No Longer A Beginner

There's a bit of a saying amongst running people. Something along the lines of - you stop being a beginner when you start offering advice to other runners.

Well, last week I had a bit of a chat with Vixx on t'phone. She's a rather proficient personal trainer-coachy-therapist-nutritionist-type person, who very kindly helped with my nutrition on the run up the the marathon. Happily we share a love for coffee along with a passion for running, so it was a very productive kind of meeting :) (she came up with the brilliant idea of a coffee shop run - how good is that?!). Anyhoo, she said she'd got a few clients who were interested in doing the Brum Half and she was thinking of doing a bit of a Saturday morning training session. Would I be interested in helping out, and maybe taking the lead on the slightly faster group?

Would I?! Hello! Would I ever!!

I wouldn't ever claim to be fast, in fact by comparison with others I'm really rather slow. My WAVA scores are only slightly above average for my age. But hey, I'll give anything a go - and I was rather chuffed to be considered able enough to be asked to do it.

Feeling some slight trepidation, though - when I run by myself, I can adjust pace and distance to suit how I am feeling, and if I'm having a bad lung run I can just slow or cut it short - or sometimes abort completely. Not that I've done that for a long time, and as it'll be summer/autumn time at least I escape the scourge of cold weather. If you're going out with a group - as the "lead" - then it's much more difficult to do that. Alternatively, though, it may well give me that kick to push myself that little bit harder than I might usually do in my own training. All in all, I think this will be a very positive step, and I'm really looking forwards to it.

So - now I am no longer a "beginner" runner. I've come of age. Wooo, and indeed, hooo.