Workout: 5 mi. (first TnT team run)

Time: ~52:00 (40:16 for last 4 miles)

Temp: 25˚F

I’m not normally an early riser, so I dreaded the early wake-up for this morning’s run more than I did the five miles I hoped to complete. I managed the wake-up with only two presses of the snooze button, and was out the door by my target time of 6:30am. On the other side of the door, it was immediately apparent that I was wasting my time dreading the early morning, when what I should have been dreading was the cold.

I haven’t complained about the cold much in previous updates, mainly because I know the worst is yet to come and I don’t want to use up all my whining about the cold when it’s still a relatively balmy 38˚F. I’m a California dude and there’s not a lot of natural insulation on my body, so I’m not a big fan of cold. For several minutes before my car heater finally had a noticeable effect, I didn’t so much shiver as I did stiffly tremor. The tremor finally stopped, and a while later I was able to remove my gloves and warm beanie for the rest of the drive.

My handy driving directions from the ever-helpful Internet estimated the drive time at about 1 hour 15 minutes, but since I wanted to be sure not to be late, I budgeted an hour and half. It only took me an hour to get there, so I was a half hour early. I saw a little group of people standing around looking like they might be Team in Training, so I tremored my way over and asked, “Team in Training?” One of them (the coach, I think) gave me a cheerful yes, and let me know that their little group was just waiting for a couple of late arrivals before starting their 12-mile run (already training for a different event), but I was in the right place. That was reassuring, but now I had a half hour to stand around and enjoy the cold.

I could have retreated to my car, but there were enough people milling about that I didn’t want to miss out on the camaraderie. I milled about looking for little clusters of people I could join without feeling awkward, but I’m not very good at that, and the clustered people seemed to already know each other, so I milled about occasionally smiling at other soloists, all of us too shy to form a new cluster of our own. (It was either shyness, or our jaws had become locked shut by frozen saliva.)

Even without knowing anyone yet, it was a pretty jovial crowd. It was obvious that many people knew each other from doing previous events together, so there was much friendship and laughter in the air. One of the coaches was dressed sanely from the waist up, but on the bottom half he was only wearing thin running shorts. I would have thought he was nuts, except that I don’t think nuts and that kind of cold can co-exist. (Shrinkage, anyone?) It was obvious from the reaction of people who knew him that it wasn’t unusual for him to run in shorts no matter the cold, but he did end up relenting and pulling a pair of running tights over his shorts before the run started. A little later, a woman arrived who was also only wearing shorts, and yelled at him in faux disgust for having reneged on their deal to both wear shorts.

“When’s he going to get to the run?” you’re probably wondering. Well, so was I. The 7:30 group didn’t set off until about 8am, and our group wasn’t much more punctual. I didn’t care about punctuality for punctuality’s sake, but the cold’s a lot easier to take when you get moving and warm up. With so many new people running for the first time, it took awhile to get the new runners up to speed on the sign-in/sign-out procedures (no runner left behind), make sure everyone was wearing a toe tag (emergency info fastened to our shoelaces), and give us a traditional dose of inspiration. Today’s inspiration came from…dang, I forgot her name already… one of the runners who shared her story of having been diagnosed with leukemia when she was a child, and who will be making this her third (I think) event with Team in Training. She talked about the wonderful friendships that the new people can look forward to during this experience, and about how leukemia research (which we’re raising money for) has substantially improved the survival rate for children with leukemia. With her story to put a little extra spring in everyone’s step, we finally set off.

[Now comes the part where I forget, misspell, or possibly make up names of people I just met today...]

Since this was the first run, we were told to go 1-5 miles, choosing whatever distance we felt was appropriate for the shape we were (or weren’t) in. I planned to run all five unless my knee twinged, in which case I would walk some, or cut back on the distance if necessary. There were a lot of us; I didn’t count, but I’d estimate 75 or so people. For the first mile, there wasn’t much spreading out as everyone went pretty slow and just warmed up. For the first bit, I sort of eavesdropped my way into position next to Leah and ???, two women whose pace felt about right to me and who welcomed me into their conversation about being first-timers, how much running experience we had, and other introductory fare. Everyone stopped after the first mile for one of the coaches (or maybe it was one of the mentors) to lead us in a group stretch. After the stretch, I settled into a comfortable pace next to a Noreen and Amanda. (It was nothing against the first two, but they sped up.) Noreen and Amanda are back for more after running in the Marine Corps Marathon with TnT last October. Amanda is one of the team mentors this time around, and I enjoyed listening to both of them talk about their experiences and some funny TnT stories. I talked some, too, but especially by the last mile, I mostly listened because breathing had gotten harder.

For the last mile, I considered dropping back from Amanda and Noreen several times because the pace was getting tough, but frankly, I was enjoying the company too much to slow down unless I really had to. I would have stayed with them until the end, but with maybe a quarter mile to go, I realized I had dropped my beanie about a hundred yards back, so I had to turn around to get it. Even then, though, I think I managed to keep my pace pretty steady. I was by no means aiming for a particular pace or keeping close track of it while I ran today, so I was surprised to discover afterward that after the stretch, I averaged about a 10-minute mile pace, which is closer to my 10K “race pace” than to my usual training pace. What’s more, I ran negative splits! What that means is that I got faster as I went, so my pace went from about 10:30 for the first mile after the stretch, to 9:30 over the last two miles. I really didn’t expect that today, so I guess it goes to show what a difference it makes to run with other people. Another happy result of sorts was that my knee didn’t bother me at all. I think stretching after the first mile helped, so I plan to incorporate that into my routine for solo runs, along with some stretching after I’m done.

Despite my grousing about the early wake-up, the long drive, and the cold, this really was a fun run. Once we got moving, the cold wasn’t a problem, and I can definitely see that training with a team will be more fun than training alone. I’m nervous about the miles ahead and getting into distances well beyond any I’ve ever run before, but with this team, I’m also looking forward to it.