Piecing it all together

Last week, I was busy packing in preparation for my move and only managed to run once during the week. This left me feeling very nervous about the upcoming 8 mile run. It turned out the nerves were for nothing, because it was a rather uneventful run. 

I think I mentioned before that my entire group (14 min) defected to other groups. I migrated to the 13:30 group and everyone else joined the 14:30 group. Now seems like a good time to introduce my pace group - Ryan Hall. I like to think of us as one happy patchwork quilt - connected by a common goal.

Amanda - pace group leader, and my close friend. She leads the pack, sets the pace and keeps track of our run:walk intervals. Raising her hand, she gives us the final 5 second count of each interval. Choosing not to do this, once, led to an overwhelming uproar among the group. This past run, she also provided energy bean/block samples for the group. 

"Speedy" - veteran H.S. sprinter. She likes to get in a comfortable stride with Amanda at the front of the group and then they're off! Thankfully, she wears a florescent pink jacket that can be seen a mile away, so we always know where to find her. 

"Cheeks" - runs with Cameron during the week, (4-6 miles x 3 times!) She's also a proud mother of a 13 yr old boy and can be identified by her prominent cheeks. 

"Legs" - the lone male of our group. He's all legs. Running along side him, I literally take 2 steps for every one of his. Unfortunately, knee pain has been slowing him down. 

"Dreads" - she's still running in long baggy lightweight cargo pants... and possibly Birkenstocks. She was the first to take the plunge into cutting off the sleeves of the AIDS Marathon training shirt. Unfortunately, she's also being plagued by knee pain. 

Neesha - proud mother of a 3 yr old boy, she doesn't talk much, but appears to effortlessly keep plodding along. 

Kathy - our oldest pace group member. She's in her 50s and works for the Lutheran Church. We spent a lot of time talking this past week about a book I'm reading, and landscape architecture.

Me - the designated driver. I keep track of our time for each mile and make sure we stay at a conversational pace by keeping the conversation going... because I have the Gift of Gab. I also make sure nobody gets lost at the back of the pack and yell when our fearless leader gets going just a little too fast. 

So far, we've kept our group together on every run. Sometimes we run a little slower than pace, but most importantly we're covering the distance. And finishing as a unit.