18 Beautiful Miles

Team Rogue starts up on Tuesday. I wanted to get in a long run with my Austin Marathon group before we get geared up again so I headed down to Rogue this morning for the 7am run. As has become the norm, I didn't look up the mileage and just planned to run whatever distance it turned out to be. A handful of Team Roguers showed up planning to run 10. We waited on Jason who drove up just as the groups were heading out and were the last ones to leave the store. That was fine as it meant I would come up on each of my runners and could see how they felt and run with them if they needed/wanted company. That worked out great as we worked our way through the pack. I slowed and ran for a minute or two with each of the runners that I recognized. Everyone seemed to be having a great run on a beautiful day. Of course it was early in the run so it may not have been so great for all of them 10 miles later. ;-)

I came up on the last runner, meaning the one out in front, and decided to join up with him. I have pushed him a little harder than I think he was ready for at the start of the program and wanted to offer him some support today. I guess I ran about 8 miles with him, over Mt. Bonnell, letting him set the pace. He finally let me know that even though I was letting him set the pace, he felt he was pushing too hard having me there. I had hoped to be with him toward the end to help him close the run. He had a great pace going and I hoped it would build his confidence that the goal we've discussed is within his reach. I left him and pushed on ahead to let him finish up. I ended up talking to Peri at her water stop and Jimmy caught up to me. He was grinning ear to ear and going on about how great a run he was having. I decided to run in with him. We had a great conversation heading in Lake Austin Blvd and I mentioned how in Team Rogue we often "closed" our runs to improve how we felt about picking up the effort at the end of the marathon. I couldn't tell if he was serious or joking but he said lets do it! So with about 2 miles to go we started picking up the pace. 7:30 7:15 7:00 6:50 6:45 6:30. I was about out of gears and he was right with me. And still yapping! I finally pulled away with about 100m to go and I tried not to puke as I pulled up to the store. 2 minutes later he was grinning ear to ear and telling me how great that felt. I love this sh*t! I have been telling him for years that he was faster than he gave himself credit and after his recent break from running he is feeling great. I hope he has a great marathon in February!

Several of my runners were there too and they all seemed to have had good runs. My last runner came in and seemed to be pleased with his overall time. He damned well should be as it was several seconds per mile FASTER than his marathon goal time. I also saw Kevin from Team and he said he had a great run but wished it had been his marathon instead of just a long run. I tried to offer some support and perspective by pointing out that I have run just as many 4 hour marathons as sub 3:30 and the list of things that CAN go wrong is nearly infinite. I think we will see him BLAST his PR at the next one! Overall I had a great day at Rogue, great weather, great running, great conversation. I hope all of my runners had great days too!