today, though, was that I met with the Running Republic of Boulder. This is a “a USATF-affiliated competitive running club based in Boulder, CO. Coached by Darren De Reuck, this group is serious about training but believes that running should be fun.” They have qualifications to join, but my half-marathon time rendered me eligible. I figured if I was able, I should take advantage of the opportunity.
I’d emailed the Coach and he’d invited me to try out a couple runs with them to see if I was interested in joining. I met up with the group in the parking lot of a rec center in Boulder, not entirely sure what I was getting into. Someone rattled off the workout, it was something like this: warmup, stretch, 6 hill repeats at 45sec, 3×3:00 at 10K pace, 6:00 at HMP, then 5x90sec at 5K pace.”
Huh. Yeah, no big deal….

The group seemed nice, probably most people were in their 30s or 40s with a few outliers. I chatted a bit with folks during the recovery parts of the workout, but the hard parts definitely required all my effort. I can tell you that those paces (10K, HMP, 5K) certainly weren’t MY paces! Even going my own speed I was often at the back of the pack. These were some fast folks! And I loved it… it helped me to push.

Hill Repeats

- these were tough, the path up the hill wasn’t terribly wide so if you got stuck behind someone it was hard to pass them. I was amazed that even going up a hill a few times my watch would beep I was going too fast! I didn’t hit my watch for all of the repeats, but the ones I did get registered paces of 6:14, 6:02, 5:39.

3×3:00 at 10K pace

Honestly, I don’t remember if the target pace was 10K. I just tried to keep up with people. By the last minute of the last repeat, I was STRUGGLING! Though.. now looking at this silly pace, I see that my perceived losing the pack must have meant they were picking up the pace like mad! 6:23, 6:19, 6:12.

6:00 at HMP

Funny how this pace seemed relaxed. I did fade near the end of this, as for a lot of the time my watch was at a 6:48 pace or so. But still.. NOT HMP. It was during this time that the coach rolled up next to me (he was biking along with us doing the timing) and asked how I was doing. I said I was about 25 sec per mile faster than HMP, but it felt all right. I said “it’s hard – I love it!” 6:53 pace

5x90sec at 5K pace

It was really getting dark by this part of the workout and we were running on a poorly lit, wet-leaf covered path. It was a bit thrilling and a bit scary. Although I’d been lagging behind everyone the last two parts of the workout, for some reason I was able to pick it up and be ALMOST a mid-packer with these. Which makes no sense since honestly that 6:53 pace above IS my 5K pace… 6:53 (caught behind someone), 6:19, 6:10, 6:05, 6:15.

And then, the hard work was done and we did about a mile recovery back to our cars. Shew! In all, wee did 10.09 miles in 1:23:35 (8:17 pace overall). My average HR was 161, my max hit 184.

We congregated in the parking lot and people chatted a bit. People were going to go get drinks, but I didn’t have warm clothes so I decided to just head home. People were really nice and I LOVED the workout. The coach let me know where they’d be on Saturday if I wanted to join them, which I will. I got back in my car, floating on cloud nine. It was such a great workout, I loved pushing myself beyond what I think I can do. I’m so excited about where my running can go, and I think that having a group like this will make a huge difference!

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