Boulder Running Company Group Run

The other day when I was at the Boulder Running Company by my office, I saw that they were starting runs from the store on Saturday mornings. Well it was just the other day that I was reflecting on missing my Columbus running group, so I headed out the door shortly after 7 this morning to head to the store.

I got there, and there were perhaps 6 guys (guys mostly in shorts or cross country apparel) and 2 other women. The guys all seemed to know each other: they either worked at the store or knew the guys who ran it, but the women were ‘drop-ins’ like me. The course was an out-and-back, 5 miles long with every mile marked off. The other women had apparently planned to run the whole 10, which was perfect. Some of the guys were doing shorter distances.

We took off, the guys first and then Susan, Laura and one of the store owners (Scott?) ran together. I’d been hoping for a 8:30-9 min pace, so I was happy we fell into such a pace pretty quickly.

The course was on the sidewalks until almost mile 4, which was a bit odd because there are paths around Greenwood Village. At the end of the run, they said they’re taking suggestions of run routes, so I suspect that will change. We chatted away, and it was great. Susan and Laura are older: 48 and 54, and they’d both run with another group here in town that does track workouts on Tuesday nights. All of us were happy to find a group to run with on Saturday mornings, and it was a great run. Our male companion left us at about 3 miles and we continued t chug along. At the half way point (well, slightly short according to my garmin), there was a table set up with water. We hit that point at exactly an 8:30 pace. However, we all knew that much of the first half was down-hill and we had some climbing to do to get back to the store.

My shoes felt pretty good, although with a couple miles to go I started to develop a blister on the bottom of the arch of my left foot, courtesy of my orthotics. Upon reflection, I realized that my feet were measured for how I stood, not how I run. Therefore any pronation isn’t taken into account when I run, and I was obviously rolling onto the orthotic a bit. Other than that, though, I felt good.

Heading back to the store, we took it a bit slower, and in fact around mile 8 I felt that we were definitely slowing more than I wanted, but I stuck with my newfound running friends. I knew that they’d kept me going through some points where I may have slowed otherwise, and I was glad to have someone to share this with. At the last half mile or so, however, when the store was in sight, I started to pick it up to finish strong.

We coasted into the parking lot and I hit my watch at 9.84 miles. We’d averaged an overall 8:39 pace, so yes slowed pretty dramatically on the second half. However, there were at least 3 pretty substantial hills on the way back: it wasn’t just slowing because of the distance.

Back at the store, they had water, oranges and trail mix for us, and the store owners also gave us each a little gift. Their plan is to have raffles, but we were a small enough group we each received one (I joked that we each won our age group!!) We chatted for a few, and then went on our separate ways. I was in my car by 9:30, happy and content with a good run out of the way. It’s funny how we lose sight of things: for years, my Saturday just “wasn’t right” if it didn’t start with a good group run. I’m happy that I seem to have found that again!