First Group Run

This morning I had my first group run with Team in Training. It was awesome. We did a two mile run. That's a little less than what I usually do on the treadmill, but it's a whole different world outside, because outside includes (1) hills and (2) temperatures of 25˚F (-4˚C). Now, that may not seem very cold to some folks who live up north; but I am a southern girl (reverse that concept if you're one of my Brazilian friends!). If the temperature drops below around 67˚F (19˚C), I'm putting on a jacket.

The cold air was pretty hard on my lungs at first, but it got easier as my body warmed up. In fact, abuout three-quarters of the way through, I had to take off my long-sleeved overshirt (good thing I wore layers!). The really tough thing was not being able to control the hills.

On the treadmill, if I set the incline to a hill, I can reduce it when it starts to get too tough; but Earth doesn't have an incline button. So, I had to take a walk break about halfway up most of the hills in today's run. One of the team captains said that today's run was actually really tough for a first run, so no one should feel bad about taking walk breaks.

I feel really good about my run today. I kept a good running pace during all of the flats and declines, and ran up about half of all the hills. What really surprised me was how short the run seemed. Had it been flatter, I think I could have run the entire distance with no walking, and gone another mile easily. I know that as I continue to train, the hills are going to become more manageable (they'll NEVER be easy).