Group Training-night 1

Some of these people are hard core.
Memo to self: If it's raining and cold, wear a hat.
On account of I didn't do this.
Some of the "intermediate runners" (the group I'm in) don't seem so "intermediate" to me. I mean, just because it's been a couple of months since you ran your last freakin' marathon doesn't make you an intermediate runner. I may be exaggerating somewhat. But I was solidly in the middle of the pack so that was good. We all gathered (outside in the parking lot of a bank next to a field and a big school track and field where kids were having lacrosse practice) in the 45 degree weather. At least it was just kind of raining and not a driving rain. At first I was freezing. I had on running tights, cool running pants, a long sleeved tech t shirt, another long sleeved shirt, a jacket, and a vest. Sherry, the woman who is organizing the training, divided us into our beginner, intermediate, and advanced groups. There were about 30 people in both the beginning and intermediate, and 3 advanced. (They looked smug.) Sherry turned the beginner group over to another runner guy from Medved and they began their walk-run program. Sherry's dad took our group. He told us we were going to do an "easy warm-up, about 10 minute run, about a mile) around the perimeter of the field. Sherry joked that she loved mud so we would be getting a little muddy. We took off running. After about 3 minutes, this woman ran up beside me and said she liked my pace and wanted to run with me. I gasped that that would be fine. She had been a runner in high school and college but had gotten out of it and found that she didn't like running without a coach and thought this would be a good way to get back in. I gasped "great." When we finished our warm-up, I was burning up. I trotted over to my car and started shedding clothes. I got down to my sports bra, put a long sleeved shirt back on, and went back and joined the group leaving the other long sleeved shirt, the jacket, and the vest in the car. Then we headed to the track and Sherry told us about the importance of "pacing." We were going to run a series of "splits" which meant one time around the track (basically a quarter mile.) She wanted us to try to do "even splits" where we ran the same pace around the track each time. We were instructed to run our first time around the track and they would call out our finish time and after a short rest, do it again and try to run it at the same pace. Then we'd do it again, then we'd do two laps as a cool down. I ran my first split in 2:48, my second in 2:35 and my third in 2:23. So I obviously need to work on my timing better and push it a bit more in the beginning. After we finished, we stretched. Sherry told us we need to hold our stretches for 45 seconds to 1 minute which is about 3 times as long as I've been holding them so that was a good thing to learn. She'll email us our training schedules today.
I'll keep y'all informed!
Peace,
RevMutha