Food for Thought

My first LSD with my new "running clinic" group (that's Long Slow Distance for those who aren't into the running lingo). Today was an easy 7k.
I joined up with a group of 3 other girls who were going at a reasonably slow pace for me. Always great to have some sticklers for the slower pace in the group. "Hold up now, ladies! We're going a bit too fast." My legs were sore after yesterday's triathlon training, so every time we slowed down I was happy. I was even more happy when the weather was forecast for rain but it was a pleasant overcast weather instead - not a drop of rain!
But the really interesting part happened in the post-run coffee. I've never run with this clinic before, and I was curious what people thought of the training.
The consensus of the group: Running Room is to get people involved in running and to get people to love running. The goal is to increase distance rather than speed.
My thought: rats! I want to increase speed - I already know I can do the distance.
So I spoke with a few people in the group about what I could do if my goal was to increase speed. As always with runners, everyone was filled with good ideas of "I read in X book that...." or, "for me, I found that Y works really well" and so on.
It certainly isn't the type of running club I'm used to from Australia (oh, how I miss my Australian running groups!). It will be interesting to see what happens.
Certainly, the coffee discussion gave me lots of food for thought. I may have to chew on some things for a while.