Flying with the LVRR

Tonight was our usual LVRR Group Run.  Akshay showed up, but forgot his running shoes, so he had to go home.  My friend Aaron made an appearance too.  That was good because I missed him the last time he ran with the group.  I was away that week.

With Aaron there, I knew it would be a brisk pace.  I'm glad I give myself over 24 hours between my speedwork on Wednesday and this group run.  In fact, this week it was about 32 hours.  I needed all of that because this run wasn't a cakewalk.

Rob came back from last week.  That was good because Jen had someone to run with for awhile anyway.  Another guy came too, I actually didn't get his name even though I ran with him for 2.5 miles.

Aaron always starts off slow, by his standards anyway.  It is still a decent pace for me.  We chatted for a bit as he got warmed up.  The other guy stuck right with us.  The first mile was certainly fast at a 7:37 pace.  It was nothing I couldn't handle though.

I swallowed a bug in this section after the Robin Hood Bridge.  That is always so uncomfortable.  Even though it was probably gone, it felt like it was caught in my throat.  I ended up spitting a lot.

After about a mile, Aaron took off.  If I really wanted to kill myself, I could probably stay with him for a couple miles, but I'm not looking to push that much after a hard day.  It works out well because he gets me going at a decent clip and I can then sustain it throughout the run.

I ran with the other guy and we chatted a lot.  He is from Berwick, which is home of the Run for the Diamonds race.  It is still my favorite race to do.  They have a great crowd, it is a challenging course and it is cheap.  I'm probably going to run it again this year.  We also ended up talking about other hilly races.

Time flew by.  Before I knew it, we were at the Fireman's Bridge.  This is where the run got tough for me.  The other guy turned off and went over the bridge.  I had to attack the big hill by the Fish Hatchery and I had to do it alone.  This hill is hard enough when running at an easy pace.  Since I was moving at a decent clip, it took a lot out of me.  I was breathing heavy at the top and couldn't fly down the backside like I hoped to.  I needed to cruise down and recover.

Aaron ran a farther segment near the Fish Hatchery.  Because of that, I bumped into him at the Fish Hatchery.  He came across another friend, Tim and we ran behind Tim.  Tim was just finishing up.  Aaron and I kept going.

This time, Aaron didn't fly ahead of me.  He slowed down more to my pace.  He definitely pulled me along a little faster and I was thankful for it.  I hammered up the hills on the backside, but still wasn't killing myself the rest of the time.  The pace was quite fast though.  Having someone pull me along helped, as did the cooler weather.  I worked pretty hard at the end, so I was sweating.

I always love coming down the last hill before the clubhouse.  There is a little over a quarter mile left and I can just open it up and fly.  I had to navigate around some people on the path, but it didn't slow me too much.  By now, I was really pushing it and Aaron was just ahead of me.  I finished up just past the clubhouse and he kept going.  My pace for the last mile was a blistering 6:55.  Not bad for a tough course that beat me up pretty good.

I continue to be thrilled with my progress.  This run was far from easy, but I wouldn't call it difficult either.  It was kind of in between.  My pace was 7:30.  I kept watching it go down and down at the end.  Hopefully it won't be too long before I'll regularly be running 6:55 miles without too much effort.  For now, I'm thrilled where I am at.

This was a good run and it didn't take too much out of me.  I'm probably going to go camping tomorrow at Hickory Run State Park.  If I do that, I'll likely run there tomorrow afternoon.  I've run those trails before and I enjoyed it.  That could make my usual dreadful Friday run much better.  If I go camping, I'll run the Run for the Diamonds course on Saturday, plus add on a couple miles.  I might even push a bit just to get an idea of what I might be able to run in race conditions in November.

As I was leaving the Parkway, I came across a group of deer.  Usually you only see 1, 2 or 3 at the most.  There were 8 there.  Some were young and some were old.  A lot people were stopping to take a look at them.  I usually see a couple around there, but not that many.  It is a good thing I always carry my camera.

5 miles - 37:37 (7:30 pace)