Eat and Run

Monday night was the running club's "Run of the Month" which pretty much means running followed by eats at a local restaurant. This month's choice? The place pictured above. Of course, it wasn't quite nice enough to sit outside nor is it quite so green yet.

The weather was, however, definitely spring-like. My running buddy showed up and a few miles into the run we were joined by a gentleman who apparently used to run with the group quite often. He claimed he hadn't run in a year and yet he was still keeping pace with us at our 9-minute pace!

Speaking of pace, this week is supposed to be my "easy" week. But, as always, it doesn't seem to matter if I try to go fast or slow, my pace on Monday nights is about the same. And I'm STILL at the back of the pack. Oh well. Sometimes chasing rabbits is a good thing.

Monday night's run felt tough, though. I think my awesome runs last week gave way to some tired legs and tired lungs. I'm also realizing that I do much better when I rest two days in between runs. Guess I'll have to remember to do that before my half marathon!

After the run a large group of us headed to the restaurant and I think we overwhelmed the staff. They put up with us, though, and I ended up having enough of my dinner left over to take for lunch, too. I love having leftovers. Makes for no-brainer lunch packing :-)

And you know what, I'm going to take that back about being at the very back of the pack. Here's an example of the range of people we have in our group who were at dinner on Monday night. Exhibit A is Charles. He's running Boston in a few weeks. This is will be his fourth time running it. Exhibit B is Ken. Ken not only drives practically 30 minutes to run with our group, but he's an average 6 hour marathoner. He does run/walk and he's almost always by himself during the group runs. He's technically the back of the pack and he never, ever complains. He's super-proud of his accomplishments and doesn't care at all that people are faster than him. I rather admire that, actually. Then we've got the triathletes and the people who can carry on a conversation while running an 8:30 pace.

So, yeah, quite the variation. But we all love good food. And a glass of wine. Or beer. It's a good group and I'm glad I found them.

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Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 628 ft Location: Forest Park, IL Elev. Gain: +3 ft Date: 03/29/10 Up/Downhill: [+22/-19] Time: 06:36 PM Difficulty: 2.4 / 5.0   Weather: Mostly Cloudy   40 F temp; 64% humidity   40 F heat index; winds E 5 Performance Distance: 5.49 miles Time: 0:49:50 Speed: 6.6 mph Pace: 9' 05 /mi Calories: 650 Map   Elevation (ft)   Pace (min/mile)   Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 33 -0' 32 7.0 +0.4 0 ft 2 9' 09 +0' 04 6.5 -0.1 -9 ft 3 9' 08 +0' 03 6.6 -0.0 +3 ft 4 9' 03 -0' 02 6.6 +0.0 +7 ft 5 9' 20 +0' 15 6.4 -0.2 0 ft end 9' 19 +0' 14 6.4 -0.2 +3 ft Versus average of 9' 05 min/mile

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