My first club run

Today I decided I was going to give Colchester Harriers a try. I see so many of them at local races that it seems silly to keep on paying £2 extra to run them. Plus, I can get to know them and hopefully make some new friends and get a bit faster....

Arthur, who is a regular at the Parkrun, both as a runner and as a volunteer, is the ladies coach, so I said hi to him when I arrived, although this was after about 5 minutes of not really knowing what was going on. Turned out many of the regulars had other things on tonight, including a local race, which I had thought of doing, and lots of end of term school things... As a result, I was the only lady there, so it was in fact just me and Arthur. We went out for an 'easy' 6 mile run. I found it quite hard going at first as we were doing 8:51mm, and I hadn't run since the mersea island race. It was really nice to have someone to chat to though. He's number one in his age group, nationally, so he's gracious enough not to enter too many races so its not always him who wins.

It was quite hot and barely a stop, so I didn't really get to take on any drink. I had thought we would be doing something hard so had planed to drink between intervals. In reality, I probably didn't need any more than water, but carrying it was a bit of a faff. Just after 4 miles we bumped into one of the men who is a regular at Parkrun, Andy, he came second last week. We stopped for a chat, which allowed a breather, but messed with my pace!! This could have been my fastest 6 mile run otherwise. Arthur said it was 6 miles easy. I could keep conversation up, so I guess, technically it was, however, I reckon I would have been shattered had it been 12 or 18 miles at that pace.

I think I'll try the harriers out again, hopefully when there are some other ladies there. Certainly enjoyed having the company of someone who could run without having to stop to walk, although not sure it was the best introduction to running for a brand new runner!!! Good job I'm not then ;)

Splits:

Mile 1: 8:52
Mile 2: 8:52
Mile 3: 9:06
Mile 4: 9:13
Mile 5: 12:15 - this is where we stopped for a chat, I did pause garmin after a while
Mile 6: 9:18

Time 58:00

All in all a good run. I probably could have done intervals last night if I hadn't been partying, but will rest tomorrow in prep for hopefully doing Parkrun on Saturday.