Tonight was my first stint at coaching. As I previously posted, I am coaching a Woman's Beginner Running Group. This group meets at the Edina Community Center, is part of the Edina Community Education Program. Once a woman enters the group, she is part of the Minnesota Distance Running Association group, which puts on the program. It's a great tool to encourage new membership into MDRA. There were 38 women in the group tonight; 28 signed up as new members. That's amazing!
I was nervous, but excited. When I first began to run I had always wished I would join group such as this. I always felt I was too fat, too slow, too embarrassed, to uncoordinated..oh, and I couldn't run and didn't think I could be a runner. I was too afraid to step out of my comfort zone and ask for help.
Many of the women in this group felt just as I did a few years back. Over half of the women had NEVER run. I love it! Brand new exited and scared women ready to embark on something that could really change their lives..for the better. Many of the women could not believe that I was, in fact, them; that they were in fact, me. I told them they had one up on me, they stepped out of their comfort zone to run with a group of women, I was afraid to do that.
We began with me leading a warm-up and stretching session. Then we broke the group into three groups. One group (that had 1 woman) was an 'all run' group. She ran with another coach the whole workout. The second group was the 'never have run' group. They ran with another coach, walking 8 minutes and running 2 minutes 3x. I took the 'in between' group. These woman had run a bit in the past but not much. We walked 6 minutes and ran 4 minutes x3. We ended ended the session with another stretch and called it a night.
I loved it.
From here on out, for the next weeks, we have a speaker coming each week. We'll have a warm up, a workout, stretching and then the speaker. We'll discuss clothing to wear, shoes, races, injury, nutrition, etc.
I love it.
As for McNaughton, I'm set. Looks like a cool rainy weekend, which is fine. McNaughton is usually pretty wet and muddy. No biggie. It'll be a blast. Looks like a snow storm will be hitting here tomorrow. We could get a foot of snow. Hopefully as I head south, I'll be hitting rain and not snow! I'll drive back home on Sunday, following my finish. Hopefully before noon :)
Over and out...