JUST BECAUSE

Just because it’s a cut-back week doesn’t mean all my runs have to be easy, right? Heck, with a day off, followed by an easy 5 miler, it was like I had a mini-taper for tonight’s run and I felt great. I met my training group at Macalester College and we ran down Summit Avenue to the East River Road, towards the U of M campus.

We had a nice pack of 4 at the start of the run. Since I’ll probably be referring to these people once or twice a week I might as well introduce them. Jenna is probably the top female runner (other than the Team USA Minnesota women) in the Twin Cities. Last year she ran 2:47 (and 10 seconds) at Grandma’s and 2:50 at TCM (in tough conditions). I first noticed Joyce when she blew by me with a mile to go during a half marathon last February. As I mentioned last week, she ran 2:58 at Grandma’s. Last night I found out she dropped out of TCM then entered a trail marathon 2 weeks later where she fell and broke her foot. Roger used to run for our coach while in college. Now he’s closing in on 30 and trying to get back into racing. Last fall he ran a marathon in California in sub-3:10. Jenna, Joyce and I are going to run Grandma’s again this year, while Roger is heading to Boston.

After a couple of miles we started to do a couple of hill repeats. That combined with someone stopping to tie their shoe, someone stopping to take a leak and someone falling off the pace, the pack soon fell apart. I found myself running by myself for a couple of miles. Luckily we were doing an out-and-back route and I was eventually able to hook up with Jenna and Joyce. On the hill leading up to St. Thomas University we dropped Joyce (probably because she lost 8 weeks of training due to her broken foot). Jenna and I probably ran the last 4 miles together. Of course, that must mean I’m in sub-2:50 shape, right? Actually, it means she was probably going slow for me. In any case it was nice to catch up with her since I hadn’t talked to her since TCM.

We managed to get in 71 minutes. While it’s probably not quite 10 miles, as we used to say in the Navy, “It’s close enough for Government work.” Support our troops!