Group Run

I’m so happy its Monday- Said by no one ever!

Did everyone have a good weekend? The L’s sure did.

Friday, M and I went on a date. We are really trying to make time for “us” time. We’ve only been married 4yr (this September) but we’ve been together for 8 years. You throw in work, H and everyday life and sometimes making time for each other gets tossed to the side. So we vowed to do better.

I digress.

Friday we went out to dinner. I was exhausted from work and just didn’t have the energy to do anything. It was nice to sit down and eat dinner without having to get up and take H to the bathroom, or tell H to stop eating the butter…we’ve all been there.
There wasn’t anything worth seeing at the movies, so we decided to run some “childless errands” ha, does that mean we are old? Probably not, but you know what did make me old on Friday night? Spending hours researching and making my play list, hydrating and going to bed early because I was excited about my group run the next morning.

Yep, I’m old. Just go ahead and call me Ethel. I’ll be sitting at the closest VFW playing Bingo.

I’ve been dying to find a running buddy/running group. One day last week, I got this post on FB.

“For Immediate Release
Rock City Running New Little Rock Marathon Training Program Sponsor”

Not sure why it said for IMMEDIATE RELEASE” but its LR, we still get excited over Nelly…

I haven’t officially signed up to run LR, but I figured it didn’t matter.

So I signed my little behind up.

I woke up with the birds at 4:45am on Saturday. Grabbed a cliff bar, water and running gear and headed out the door by 5:15. Start time was 6am. I had no idea where I was going, I knew, I’d get lost.

The plan was to meet in the parking lot and head off on the “trail” behind the lot. When I pulled up there was maybe 4 elderly people in the lot, stretching. Did I mention they had FLASHERS on their heads? Safety first.

I stayed back from the crowd and pretended to stretch until more people showed up and I could blend in the crowd. There must have been 50-60 people there. I would say 35 of them had flashers on. True Story.

Anyway, “Mama Hobbit”, leads all this up she said a few words then asked who was running what. I hadn’t made up my mind but I knew I wanted to run between 8-10 miles. So when she said 8 miles I made a mental note to stay close to those people. She said a few more words and then everyone turned around and headed for the trail.

I had no idea were I was going. I just followed the herd. I do have to say what I could see (since it was still dark at this point) beside the flashers, was pretty. The sun finally started coming up around mile 2. It was so pretty. It was a large field. With those huge cinnamon roll looking things, maybe hay? I don’t know I’m from the city. But it was pretty and very peaceful.

We ended up in Burns Park. Which had tons of entertainment, people watching, dogs, bikers, you name it.

I finally found my pace and I managed to keep up with the crowd. It slowly started thinning out. There were so many people doing different miles. It was hard to keep up. I just keep thinking; please keep up with someone from the group. The “course” was pretty flat, there were a few hills here and there but nothing that made me want to stop. I kept my pace pretty low. Just in case I got lost and had to walk back.

By mile 6, I noticed a few people turning around. I was so confused. You would think I’d turn around but I kept seeing the people in front of me. So I kept going. It seems like they kept going faster and I was slowing down.

I was 2.5 seconds from panic mode.

At one point, I couldn’t see anyone in front of me or behind me. So, I picked up the pace and finally found two girls. Then I thought to myself, lord please let them be with the group. I had no idea where I was or where I was going. Of course they had sheets with directions but who has time to read those?

I just kept on trucking, and somehow managed to get back to the park. I looked down at my Garmin and it said 8miles. 8 miles? I thought we were running 10? I could see the parking lot. So needless to say, I stopped at 8.5.


I would say it was a success. I definitely plan on going next Saturday. It was also nice to have my run done by 8am.