Team In Training Weeks 1, 2, 3 and pseudo 4

Ok, so I know this is slightly overdue, but I'm a busy girl, you know?

I've now had my first 4 weeks of training with my new Team, and it seems to be going well. I'm starting to get to know people in my pace group and oddly enough, most of us are moms! I like it.

The first week was simply a pace assessment. Based on this, our coach split us up into groups. I'm proud to say that I paced at about 10 minute miles. For competitive runners, this would be considered slow, but for this mother of 3, who is just getting back into my groove, I'll take it.

Weeks 2 & 3 introduced me to a new type of running - intervals. I thought they were going to have us do intervals of jog/run, but it's actually run/walk. So we're doing 3 minutes of running and 1 minute of active walking. I wasn't thrilled about this, since I've always had the goal of running the whole thing and saw walking as a sort of 'failure,' but I've repositioned by mindset to realize that I've already met the goal of running a half marathon, so now I need to focus my goal on why I'm doing this run. I'm doing this one to be a part of a greater team, that is training for a greater purpose than just speed or distance. And I'm actually enjoying the runs. Because I'm used to running the whole time, I feel absolutely great at the end of each training and it allows me the spared energy to talk to my teammates and get to know them and why they are there. Our pace group has had the privilege of running with our team captain these weeks, and she has been an unwavering support for all of us.

Week 4 brought about what I knew was coming, it was just a matter of time. Bear was working, so I had to miss team training. Lucky for me my in-laws were in town and allowed me to make the 1 hour run on my own, while they watched the kids. Better that than nothing, right? I'm really glad I was able to do it since my week day runs have been non-existent.

So far everything is going well. I'm slightly concerned that I have 4 months to train for something that I trained for in 8 weeks previous to this. I'm hoping I don't get bored with the training, since it's not a large challenge for me and I already find myself not motivated to make the effort during the week. Since I'm in this for the long haul, I'm prepared to combat it by finding either a 5k or 10k that I can train for separately for speed, in hopes that it gets my feet moving again during the week. We'll see, it's already shaping up to be a busy summer, so the life squeeze will continue...