Our Saturday Run - 2.20.10

We did it! After months of talking about it, paying annual dues and checking the schedule - Zoe gave us the final push - we made it out to meet the Reston Runners running club!

We met at 8am for this week's 5 mile run (Sundays they run 10 miles - those should end up on our training schedule mid Summer) and we were joined by a special guest...Gary (Jen's dad) who has been studying Chi running and ran the Herndon Turkey Trot with us this past November.

We joined the group and while waiting for the morning announcements - Gary showed Jen some some special Chi stretching - some of the die-hard runners (and this group is full of them) found this particular one odd but if Gary can get out there and run after 2 knee surgeries this Chi running must have something good going for it! We announced ourselves as new runners to the group and tried to pay attention as they went over the changes to the day's course - extremely confused and relying only on chalk arrows we set off between the back of the runners and before the walkers.

We kept a nice even pace through a few neighborhoods of South Reston, joking about the crazy guy who was out running in shorts, keeping an ear out for Zoe announcing the upcoming pot holes and avoiding a few early Saturday morning drivers who were not pleased to see us on their routine trip to the local Starbucks.

A few short walk breaks for Gary and Jen (knee is on the mend, self diagnosed with PFPS aka runner's knee and has a training plan in place - yay!) and Gary left us at the 3 mile mark and headed back to the car. We both fought a bit with our Nike+ apps and are now questioning their accuracy with Zoe's coming in over the 5 miles the course was marked for. Jen did find the app helpful when logging back into their website she was able to calculate the total time her walk breaks ended up being (about a half mile).

All in all it was a pleasant first experience with Reston Runners - Ecrid, a 75 year old woman - who's gone from running a 5 minute to a 9 minute mile, was pleasant end to the day. She joined us in the parking lot for some stretching after we finished (she had just finished 6 miles) as she noticed Jen's bad form on a few quad stretches. She offered some insight on a few other stretches, joking she'd waive her usual $75 fee for us and this session was on her - she's been a running coach for years. We're looking forward to more Saturdays of new courses and new people!