Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Helping Others

More often than not, we get caught up in our own training, quest for a PR, BQ, etc...that we lose sight of others who are trying to take up our sport. A co-worker, I'll call him JS, of mine has been slowly getting into running. I'm not sure what his longest run is but he decided he wants to train for the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run in Washington, D.C. in April. He shared with me his training plan and asked me for comments. For a new runner, his plan was solid and if he stuck to the plan I'm confident he will finish the race.

Yesterday JS e-mails me asking me if he can join me on my morning run today. Who was I to say no? We met this morning at 7:00 a.m. and decided to run down the south end of the island and up the Battery Park City Esplanade. Since I was unsure of his pace, I asked him to lead. JS started out at a fairly brisk pace. I had no issues keeping up but I had a feeling that he may not be able to keep up that pace for the duration of the run. About half way through the run he asks if we can slow down. We finished the run at a much more comfortable pace for him.

I'm not going to share with you the details of the run, it's not important**. Today's run wasn't about my pace, how I felt, or what I did right or wrong. Today was about coaching a new runner through a 5 mile run on a cold winter morning. I'm sure I'll be running with JS again and I can't wait to see his improvement.

** I'll mention that the MotionBased feed for the run is not accurate. My Garmin did not pick up signal until we were about 2/3 of a mile in to the run.

1 comment:

DailyRunner said...

Wish I could have joined you guys actually. I know it's no excuse, but I was up working late as I am now.