In between

'm torn at the moment with running club. There are three groups usually, and I seem to be pretty much between the slow and the medium group. I'm too fast for the slow group, but I'd be at the back of the medium group.

I know that I am physically capable of keeping up with the medium group, but I seem to have lost some speed with all the marathon training (for example I know that I'll be nowhere near my 47:44 PB in the 10k I'm doing at the end of the month), and at the moment I'd struggle to keep up with them. I want to keep up with them, because that's what I feel like my pace should (and can) be, but it's a question of how to get there. Particularly while I don't know the routes, I don't want to get stranded at the back and not know where I'm going as the others speed off out of sight. (Although it's equally hard at the front of the slow group when I don't know where to lead everyone!)

I was actually considering introducing some speedwork into my runs, then I turned up at running club last night and it was a fartlek session. Good start, I suppose. Last night actually worked pretty well. I started off with the slow group for a bit of a gentle warm up, then speeded up and ran for a while with the medium group (including one point where they took a detour off the main route so they could meet up with everyone at the top having run slightly further, slightly quicker. I just followed them, looked round and realised everyone else was going the other way...). Then I cooled down a bit with the slower group again on the way back. That worked quite well, maybe I do need to just work on doing one leg with them, then two, and so on.

It really comes back to what I want to get out of running I suppose. If I'm just running for enjoyment and fitness, then there's nothing wrong with running with the slow group. You cover the same ground, and it's not as much like hard work. But if I want to actually improve as a runner (which is the sort of thing that I tend to want to do), then I need to get myself up to the standard of that middle group. The thing is, that after the first few times I suspect that I'd find it easier and easier to keep up with them, it's just getting the confidence to try. I think that once I know the routes a bit better I might be more confident about going out with the faster people and not worrying so much about getting lost, but at the moment it just frustrates me that I know I can run faster than I am doing, I just can't make my legs do it.