Friday, May 28, 2010

Doing It In A Group Can Be Fun

Before the start of the Run Melbourne training group session

I had forgotten what it is like to run with other people. Not in the racing sense which I continue to do frequently, but for training. In all of last year when I did more running than ever before - it was all by myself. Essentially this was so that I could run each and every session according to my plan and pace rather than some group pace.

I used to run with other folks - in fact this used to be 90% of my running - but apart from being less structured it was also in a time "BK" (before kids) when I could run when I wanted to. Now it is just different!

So what a change to hook up with the training groups for the Run Melbourne event in July. It was my first run in over three weeks too as I have been suffering from (yet another) nasty chest infection. [For the record, I am TOTALLY OVER getting sick.] But I ventured down to Federation Square on Tuesday night this week to join the crowd of about 300 people taking part in various sessions and speeds over 6-12k. Of course I decided to do the longest (12k) and fastest (5m/k) session on offer - completely ignoring the fact that whilst the "c.2009 Paul" would cruise through this without raising a sweat, the "c.2010 Paul" might find it a bit harder!



As you can see from the map, it is a bit of Tour of Melbourne which takes in many of the inner city sights and parks. It is lovely at night ... and would be equally so in the daytime when you might be able to see a bit better! The guys taking the group ran at a pace which felt much harder than 5m/k and my suspicion is they were taking a pace inclusive of stops. In any case, it was much more difficult than I would have expected this pace to be for me!


As our group of about 20 circled around the place we regularly crossed paths with others doing different distances. It was really cool seeing so many people out and about.

Three days later and my legs are still a little sore from this run. But gosh it feels good to once again be out on the road! And I have rediscovered what fun it can be to run with others.

5 comments:

  1. Glad you are back running! I was wondering how things are going for you. Sounds like a lot of fun running with others. I used to do all my long runs with a group, but now I rarely do that because of training. I miss it, though!

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  2. what a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with one of the great things about running - great company :) If you can hang around for long enough after RM I'd love to catch up and thank you for all your encouragement!

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  3. That's great Paul. Nice tour of Melbourne - I see they took you up the Anderson St hill - "c.2010 Paul" did pretty well! With a bit of creativity you might be able to mix 'running with people' and 'training'. Just don't run near runners who are sick ;)

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  4. Well done. It looks a great route.

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  5. Thanks Alison, I am sure we'll catch up sooner rather than later. Maybe at RM as you say!

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