My Running Buddy Is Back

In 2011 two lapsed runners in the same office started a weight-loss regime of workday noontime running on the National Mall two or three times a week.  My reason for the extra weight (lots of it) was a chronic, seemingly permanent injury to an ankle, and hers was the more reasonable excuse of a recent childbirth.

Our first attempts were pretty pitiful.  Practically every other run I broke down, or she broke down, and we walked it back, from a mere 1 1/2 miles out.

Four years and a century loss later (practically all of it from my frame) I'm fit enough and run five times a week, and she's fit, runs with me at noon often and does cross training on the hockey rink where she's famously known by the other players, because she'll take anyone on who crosses the blue line (she seems to be the only one who can skate backwards), as "The Goon."  A year ago we ran a half marathon and she killed it with a 1:50 and I exceeded all of my hopes with a sub-1:55.

Now she's gearing up to run the MCM next month with her husband, and I think she wants to beat him.    She's asked me to jump in at the end and run the last six miles with her, so I have been practicing six milers for a few weeks solo (she's been away or busy) while she's been doing 14, 16 and 18-mile long runs on those weekends.  Today she ran a six miler with me at noon and I was going to show her my stuff, having been practicing at the distance, but, well… .