My first attempt at 8km! Well, we only did 7.4km in the end, but either way, it's seems a lot longer than the 5km I've been regularly plodding out, or the 6km on Wednesday. My body got a little sore towards the end, but not too bad and I've been lucky with little soreness today.
It was quite amusing, because I was walking from where I parked my car to the gym where the session was being held and chatting to another girl who was clearly headed to the same thing... we were talking away and I made the assumption that we were at a similar running level given she looked the same age as me and didn't smack of elite runner, but when they called out for the 22 and 26kers, her hand shot up! Never assume there's a stereotype for a runner. There were a lot of people I hadn't suspected as marathoners, but didn't even look remotely scared at the prospect of doing a half marathon before breakfast.
If I was starting to feel too confident about my running ability, the Sunday session put me in my place. They ran through the list... a dozen 26kers headed off, then 30 or so 22kers after them. Then the 16 and 14kers. And finally the 8kers. One of the run leaders for the 8km group explained that the medium-fast group would be taken out at a 5-5.15 pace and the slow group who are around that "beginner level" would be a 5:30 minute pace. That's faster than my race pace! And despite all of my hard work over the last few months, I'm still a beginner. So be it.
Looking at it positively, I did want the training to be more challenging, and even it's a little out of my league at the moment, it should pull me up to the level of the group. One of the run leaders in charge said there might be scope for a 10km beginners type group, and I'd be happy with that. It's still a step up from a 5km beginner!
My run may or may not have looked something like this:
No comments:
Post a Comment