Last night I went out to St. Peters to run with a few new friends I became acquainted with through the website Meetup.com. The group run was actually sponsored by a local running store called Fleet Feet. Anyway, St. Peters is pretty much on the outer fringe of how far I like to travel for anything other than a special occasion since it is on the opposite side of the city from me and further west. It takes about 45 minutes in light traffic and with traffic you are looking at an hour or more easily sitting on the highway. However, I discovered a bike spinning class from 6-7 pm near the run store and then the run from 7-8 pm so I could get in a weekly mini duathlon workout which sounds promising. However, my bikes chose not to cooperate and the tires kept going flat as I was preparing to go so I had to skip the cycling this week but I did check it out first before the run to know what to expect if I decide to go next week. Only two cyclists showed up and neither of them were what I would call experienced cyclists so I am undecided on attending next week. I arrived at the run as everyone was just starting out so although I saw my friends who are slower than me, I took off with some of the fast guys to try and get a good workout in. In addition, with a 7 pm starting time it was completely dark outside and several of the runners had head lights on allowing them to see directly ahead of them. I latched on to the back of two runners who had lights (I didn't) and just hung on as the initial pace was pretty fast and two guys just took off at what looked like sub 6 minute per mile pace. They were gone from sight in short order. I was moving at a good clip and eventually I moved up past the two guys I had been pacing off of and found the back of a newer runner up ahead to pace off of and "steal" his headlight view though I stayed about 15 feet behind him for over a mile before he slowed down or I sped up and caught him. We chatted briefly and introduced ourselves. We were both moving at a pretty good clip probably around 8:15-8:30 pace per mile which is just off race pace for me. However, because of the quick pace we were gobbling up territory fast and running on sidewalks which were constantly either going up or down in elevation or curving around the road terrain which meant that I had to pay close attention to where my feet where being placed so I didn't fall and get hurt in the darkness etc. I haven't run on sidewalks like this at such a pace since college and I was instantly transported back to my runs in college with the cross country team where we would be flying along at a pace that was fast but under control though we had to be careful what was ahead of us due to our pace. I didn't give it much thought at the time but we were quite power runners and I have missed that feeling of floating along with another runner on training runs. Since I have been back running over the past 18 months or so I have only felt fast while doing speed work on the track or in races. This was the first road workout I have experienced in over ten years where I finished it thinking, "I am back baby!" My legs felt strong and powerful and were working, but at any point I could have picked up the pace if I needed to and it was all run at what coaches call threshold pace which is basically so fast that you are near race pace but your body is coping well and discarding the lactate that is being created in your body just as fast as it is created. In short a gloriously fast but controlled run. I didn't realize how much I missed running like this until I re-experienced the feeling last night. I will probably try the mini-duathlon next week but may drop back and hold off running so fast next time assuming I do the spinning class first.
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