Florida Running

It’s been a while since I wrote my last blog post mainly due to me being out of the country! Anyway before going straight into a post about running in Fort Lauderdale I should quickly mention my 14miler with Rich.

On the Sunday before last I met Rich in Kennington following a quick meetup with nan and we ran back to my flat via the Olympic Park. The run went well although quite tough. The pace was reasonable, a talking pace for the most, averaging 8:30min/mi for the distance. The run was in reverse for me as I normally run from the flat to nans. It turns out it’s a bit trickier the other way as after Mile End it’s predominantly up hill! Promising nonetheless and the run was rewarded with a pub lunch straight after.

Two days later we jetted of to the States. Like with Spain I packed my kit but wasn’t sure I’d have quite as much time to run. As it turns out I managed 2 runs. The was first early on in the week. Leaving the hotel at about 7am I crossed the road and ran on the pavement along the coastline. Beautiful. One long road runs parallel to the sea for miles in either direction. I headed along for 2miles before turning back. It was very humid but even still I ran just over 6 miles and returned back to the hotel pleased to have got out.

A few weeks before heading out I googled ‘Fort Lauderdale running clubs’ and the GFLRRC website came up. I thought if they would let me run with them running with company would be nice and fortunately they welcomed me with open arms. So at a ridiculous hour in on the Saturday morning I met them in a mall car park nearby and went for a long run.

At 6am I set off with a group of people, my aim was to do 10 miles at an 8:30-9min/mi pace. I knew from the heat the days previously I wasn’t going to achieve anything quicker especially over that distance. With our group we had a couple of chaps new to training but marathon hopefuls and 2011 Miami Tri wannabes who were running 6miles, an 8mile regular who was pretty nimble on his feet and the coach who would be my guide for the day. Robert, originally from Belgium, took me on a Tour of Fort Lauderdale which was lovely. Some coastal running then heading into the city and running by the canals. He was a great runner, from memory I think he said he was in his late 60s and very very good for age. Much like with Des, from our Thunder Run team, I was in the company of one of the top 50 for age runners in the world.

10miles is normally a challenging run but today it seemed more than that, the humidity really affected things and we came in at an average pace of 8:43. However, if you looked at my clothes after you would have thought someone had pushed me into the sea! My tshirt could have been rung out and my shorts resembled swimming trunks! Having run for about 3 years I can safely say my kit was the wettest it has ever been and that includes running in the rain! I think that should probably highlight how warm it was out there!!

Anyway 10miles is 10miles and it felt bloody brilliant to finish and have some Gatorade and the GFLRRCs Iced Capri suns. I had a brilliant run and was so glad they let me join them for the day. Robert made the run fly by even when I was battling with dehydration

That evening, rather aptly but not planned we headed to Bubba Gumps and sat surrounded by Forrest Gump merchandise. I love that movie and rate it as one of my favourite films even if it does bring back memories of this years marathon…

Now I’m home it’s time to get back onto the road and build up some consistency in September. Let’s hope it doesn’t get too cold!

Till next time…