Saturday, May 10, 2008

First day o' DC Fit

Today was the first day of DC Fit. Well, technically, it was the second day, but they did the same thing the first two sessions, which is introduce the instructors, give the ridiculously long intro shpeil, and do time trials to place everyone in pace groups.

A friend of mine went last week and said that the guy talked for almost an hour and a half, so when I woke up this morning and it was raining out, I was really not psyched at the prospect of standing in the rain while the director did his talk thing, and kind of hoped he'd just let us run and do it next week. Alas, 'twas not to be, and we stood in the cold rain for about 80 minutes before running.

I was impressed that about 20 people showed up today in the crappy weather, almost all of whom were not there last week. I think there's going to be a pretty decent sized group, though I guess I won't really know for sure until the next weeks when everyone starts coming for runs.

They place us in pace groups based on a comfortable 3 mile run time. I did mine in 27 minutes, which puts me square in the middle of the 8-9:30/mi group, about where I expected to be.

I was talking to the one of the coaches after the run, and was telling him about the relays. He had not heard of them, but he seemed really intrigued. He said the idea reminded him of a high school long weekend road trip, which was kind of an odd comparison to me, since I never did anything like that in high school.

So anyway, so far, I think this looks like it'll be good. It'll be nice to have a running/support group as I train for my first marathon, and DC Fit partnered with my local running shop, so we get 15% discounts on everything we buy there.

8 comments:

peter said...

Sounds like an interesting training group. You didn't say but I suppose you're training for the MCM like everybody else in DC. Where did you meet for your lecture and run? Yesterday was indeed a crappy day. I was going to give my 10K training group, meeting for the last time in Stanton Park, a pre-race briefing before next week's CHC 10K but due to the rain, I told them to remember their chips, be on time for the race and let's roll. Then we ran the course, with its signature leg of a trek up Capitol Hill in the sixth mile. It actually wasn't too bad a day for running, just for standing around listening to drivel.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a good time. have fun.

Anonymous said...

where is DC Fit meeting this these days? have funnnn training.

Joe said...

We meet at Benjamin Banneker Park by the East Falls Church Metro stop. The 5 mile marker on the W&OD Trail is 2 blocks from the Metro stop parking lot, which is where all our runs are going to start from.

I like the W&OD trail, mostly because it's not where I usually run; I usually run on the Mt. Vernon Trail, around Arlington, or around DC, so I think the change of location for the summer will be good.

Peter: I'm going to try to run Chicago.

peter said...

Nice choice for a first marathon, but don't get spoiled by it! (Chicago is flat flat flat.) That's a nice meet-up point, MP 5 of the W'OD. Plenty of parking at EFC. Sometimes I see runners wandering around down there acting lost (a little tricky following the W'OD at that spot) and now I'll know where to send 'em to. My kids used to play soccer in that park.

Joe said...

We meet on the soccer field, actually. And yeah, the trail can get pretty confusing where the path forks through there a lot; it can be easy to get confused. Good thing I'm not the fastest person there, so I'll always have someone to follow. :)

ButterPeanut said...

I can't believe you don't know how to spell Spiel! What kind of Jew are you!?

Joe said...

i'm pretty sure it's shpiel, because when i've seen it in hebrew (yiddish), it was the "sh" letter.

but, to answer your question, i'm probably the jewish equivalent of a lapsed catholic at this point. :)