Another Training Group

Today is the start of the training group that I will help out with for the upcoming 2014 California Classic Half Marathon that will take place in downtown Fresno this March. 

I work a couple days a week at the locally owned and operated specialty running store in Fresno that puts on the training group.  Even before I worked at Sierra Running Company I helped out with their half marathon training groups.  When my friend Kyle asked me a couple years ago if I would want to help out with a training group I totally jumped at the opportunity. 

I've always looked at helping with the training group as an awesome way to give back to my local running community.  We always have a good mix of people in every group.  We have people who have literally never ran before in their life, people who have ran for awhile and now want to tackle a new distance, and some runners who are just looking to improve their finishing times.

I remember when I ran my first half marathon.  My training wasn't very good at all.  I was new to running and didn't have a clue about what I was doing and  I honestly didn't know how to train for a 13.1 mile race.  My training was horrible and that caused me to have a horrible experience when I ran my first half marathon.

When I finished my first half marathon I told myself, "you're going to do this again, but you're going to learn how to prepare a lot better."

I've learned a lot since that first half marathon.  I've read books, magazines, talked to everyone I know that runs about workouts that they do, and just tried to absorb all the knowledge that I can.

I love talking to the "first timers" in the groups.  It's cool to hear the stories that people tell you during training.  Most people are very open when you run with them and share very intimate parts of their life with you.  Some of them are out there to just get onto shape, some are getting ready to run the race in memory of a loved one that passed away, or they're out there because life is crazy and running 13.1 miles makes life a little less crazy... there are millions of different reasons why people run.

It always starts with a simple question... "what made you decide to start training for a half marathon?"  Sometimes the answer is simple, but sometimes it's complicated, and sometimes you don't even really know the answer. 

My reason for running my first half marathon was simple, my sister Kathy made me do it... my reason for continuing and getting into 100 mile events, that's complicated.

Until next time...

KEEP RUNNING!!!!