Each session with the SAR group I learn something new. Each time I’ve moved over the last 15 years I’ve run into another level of talent. This is proving no exception. I learned our group includes the women’s National Marathon Champion of 1973~~ (plus her husband). Pleasant gal; many of the younger gals seem to like to hang around her. We also have a guy who’s a multi-time 50-100 mile ultra guy. He’s prepping for one in three weeks in Oregon. I think I could learn a thing or two from him. Mark, the guy who initially invited me in this past spring is a 50+ guy who’s run a 3:00 marathon. In his 50’s. And lest I leave out Coach Randy~~ he ran in the Olympic Trials in either the late 80’s or early 90’s. I’ll need to look it up. That doesn’t even touch some of the young guys. I’ve (naturally) gravitated toward the older folks~~ I’ll eventually work my way down the age-grade and find out what kind of current up-front results we’ll get from them. Oh, plus that Thursday night adult-beverage session after our workout. Bonus.
King (for a day) of The Mountain
I believe I’ve completed a full weekly-cycle of what I hope turns into a (fairly) regular workout routine. Monday night was (unbelievably) my fourth time at Maynards. Last week they had something north of 570 attendees–again; on a weeknight in 100degree heat. This week was was close and it was 105 at the start. One of Ames’ team earned his shirt tonight—we cheered loudest of any of the recipient groups! Since Ames’ is traveling all week I hooked up with her group at the finish which has become the standard on Mondays. They’re a good group~~not what one might expect.
Last week I started in with the group running ‘A’ Mountain.
A few of my SAR group have been branching off to the mountain (vs. the normal Maynard’s route) in preparation for an event later this year so a few weeks of getting used to it can only help. It’s not a big group and this week I was a couple minutes late (that’s early by my watch) and once I caught up I was able to settle in. We hit the base of the hill and a few of us were left up at the front and to shorten the story I ended up nudging out front about 1/4 up and finished upfront. A lot of talent wasn’t around but I was still happy to be able to accomplish something I could file in memory.