I woke up at 5am on Saturday for my first unofficial training run with the TNT group. The run didn't start until 6:30am, but I needed two cups of espresso before heading out the door. The Arizona team has two training groups. One in the East Valley and one in the West Valley. I met with the East Valley group in Gilbert and ran a 4.5 mile loop south on the canal from Lindsay and Guadalupe to Warner, which was the turnaround point. I recorded the route with my Garmin Forerunner 205.
A little background about the Forerunner. I work at a company that designs high-sensitivity GPS receivers that you will find in several consumer products, including the Garmin Forerunner. A group of us from work started hiking the trails at South Mountain in October 2006. We never really knew what trail we were on or how far we went. And since we work for a GPS company, there's no reason for us to get lost hiking at South Mountain! So to support the economy and increase our product sales, I bought the Garmin Forerunner 205 for $250 at REI. Yes, I know one purchase isn't going to send our stock price soaring, but that's how I justified spending over $100 on a luxury item. It's very cool though. I have my Forerunner display set up to show the pace, distance, length of workout and current time. At the end of the day, I upload the data to my computer and can get plots with our distance, elevation gain (really cool when hiking), pace and speed at each position of the workout. I can also upload the data to motionbased.com, which will provide the Google Earth kml file. This helps us to see the trail we hiked and scope out any others we'd like to try next time.
Back to running... There were about 20 walkers/runners in our Team In Training group. We talked about hats, hydration belts, and socks. The best accessory to long distance running is the fuel belt (www.fuelbelt.com). It doesn't bounce as much as the Camelback, and I found out that the Camelback will trap body heat as you run. This isn't much of an issue in the wintertime, but is definitely a problem during the summer months in Phoenix. We also talked about Bodyglide to avoid chafing during running (like from shorts, straps, any place where your body constantly rubs while running). I've never had a problem with chafing in all of the running that I've done, but then again I've never attempted 26 miles. Maybe Bodyglide will help me run faster! Wishful thinking.
I ran with Joshua who is training for the Maui Marathon in September. I had a bit of a muscle twinge in my left hamstring from a previous run, and I was worried how it would go at the group run. It turned out not to be a problem once I warmed up. As suggested by our coach, we tried to keep conversation going throughout the run to increase lung capacity. It seemed to make the time go by a little faster. Our average pace was 10:26min/mi. My goal is to finish the marathon under 4 hours, so I will have to pick up the pace a bit. This was a short run too, it'll be interesting to see if I could keep a 9:30-10min/mi pace during the 10-13mile runs.
I also met Amy, my TNT mentor (and a UNM alumni I would like to add!). She is running in the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon on June 3, 2007. What's interesting about Amy is that she was not a runner before joining the Team In Training group and now she is on her third marathon. It's inspiring to know that you don't have to be running your entire life to be a marathoner. Good luck Amy!
It was a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to the next run!
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