Welcome to Missing Link Run Club!

[David Bitner]

Hey Everyone!t

Welcome to the Missing Link Run Club!

If you are wondering where the name comes from, Missing Link is  a Boundary Waters Lake and one of my favorite places in the world. It also happens to be situated right next to one of the longest portages in the BWCA and so either acts as your preparation for the huge portage or your welcome rest after.

I'm hoping that this list will be a bit more engaged and more of a community effort.

I plan to continue putting out Monday workouts targeted towards building speed and strength predominantly with intervals and hills.

On Wednesdays, I will continue to put out workouts that are targeted towards people who are pushing into more of the Ultra distances (which doesn't mean that anyone can't do the workouts - that is just the target audience). Since the Wednesday group has been a much smaller group, I've started meeting in person for some Wednesdays. This will likely continue pursuant both to guidelines and my own comfort level (which is generally more stringent than the guidelines).

There will certainly be occasions that I get busy, tired, or just forget. Apologies. Guest workouts definitely welcome! Just let me know if you'd like to spell me out for a week here or there!

I am going to stop sending out notes for specific distances etc on Saturdays. A couple of you all have been pulling together smaller groups over the last while and I hope you can use this as a platform to continue on with those runs. While we are still in a world that requires social distancing, it is great to have several groups going for these long runs so that we can keep the size of each group small. I've been running with a number of you in groups from 2 - 12 or so, and at least for my comfort level, I've definitely found it's a lot easier to keep appropriate distance with groups of 6 or fewer. More than that, even with best of intentions, things tend to bunch up at times. If you are being extra careful and trying to keep your exposure only to a smaller group of folks, by all means continue to keep things off list if that makes you more comfortable. 

If you are looking for folks to run with, reach out to the list with a general speed range and distance you are looking to get in. I'm hoping that rather than all coming together and needing pace groups that we can still be inclusive for everyone while spreading things out and keeping our groups much smaller.

If you are looking for folks to run with other days of the week, also feel free to reach out! If traffic on the list gets to be too much we can adapt and figure out better ways to effectively communicate.

Without specific goal races for the whole group, I am not going to send target distances out for each week. If you have specific goals and would like some help building out a spreadsheet with distances to get you there, please let me know directly off list and I'd be more than happy to help you!

Again, please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions any time!

-bit

[John Daniels]

Thanks Bit - looking forward to more fun! Lovin the heat,

JD