Hi Everyone,

I hope you have had a great weekend!  We are covering a lot in this week’s email so try to bear with me.

First, the race!  As we mentioned on Thursday, we will have a little gathering after the run on Thursday, 12 October.  It will be a chance to hear from some former beginners about their experience, ask any questions and just be social.  If you are ready to commit now, go for it!  It can be a great motivator to buy those airplane tickets.  Please let me know if you did not receive the race email from Jane last week.

With the race date now determined, here is a revised training schedule.

Thursday 19 October is the first day of parent teacher conferences at ASL.  If you have a child at ASL, you should have received your conference time by now.  We may be able to do a second beginner session either Thursday afternoon or Friday morning depending on coach availability.  Otherwise, if you need to miss the Thursday morning run, you can use your What’sApp group to find others to run with.  Please let me know if you  CANNOT run at the regular time on that Thursday.

A few of you asked about aches and pains.  If you are feeling like something is hurting, please go see a professional.  We have several people listed on our website:  https://womenrunningtheworld.com/training/expert-help/

Victor St. Ange is the physio that many people in the running group use.  He is terrific and he can do an overall analysis of how well your muscles are engaging as they are needed.  The con is that he is very popular and it can take a few weeks to get an appointment.

Many runners also swear by Christian Antonee and I believe he is easier to book on short notice.

On a similar note, here are some thoughts on warming up and stretching/cool down.  The walking we do at the beginning of our runs in intended to warm up our muscles.  For the level of running we are doing, this should be sufficient to avoid injury due to starting out “cold.”  It is important to walk briskly, however, as that will get those muscles warmed up better, especially as the weather turns cooler.  If you are experiencing any soreness or aches, we can talk to you about getting a foam roller to use prior to the run that can help stretch out ligaments safely.

We heard from several of you that last Tuesday’s run was too fast.  This is very common with the beginner group.  It is hard to keep a slow pace, but it’s important to try to do it.  You will all feel better for it.  If you are in the front, don’t feel the people behind you are pushing you to go faster – they aren’t!

You should be running around a 13 ½ minute mile on Tuesdays, maybe even slower.  This translates to a little faster than an 8 ½ minute kilometer.  You can use apps on your phone to show your pace.  Apps I’ve used in the past are MapMyRun, Runkeeper and Strava.  You do not need a running watch!  As a beginner, it’s nice to be able to focus on building your stamina and creating a bond with your group, not worrying or thinking about your pace and distance.  Use the apps to guide your pace, as a quick check in.  Also, make sure you set it to auto pause so it doesn’t calculate you standing still as part of your pace – otherwise it will show your pace as artificially slow.

If you are feeling like you don’t want to talk during the run, SLOW DOWN!  Sometimes it helps to designate a person to keep the pace and you can switch off each week.  Let us know how it goes!

Here is the route we did on Thursday in case you want to repeat it:

Both Dani and I will be away this week on the SJWWC trip to Russia.  Jane will run with you again as an extra coach.  For the run, we will be running a total of 22 minutes, slipping in a few 4 minute blocks.  Going forward, the amount of time spent running starts to increase more quickly since you have built the base you need to start to run longer.  It is really important to get that second run in each week so you keep that base up and build from there.  Anyone on this list who hasn’t been out running with us – now is the time to jump in before we are too far along in the program.

Have a great week!

Amy