Running
9Km in about 57 minutes, average pace about 6:20
It was Run for the Kids Run training at The Tan this morning and I was leading the 10Km slow comfortable group (except it was closer to 9Km after a quick check of Gmaps). It is funny how everyone seems to turn up at once. At about 8:45am there was hardly anyone around, within 10 minutes there was a huge group gathering. Today I had my biggest group ever, I didn’t count but at a guess there were easily 20 people. Quite a few runners were a little nervous as they told me they had not run more than 8Km before. One girl was very worried and was bullied into it a bit by her friend, she turned out to cover the distance very comfortably and at quite a good pace 
The other run leader hung back considerably to take a couple of slower runners around the course so I did the duties up front with the rest of the group, about 15 people. I felt a bit like a Border Collie running back and forth to make sure everyone was OK 
I made sure that we had a few water breaks as it was very warm, I also used this as a good excuse to advise them that if they were nervous about running 15.2 Kms that using the aid stations as an excuse for a quick rest would help, that is, slow down for about 30 seconds, take a good drink and keep going.
After we hit about the 6Km mark I could see that some people were doing it pretty easy and clearly were keen to push forward (all candidates for the medium groups next week) so I gave them some quick instructions and told them to go on ahead. This left me to see about 8 people home. As I mentioned it was a very big group and pretty challenging to manage as I like to have a chat with everyone, but I think I did a reasonable job of it.
Plenty of them had heaps of questions which was fantastic, anything from diet, how much water to drink to how many times a week to run. One girl has been doing speedwork with Start to Finish and is keen to do the Run to the G half marathon with a couple of mates who were also in my group.
I also mentioned that the great advantage of regular running is that it keeps you metabolism raised and joked that one of the reasons I ran was so I could still eat like a teenager which is pretty cool at 33. One of the girls said “really! I thought you were in your early 20’s” 
I wish!!!!
Quite a bit of a ramble I know but it really was a fantastic group today, I am even seeing many regular faces now.
Bit of a cack at the end as some woman with a posh accent asked me to point out the “person in charge” so I took her over to Brant. She then proceeded to quiz him on whether or not he had permits for the marquee and the PA system, Der, obviously Nike have sorted that stuff. Not to be deterred she still got stuck in about the disturbance etc etc, I told Brant he should have invited her to come for a run next week then maybe she wouldn’t be so uptight. She was one of those busy body women with a face like a slapped arse.
We also saw Sonia O’Sullivan out there today, fresh from her 3rd placing in the 5000mtres last night, everyone was very impressed with her Abs
Speaking of last night, I had the pleasure of sitting in front of 4 arm chair experts 
and had to listen to their ongoing commentary all fecking night. One gem was when the women’s mile was on and they were gushing over Sarah Jameison, stuff like “you won’t see better than that”, “look at her form, fantastic”, “she is showing them how it’s done”, “class act” etc etc etc, nothing to dispute there. Until Lisa Corrigan displayed an awesome kick and blasted away in the last 200mtres to take the race and the Australian record! Then it was “well, she’s been at it for a while now, probably getting on a bit”, seriously give me a break!
OK, that’s a whole lotta talk about running, just one of those days I guess.
