Something new

Bill, Mike and I joined up with a group from the Kansas City Track Club at 55th and Brookside, all of us planning to go 10 or 11 miles. It was a hot, humid day, so we all dialed our expectations back. It was going to  be slow with a lot of walking.

This was our first run with the club, which we all joined recently. Before the run began we met several of the other members, many of whom had already run the area previously. It was decided we'd follow three other guys who knew a perfect route of the right distance. But they were out of sight within a half mile, and we were left on our own.

Happily, we were not totally unfamiliar with the area, and we improvised very well, running north to UMKC and through campus, then north to the Sculpture Garden at the Nelson Art Gallery, then into Mill Creek Park in the Plaza and along the River Walk.

We were joined for almost the entire run by Natasha*, a young lady who was training for her first half marathon and who had never run 12 miles before. We were running her pace, and she didn't know where she was going, so she just hung with us. She turned out to be very pleasant company, and kept us from descending into our usual bawdy banter.

After coming out of the Plaza area, we retraced our route back to the car where we all refreshed our hydration before heading south for an out-and-back finish. Mike and Bill turned around at a point that would give them 10 miles, but Natasha stuck with her 12-mile goal. She was heading into an area that has been known to be a bit unsafe, so I offered to run with her, and she was happy to accept.

She had told me earlier that she could hold 10s, and that's what I was expecting, but as the sun got higher, and more intense, she suddenly bonked. Our 11:30 pace ballooned all the way to 16, and I almost called Mike and Bill for a vehicular rescue, but Natasha hung in there. We walked much of the final 3 miles and finally made it back. She was rightly proud of her accomplishment.

Natasha?

For my part the pace was such that the run was not difficult at all, despite the heat. The last three miles were slower than I would have done on my own for sure, but on these long runs in this kind of weather, it's not a bad thing to slow down. You can bet I'm counting all 12 of those miles.


All in all it was a fun and interesting run.

* Kay and I went to the movie Larry Crowne in the evening and one of the actresses in the movie - Gugu Mbatha-Raw - was a Natasha twin. -- Rob