May 26th - First Training Session

This morning at 8 am we had our first group run at Lake Harriet. I wasn't too worried about the run since my training program only had me scheduled to do about 3-4 miles, and that's about the same as a 5K.

We started off by introducing ourselves, saying which event we're running, and why we decided to join Team in Training. People had many different reasons: ranging from the Tiffany's necklace you get for finishing the Nike marathon to one woman's son was diagnosed with Leukemia 5 months ago. Our coach, Mike, has warned us about the changes that will happen as our training progresses -- not just physically but the emotional changes as well.

So we did some stretching and then it was off around the lake. I'd never run around Lake Harriet before, but it's really a beautiful trail. I think our group managed to make some Lake "regulars" annoyed by taking up most of the path, but we also got lots of encouraging remarks.

By 9 am I was back at the bandshell with some of the other runners and so we stretched and had some Powerade. Since there are some people that are more experienced runners or training for other non-TNT events, such as Grandma's Marathon, some went and did another lap around the lake. But since I'm following the novice program, I was content with just my one.

There was one funny thing (I think) that happened on the way home. One of the other girls in the program accidentally locked her keys in her trunk so I was giving her a ride to her house- no that's not the funny part. Neither of us really knew how to get back to the freeway since the street is a one way and takes you around part of the lake before giving you a chance to exit. I slowed down at one corner to see if we recognized the street name as one that would get us to the freeway. Suddenly I noticed two guys were running just in line with my car and one looked over at me and smiled at just the same time as I had glanced at them. He thought I'd slowed down to check him and his buddy out! The other girl and I got a bit of a laugh as I drove away, and a little while later we finally found our way to the freeway.