Once more, with feeling!

Though I was a month late joining the group, today I went to my first Breakaway Saturday morning training run for the 2014 St. Jude Half Marathon.

2013

The first year I ran with the group was the first year Breakaway did a Saturday morning program, back in 2008.  My friend Megan and I were the only half marathon participants.  Today, there must have been over a hundred people running the same four-mile loop that I did, and that many again running seven in training for the full.

This is the first year since 2010 that I have not been part of the full group.  In fact, this time last year, I was deep into training for Chicago - the Overton Park 5-mile Classic is next weekend, and I remember last year getting up and running ten miles on my own before finishing up with five miles at the race.  That was hard.

I'm glad I'm not doing that this year.

I found, though, as I was running this morning, that I was keeping to myself - not what one typically does during a group run.  I also found that as I passed people (or people passed me) and I picked up snippets of their conversations, it could have been any of the past seven years of Saturdays.  More people, different people, same stuff.  Same wondering about the next water stop and talking about mileage for next week.  Same boasting of new Garmins and discussions about goal paces.  It was the same view in front of me:  a sea of tech shirts, water bottles, and compression socks.  And it was the same route, same pavement, same one-foot-in-front-of-the-other...

It wasn't a bad run by any stretch, it's just that my heart wasn't quite in it.  

I need to find peace with why it is I'm training (again) this year.  Because even for "just" a half marathon, many, many miles lie ahead of me...