Check in

Checking in on me, on my friends, my mom, aunt and best running buddies. I've been doing a lot of it these last few weeks. A friend told the hubby that she was jealous of my social life. It only took me 32 years to get one so I'm going to live it up.

I have been indulging in too much fun this Summer! Oh my goodness! Last weekend my friend Good Neighbor and I were scheduled to crew at the AWBC SF. This is my 7th walk participation and her 3rd. You could call us veterans! My friend V had told me at softball a few weeks before that Paul McCartney was going to be at AT&T Park the weekend that we were going. I not only jumped at it, adding her too but asked Mom and Aunt Sandy to join us. They saw the Beatles in '65! Then we added going to see Wicked to already exhausting weekend too! It was definitely a whirl wind weekend, literally no sleep and no running but I made up for it with all the heavy lifting (cross training right?) of boxes of food and moving tables and such. We ate the most amazing food including rabbit! That was an amazing weekend!

I jumped right back on the horse though and headed to speed training on Tuesday. Thankfully it was only in the 90's and not in the triple digits like originally forcasted. We jogged over to the HS track and did another 1/2 mile warm up (about 1.1miles total). We always do plyometrics with group training. I moan and grown but I see how it works and I do them. Staying healthy and injury free means a lot more to me now. We did intervals of 3 min hard 2 easy x5 for a good 25 minute workout. I made it through 1 and 2 too fast and bailed 2 minutes into the 3rd set. Grrr... I looked at my times during the 2 easy and realized that although they looked slow on the screen my body was not ready for that type of speed so I adjusted for the last two sets. Cooled down back to the shop for a total of 4.25 miles

I did 2 easy on the dreadmill Wednesday
I did 3.6 miles walking briskly Thursday with a 1/2 mile jog warm up (my hips felt especially tight so I walked and stretched well instead of running)
I did 3 easy on Friday on the dreadmill again


Saturday is group run day again and we were scheduled for 5.5miles. I took off and did warm up and plyos with the group. When I headed out on our trail run my watch wouldn't start. I let everyone go by then headed out after them with a working watch. My plan was to go out easy and say hello or hang out and talk with each runner or group until I hit my comfortable pace (found Sarah V), chill there for a while then push the last mile back. It was so nice to say hello or talk to everyone. I got to meet some new people and reconnected with others. It was the farthest I had been since I started running again. I felt good the entire way. Looking back at my ridiculously slow (for me) paces I can understand why but I had such an amazing time. This is what running in a group is supposed to be like, this is why it makes me happy.

Do you pull energy from friends and fellow runners when you feel uninspired? Or do you prefer to find it out alone on the trail or the road?