Hi Y’all!
It’s here, it’s here, it’s here…the start of the 2016-2017 Season!
WELCOME and WELCOME BACK! It’s sizing up to be our biggest yet, with the largest group of new folks we’ve ever seen! So, so, so exciting.
Always a lot of information to cover…even if I have just one thing to tell you. Always a lot.
What’s gonna happen on Saturday?
This Saturday, July 16, is our Official Season Kick-off. We will meet at Turner High School track ( 4717 Bailey Road Pearland, TX 77584 ) at 5:30AM, DID YOU READ THAT? 5:30AM…I might have said the wrong time to a person or two. I don’t know who, but I might have. O’dark thirty will come often, but that sun is way too hot if we meet later. We will do a brief introduction to PARR and what to expect {and not expect} this season.
We will then break the group into three groups depending on what you THINK your Magic Mile Pace will be (12:00+, 9:30 – 12:00 and under 9:30), so be thinking about that. It’s totally okay if your prediction is off, we just need to get three somewhat even groups and always better to be close to your pace! (Not sure what a Magic Mile is?…read below). Then we’ll have three rounds with a group either running, cheering or warming up. Your time will be the time it takes you to complete your 4 laps around the track (not your pace on your watch…don’t get me started on GPS inaccuracy this early in the season 🙂 ) Once you complete your mile, you’ll find lil Ms. Lisa Sanchez and her handy clipboard where she will capture your time. I’ll go over all of this on again Saturday, but wanted you to have an idea of how this will go down! Will be a little chaotic…but gives us all a chance to meet all the people we will be spending the next TWENTY SIX weeks with!
What is the Magic Mile and why do we need to run it?
The Magic Mile is a mile at YOUR fastest pace. Whether it’s 50:00 or 5:00…IT’S YOUR PACE. It isn’t the most fun thing you will do in your life, or even this season. Some might even say it’s is one of their least favorite things. I might be one of them. BUT…the Magic Mile is great for two reasons. It is the best way to determine everyone’s current fitness level and effectively group folks with similar paced people. It also helps provide training paces to help you achieve your running goals. I will send some more info on the Magic Mile after Saturday to know what to do with your info. Even if you have no interest in improving your speed, it still helps to understand where you should be training. We’ll be doing different runs during the season that are to be done at different paces, and the Magic Mile will provide everyone with their training paces.
Can’t be there Saturday?
No problem. Don’t sweat it. IT IS SUMMER. We’ll be meeting at the track for the next few weeks, so you can come do on any of those Saturdays. If you need to do on your own, that’s fine too. The track is the best place to do this because the GPS watches are always a little off. So if you do on your own, time your FOUR laps around the track, not when your mile notification goes off. Once you do that, just send me your time so I can get you placed in the right group.
Groups
We have people training for both the Full and Half Marathon…and FOUR different pace groups within those groups. So I will be compiling everyone’s Magic Mile times and getting everyone placed in a group over the next several weeks. You are certainly not required to stay in your group…we all like to run with our friends, so if you want to change groups, just let me know. We just like to know who is in which group so we don’t lose track of you. We will have group leaders and they like to know who is in their groups too! If you’re a solo runner, that’s fine too…we won’t bother you (too much).
Schedules
The schedules have been posted here: https://goparr.com/schedules/ …with the caveat that THEY WILL BE TWEAKED! Fill your printers, my friends…IT’S ELEVEN PAGES LONG. There are two columns Full (Left) and Half (Right). It’s overwhelming, so just focus on this week. We will be explaining as we go, so don’t let all the jargon get in the way of your training. You’ll see there are two options, in addition to the standard training plan (black ink). On any given day, you can choose to do one of the options. The first is a “Split Option” that allows you to split up your run and run morning and evening (orange ink). We encourage everyone to do this occasionally during the season. It gets you on the road a little longer and also is a good to run at different times of the day (temps/food/fatigue variation). The second option is the “Beginner Option” for those who are brand new to running or aren’t worried about speed – this is just a minutes based weekday program and long runs on Saturdays (blue ink). There will be much more discussion on the schedule…like 26 week’s worth.
Attendance
Do not worry, we do not take attendance. We don’t even require you to come to one single run. That is up to you. We just create the opportunities for you TO RUN. We will encourage the heck out of you to do so…but in the end, you need to make that decision each Saturday.
Facebook Group
If you’re on Facebook, please request to join our group for current members: https://www.facebook.com/groups/246625075376797/ If you’ve requested and didn’t get added, please reply to me and I’ll get you added. We get people that aren’t members every day requesting to join…and sometimes we miss an actual member! There’s lots of good discussion and even better coordination of weekday runs, or off-day long runs! If you are not on Facebook and want to get connected to a training group that meets during the week, let me know and I’ll get you in touch with those folks.
Weekday Therapy, I mean runs
We are all responsible for getting our weekday runs in on our own. But most of us are co-dependent and couldn’t possibly fathom running one single run alone. So for that reason, there are many groups that meet informally during the week. It’s becoming more formal and consistent, but to keep the responsibility to a minimum, we’ll say they’re still informal 🙂 Mornings and Evenings and they will regularly post on the FB page. These are the typical times last season and will send out others as I learn of them:
MWF 4:30AM at PB
MWF 4:30AM at FM518 & Liberty
MTWThF 5:00AM at PB
MWF 5:15AM at PB
MW 7:30PM at Turner Track or Dawson
TTH 7:30PM at Turner Track
Wait, what’s the PB?
PB is one of our frequent starting places “Professional Building” at 2225 County Road 90 in Silverlake…so you’ll see it mentioned on Facebook “5:00AM AT THE PB”
Got Shirts?
WE LOVE OUR SHIRTS. Something about that orange on race day gets us all fired up. We will be taking shirt orders soon…and I’ll let you know as soon as that is ready for you to place your orders. But until then, hold tight.
Now what?
You can expect to hear from me by Friday morning each week with a plan for Saturday’s runs (start time, routes, any special instructions and any other little morsel of information I might think you need. So if you haven’t heard from me by Friday afternoon, please bug. Just know that we will be running early on Saturdays, that won’t change! We always try to be finished by 7:30 or 8:00AM…but as the distance gets longer that’s more difficult to do. AND…we will be meeting at Turner through the end of August for HILL WORK, so if that doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what will 🙂
Didn’t Renew? Last email, I promise…and then you’re free to go
We will be clearing out the memberships and Faceboook Group this week – if you are unable to access all the good info on this page: https://goparr.com/welcome-to-parr/ – that means you’re access will be removed.
That’s all for now. We’ll be updating the website as we go and I’ll send emails with additional information as it comes up. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions – my email and my cell are below for you.
See all your smiling, running faces on Saturday at 5:30AM at Turner!