So Team-D opened training season officially with a 6:00 AM session at the Scottsdale Community College track (SCC is so conveniently located to where I live, I am rather lucky…).

Since I joined the team much later last year, this was something I missed. But first of all, what a great team we have! I did not count, but it seemed nicely crowded, with runners, walkers, people form all over the Valley (and a few even from Payson). I counted at least 3 others wearing the same insulin pump 😉

So today was to benchmark our future progress with some timed laps around the track. First there was 4 laps of slow warm up. Then we ran one lap for time, 400m, supposedly to be at the speed we would do a mile, but I confess I cheated and went a bit faster… 2:09. Then it was a short rest, and we ran a timed mile… I think this was near my times last year of about 2:20-2:30 per lap, or a mile of 9:24.

Now that is nothing really to brag about; there are people that do much faster than that pace in a real marathon… but the only person I am competing with is myself. I think I’d be happy for the marathon to do a 10-11 minute pace… actually I am going to be joyous to finish.

Then we had a great equipment review session, mostly on shoes, from a rep from Performace Footwear who offer this free Footstrike Analysis service where they video you on a treadmill to analyze your foot work. I am due for some new shoes and will try this out this week.

And just to top off the day, I ended up getting some bike miles in. My wife and I had a meeting, and she needed to leave early, so I took the bike along with me, and did the 7 mile ride home. It was stinking hot, and I am pretty rusty on the bike, but it felt good to groove some extra leg work.