I ran with an Olympic Hopeful today!

Since today was a recovery day, I decided to try something new. The only thing on the plan was Masters (swim) in the morning. Days like that make me nervous. It means that by 4 pm I am grumpy and feel fat. It did not help that today was beautiful. Sunny and in the 60s.

YMCA to the rescue. Max is definitely used to it by now. Noah strongly dislikes it but I've decided to drag him there once a week anyway. This month the weekly schedule has a new group workout: Running Club. Thursdays. 4 pm. Perfect! I had asked about it before but still was not sure what it was going to be like. All I knew was that you can drop your kids off and then go run outside with other people. Bingo! Just what I needed today. I am definitely growing a little tired of doing 99% of the training by myself.

Once there I found out that a runner from Team McMillan Elite is going to lead the workout. Now that is pretty exciting! When do you get to work out with a professional runner that will slow down for you? Sign me up! However, by 4:05 no one had shown up. I was worried about being in the wrong place and frustrated about having my time wasted. (I know. 5 minutes is not much but I have no patience.) Turns out I was in the wrong place. It also turns out that I was the only runner that showed up. Lucky me!

Team McMillan Elite - Nick Arciniaga

Coach of the day was Nick Arciniaga and I had the privilege of running with him. I felt a little bad about wasting his time but I was not about to go inside and run on the treadmill - again. He asked how long I wanted to run and I replied: "45 minutes." Just in case. And because it was a recovery day after all. So off we went. Nick was super nice and did not seem to mind me picking his brain about the life of a professional runner.

It was very interesting and I was not about to stop asking questions but I was having a somewhat hard time talking and running at the same time. I am not sure if that was because I have not had anyone to talk to during training for a while or because we were going a decent pace. It definitely was not slow. For me. It must have been painfully slow for Nick. That guy has run a marathon in 2:11:47. That is a 5:02 pace. Let's let that sink in for a second... Is that absolutely mind boggling or what? I am indeed very lucky to have him slow down for me and chat for a while.

Thank you for the motivating and inspiring run, Nick!

PS: If you live in Flagstaff and have a Y membership, you should most definitely come and join the running club Mondays and Thursdays at 4pm.

PPS: I am considering letting Karl run with them on Mondays. He is, after all, the real runner in this family.

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