FVM Group Training Run #1 Recap

Today marked the first official training week for the Fox Valley marathon.

Training:

I managed to get in two 2 mile runs on the dreadmill this week, 2 strength workouts, and 5/7 days of core, and did my “long” run this morning with a nice and easy five miler.

The day started off with an extra snooze, ok, two…My hubby got home from his training yesterday so I was too excited to sleep…had probably one too many glasses of wine before an early morning run, but hey, I’d get through it! LOL!

As soon as I rolled out of bed and got dressed I was welcomed by a lovely text from one of my favorite people, Andrea #DOEPICSHIT…”Running is dumb.” We both agreed we’d never love getting up early in the morning to run, but 30 minutes later we were tiredly hugging in the Geneva Running Outfitters parking lot. “Let’s do this!”

#doepicshit The original Epic lady. I felt honored to run with her!

I was super excited to see Karen from Trading in my Heels but bummed we forgot to take a photo! I was also blessed to see all my awesome running buddies who I don’t get to see nearly as often as I’d like to!

The weather was already creeping near what I call HOT and it was only 6:30 am, but we grouped up and took off in staggered groups by pace. This was my first time as an official pacer, so I was a bit nervous. I was blessed with a smaller group of seven runners, half of which split off because they were training for the full marathon. (yes, I already have the full marathon itch, that I will touch on later in this post-lol).

Thankfully these trails were ‘home’ to me, a place I have spent many hours, laughed, cried, and focused my energy and strength on self-improvement over the last 2 years. And here I am…a pacer! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?? Last year I couldn’t hold pace to save my life, let alone lead a group of runners to run the same pace. But as we finished off mile one, I realized it wasn’t a matter of “could I do this?” I WAS DOING IT!

We ran, chatted, and got to know each other. I had two seasoned full marathoners, a brand new half marathoner, my running friends Ami and Andrea, a runner who met up with us mid-way, and a runner I had met last year during the training runs. I was feeling quite strong, and our first two miles were 10:35 and 10:30 respectively.

We hit the water stop/turn around point at the 2.5 mile mark and stopped quickly to drink and wave our two marathoners and stragglers goodbye and good luck as we turned around. The temperature was (or at least felt like) it was rising quickly, and we all were trying to stay motivated. I would call out as we hit each mile, and we all continued to chat and get to know each other. Miles 3 and 4 clocked in at 10:24 and 10:13 respectively. Darn there I started trying to pick up speed, and we had to slow it down just a touch. With the last mile to go we held strong, yet the dreaded last 2 blocks of HILLS were rough indeed.

Photo thanks to Fox Valley Marathon

But we made it, and our last mile registered at 10:24. YAHOO! We rocked it, and I am so proud of my group.

We were lucky enough to be welcomed by the Fox Valley Marathon crew with freezie pops, cookies, and yummy hydration drinks. Life was good.

With that, I am now toying (again) with the idea of training for the FULL marathon. I can either do my long runs during the week in the evening so I can still do the ½ training runs with FVM group, or I can run added miles after the training runs. I have a lot to think about, and not a lot of time to do it!

Rock on, Movers!