Start time: 05/28/05, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 7 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 12:03min/mile
AIDS Marathon has what’s called a “designated driver” system; each week, someone in the group offers to be the “DD” and if a runner is having problems, the DD hangs back with them so no one’s out by themselves. (On really long runs, you assign two DDs and then the DDs can drop off the ailing runner at a water stop and then keep running their old pace.) I was DD this week, and alas, my services were needed. One runner was running out of steam before the fourth mile was even over, so for three-and-a-quarter miles I got to go at a slower-than-normal pace. It wasn’t until after I got back that I discovered she’d had the same problem last week. *sigh* Let’s hope this isn’t a trend.
Ah well. Being DD means that sooner or later you’re going to be taken up on it, and in five years this is the first time that’s happened for me. At least it was on a week with short milage!
I think your companion needs to move to a slower pace group next week, after two weeks in a row of not keeping up.
I agree wholeheartedly. Other people in the group were starting to grumble as well, which (and this sounds horrible) is a good sign. There comes a breaking point, and mine comes sooner and sooner with each year. (I was thinking in the shower about how every year there’s been at least one person in my pace group who was in a group clearly too fast for them, and how with each passing year I’ve found myself getting more and more blunt with them about it. I’ve learned the hard way that trying to be subtle doesn’t work–we had to kick someone out of our group one year (with the help of our coach), it got so bad! Wonderfully nice person, but utterly unsuited to our pace.)