Trust Me – I’m a Doctor

It’s official. I run with bad-asses.

Yup, started the new run group last Thursday and for a brief second this week I felt so good about my new “serious” running career, I considered buying this outfit for our next group run.

I’ll admit, I was intimidated at first. Immediately upon arrival, I saw an old neighbour. She’s definitely nice, but one of those legs-up-to-my-shoulders-no-body-fat runner types. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year, and the first words she uttered were “What are you doing here?”

Not so reassuring.

Did I really look that out of place? I was standing amongst a group of runners, outside a suburban church at 7pm on a Thursday night. I was wearing running shoes and running clothes, my hair was tied up so that it was out of my face and I even made sure I had my Garmin on, for added legitimacy.

Upon reflection, I did feel like the odd box in the sesame street skit. You know the one where they show three pieces of fruit and a cow and ask  “which one of these is not like the others”?

For starters, I was the only one wearing… gasp! a T-shirt (albeit a technical one). It was skin tight tank tops and bra-tops for the others – and that was just the guys. I’ll also admit my muffin top got very lonely. The only other spare tires near that place were out in the parking lot – but I expect none of those even belonged to my group, because they probably all ran there.

All that said – I loved it. The people were super nice, our leader Dr. Steve, an IronMan-triathlete-tall-skinny-super-duper-you’ll-never-be-as-fit-as-me-even-in-your-dreams-kind-of-guy, is kind and inspiring and, what surprised me most? Even though I didn’t so much look the part, I was able to keep up with at least SOME of the others. And I wasn’t face down licking asphalt at the end of the run. Seems that my marathon training wasn’t wasted.

What’s also cool is that Dr. Steve likes to switch things up – he’s not into running huge distances like my former-idol Crazy-Haruki, but prefers running smart, with a specific purpose for each session. His program is very different from others I’ve tried… so I’m expecting different results – on the side of not sucking.

Here’s what I’ve learnt so far:
– Only run 30 seconds a KM slower on your Long Slow Distance runs than you plan to run race day. Anything more is too hard to make up.
– Pick up the speed for the last two KMs of any long run. Your body will never get to practice running through fatigue like that in any other part of your training.
– In some long runs, pick it up to race pace for even longer.
– Even though I’m training for a 21KM half-marathon – Dr. Steve has me running up to 26KM in my training (previous programs only took me to 20). I guess it will get my body used to the distance and 21KM will seem “short” on race-day.
– Most weeks run only 4 times. Occasionally run 5, but that’s the exception not the rule.

So far, I’m inspired – especially since this is the first doctor I’ve been to in a long time that doesn’t own a set of stirrups.

“Relax – this won’t hurt a bit”

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