Last Group Training Day

Driving home from The Woodlands was a little sad today. It was my last Saturday with the WoodlandsFit group and this year it means my last Saturday organizing a big training group for a very long time and most likely forever. I won't be returning to the Fit group or the Luke's Beat group. I will be coaching a small group capped at 25 participants. The new group will only have a coached workout at the track during the week. The new group will be training on their own on the weekends.

Here are some interesting numbers ( I feel like Jon Walk just writing these out )

1999 - 16 races, best 5K of 23:55
2000 - 18 races (1 marathon), best 5K was 24:42
2001 - 12 races (1 - 50 miler), best 5K was 25:49 (helped with TNT)
2002 - 7 races (3 marathons,3-50K's)- Coached 27 Saturdays(TNT)
2003 - 6 races (2 marathons,1-50K)- Coached 44 Saturdays (TNT)
2004 - 4 races (1 marathon,1-50K)- Coached 47 Saturdays (TNT)
2005 - 4 races (2 marathons)- Coached 46 Saturdays (TNT)
2006 - 3 races - Coached 45 Saturdays (Luke's Beat , TNT)
2007 - 4 races - Coached 46 Saturdays (Luke's Beat, WoodlandsFit)
2008 - 1 race (TIR) - Coached 46 Saturdays (Luke's Beat, WoodlandsFit)

1999 - 2001 Coached H.S kids - Tuesdays & Thursdays during the summer and helped Tony Allison with TNT for about half of 2001 and 2002.

2002 - 2008 - I began coaching and organizing TNT in June of 2002 so it's been 6-1/2 years of organizing a big weekend group run almost every weekend. Out of 338 weekends I organized a group run 302 times. That works out to 89% of my Saturday's over 6-1/2 years. My biggest concern every weekend is always safety. Many coaches run with their groups. I don't because I worry that if I have an emergency I'll need to get to it very quickly. Over the 6-1/2 years we had no emergencies but have picked up a few runners having bad days 5 different times.

Over that time I have met some of the most amazing people...many now very good friends.

Also over that time, since I'm probably the worst ever at motivating myself to get out and workout after a long morning with a big group, I have trained less, raced less...you get the picture.

So today was a little sad but also exciting as I'm looking forward to fighting to try to get at least a percentage of the old Bill back.

I'll be working an aid station at the USAFit Marathon in the morning, attending the Pasta Party Thursday, supporting our Fit runners next weekend at Houston, and celebrating it all at Dosey Doe the following week. It'll all be fun and inspiring. After that it'll be a very balanced schedule coaching with a great friend two weeknights and running with the rebels Saturday mornings. (It'll take time to actually run "with" them, I'll at least start with them) 2009 is going to be a very good year.