Racing Together, Apart

D running a 5k that we ran in Vermont over Thanksgiving
(he's the second person in this photo).
Note 1- the lack of heel strike.
Note 2- the lack of me (I'm somewhere around the bend).

C ~3 miles ~27:50 (plus 4 push ups and a bunch of "knee" ones - more on this tomorrow)

I say about 3 miles because I have no idea how accurate the run mapping program that I use is - especially on the twisty, somewhat hilly roads around my family's house.  I feel a little frustrated that I haven't run more miles this week, but D and I are starting a new training cycle, and it starts out slow.  I don't run high mileage weeks (my normal is around 25 miles or so), but if I run less than 20 miles a week, I start to go a little loopy.

This week is an especially off week because D and I are going to exchange our long run on Saturday for a 5 miler tomorrow and a 5k race on Sunday.  Will the swap make my Sunday run any faster? Maybe, but short distances and speed aren't my skill set- speed is my annoying nemesis.  I'm trying to conquer it, but generally I end up wheezy and frustrated because I know I can move faster than I do.

D's first half marathon, and
my first real lesson on
the values of race planning.

  As you've probably noticed, D and I don't race together.  We'll run any type of distance together in training, but we won't run any races together.  I refuse to be the reason that D's PR is one second less than it should be.  If I thought I was slowing him down, my race would be miserable.  As for D, he learned his lesson about running with me during our first half marathon.

I'm sure D's version of his first half is different, but in my version of the story, the beginning to the course was mostly flat, beautiful, and partly packed dirt.  I felt amazing, and I went for it.  As in I went much, much, much too fast, and D unwittingly ran alongside me, "the pro."  I like to believe that I would have slowed down if I knew how much uphill there was at the end of that race, or if I knew that there were no gels . . . or energy drinks.  At the end of the race, we both crashed and burned on the uphills.  I passed D, but it's the only race that I've ended up walking any part of - I just couldn't make it up the seemingly never ending hills.  In the end, I learned never to run a half marathon without some type of energy aid.  D learned never to race with me.