Who Do You Run With?

I got hit with a new mantra this morning: "Who do you run with?" Wierd, I know, but it's been on my mind on and off over the past couple of years, and lately, the whole concept of running alone vs. being able to run with others (i.e. keeping UP with others!) has really been weighing on my mind lately! Right now, the answer to the question is, "Not much of anyone." George ran/walked with me last Saturday, but not without some remarks like, "I need to slow down today anyway because it's hot!" and "I need to practice running slower anyway." Sheesh! (Yes, he got a couple of dirty looks!!)

Add to that the fact that the new season for the local Galloway training group is about to start up, and George has agreed to be one of the leaders of the 14:00/15:00 pace group. I haven't decided what to do about my own participation in the new running season yet. It's a tough call. I've joined the group for the past two years, and have had difficulty keeping up with the slowest pace group (the 14:00/15:00 group that George is going to lead) part of the way through each season. Looking at everyone's backends got old after a while, but even with my slowness for two years running, I've managed to complete a half marathon and a full marathon, AND meet a ton of interesting people along the way!

Meanwhile, my performance in last year's season inspired me to hire a running coach, who I've been working with since December, soon after the Galloway season finished. We've been working on building my base pretty slowly, and she's introduced speedwork and strength training to my regimen. She does have me do the run/walk/run like the Galloway program does, but I'm doing my intervals by varied distances rather than a set time for run/walk, like 1:1 or 2:1, and it seems to be working for me so far.

So, with my new running program, I wonder how...and if... I could merge it with the upcoming Galloway season. It probably comes closet to meeting my training pace needs (I think!), as there aren't any other local running groups at my current pace, that I know of. But, I wonder if I could get away with running and walking my distance intervals while their timers are going off every minute. I don't know.

Meanwhile, I had another gym workout this morning, and I was pretty inspired. I did 10:08 minutes of walking (0.56 miles) on the treadmill, and followed it with 40:01 minutes (3.12 miles) on the elliptical machine. Afterward, I did some good stretching, then I did some core work (including 60 ab crunches on the exercise ball!) and some upper body strength training. I went up to 10 lb. dumbbells this morning, and by the time I got to the shoulder presses  with those 10 pounders, my form was pretty sloppy. I need to keep working on all of that.

Who do I run with? Not much of anyone right now, whether in training or in road races. While I have had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with some really nice back-of-the-packers over the past few years, I'm looking forward to seeing where my training (and my new mantra!) will take me.