Road Training

Met up with the Wednesday Meetup crowd for a run I've never attended before. It started at the Charlotte Running Company, where I needed to check out shoes for my free pair anyways, so I showed up early, put on some Vibrams, liked how they felt, and decided that since I don't actually need a new pair of shoes (2 technical trail, 2 moderate trail, at least 2 road/off road hybrids), I might as well try the new trend, and get a pair of lounging around shoes, if nothing else. As soon as I remember to get the gift certificate from Stephanie, I'm getting them.

As for the run, I wasn't sure what to expect. The previous night's trail running had felt fine, albeit slow, so I decided to push it a little more. Plus, having never run this route, it had a lot of turns, so I wanted to stay with people to avoid getting completely lost. If I had, I would have been able to get back to the start easily, but it's the principle of it all. We started off with about 15 people, various speeds and distances (4, 6 or 8 miles), and I stuck with Kay.

Our first mile was just under 9:00, 8:43, apparently, and I felt fine. Walked for a bit 12 minutes in, just because I had been running at a sub 9 pace for 12 minutes. Started running again, second mile was a 9:02, but still felt good. I was just trying to keep people in my sights, and avoid getting hit by cars, and somehow, even with a 1 minute walk break, I did my third mile in 8:22. Wasn't actually trying to go fast, and definitely could have run harder, but I was debating the distance to run at that point. Thought I was past the 4 mile turn, so figured that would push me to run 6, but when I caught up with Kay, she told me I was wrong. My fourth mile was an 8:35, but that includes waiting at a light for roughly 30 seconds, and then I decided to do a fifth mile simply by running a half mile down East, and then back up. By myself my pace may have slowed a bit, but it was also downhill, then back up at the turn around, so I managed an 8:18 with another minute walk. Really pleased with the results, though I suspect I'll feel it on Thursday morning, so plan to skip the Common Market run and do something on Friday.

Overall, 5.13 miles, 8:30 average, probably the fastest I've ever run that distance. My 5k PR is faster, but also 2 miles shorter. Quite happy with my legs, now I just need to keep this up.