Personal Best

Yesterday was the first 'official' team workout - a 30 minute walk / run. I was a little nervous as I headed to the Y, and was happy to see that there were 6 members of the team there, as well as two of the coaches that I met at the 'meet and greet' last Sunday. I was worried about slowing the team down, because I could tell that I was the most out of shape person there! (Wait, I'm in shape, round's a shape, right?) The coaches told us the plan - the goal of the workout was to try to figure out where we were on the running spectrum and not to worry about speed at this time. We'd follow an 'out-and-back' route along familar Puget Park Drive. I've walked and run along this road before so I thought ok, let's go! So off we went.

The group pretty quickly broke up into two groups - the speedy group, led by the amazing Ron (a more 'advanced' in age marathon runner who reminds me of my Dad) and Mike, a great runner who was tasked with bringing up the rear - with me! So my friend Deborah and I were jogging along, doing ok, running uphill, me breathing hard, Deb seeming to do ok and Mike was chatting away - do you know how hard it is to answer questions when you're gasping for breath? - and before you knew it, 10 minutes had gone by! I needed a break at that point and walked for a few minutes before starting up again. We got to the halfway point, and turned around and my legs were getting heavy but I pushed on. Mike was pacing me and giving me pointers and encouragement and it worked. Pretty soon we were very close to the Y - the finish line, or so I thought - but no, we had to run for 30 minutes. So Mike lead us past the entrance, down to the corner, back up the parking lot and then, finally - we were done! Yay!

The team regrouped and Ron and Mike started reviewing the stats on their heart rate monitor watches. My group (ie Deborah and I) did 2.38 miles (!!!) at about a 13 minute per mile pace. Not record breaking, but pretty darn good for not having done much serious training in the last 6 weeks or so. I felt pretty good!

While we were stretching, the subject of competetivness came up; I brought up a fear of mine, that I would be dragging the team down with my (lack of) speed. I was reassured that this is not a competive sport - the goal is to see what your body can do, and then try to beat your personal best. I thought, well, I don't HAVE a personal best yet...but I will after the race! So that's my goal, to establish my personal best, in more ways than one, at the Danskin Triathlon this year.

Today's workout: 30 minute bike ride. I'm missing this one, and as soon as I figure out how to get my bike downtown, will most likely do my bike riding at lunch time around Lake Union.