Patrick, who is one of those people who claims to get a euphoric feeling or a high during and after a run, has managed to convince me to train, and run a half-marathon in September. I have mentioned running before and I'm not sure whether my feelings about it were conveyed. The truth of the matter is I am never going to be a "marathoner" and really before now I had largely counted even a half-marathon out of my range of accomplishable goals. Needless to say, I do not get this high he speaks of. Really, I just get bored. I start thinking about how nice it would be to lay down in the grass or on the beach, or the other things I need to be doing (which is always something). Running just takes too long, and my attention span is just too short.
Regardless, I adore him and he adores running so here we are. I think it is going to be an amazing experience, and so far I haven't hated training. Mind you, we are only running as much as four miles at this point, which takes me around 35 minutes. I generally lose interest in most anything around 50 minutes so we will see how things go in a few more miles but I have been thinking it would be worth it to document the whole experience, and keep note of my feelings throughout.
We have both been using the Nike+ app on our iphones and we like it a lot. We looked into getting Nike+ watches, but they seem to be on their way out so we decided against the investment in the end. There are a few other options but for now we are sticking to using our phones since it's free, afterall. We like that we are able to see our stats side-by-side and compete with one another. It is actually pretty incredible how on-par we are with each other in terms of pace, time, and distance. Even before we officially began training we would try to run at the same time of day, down to texts that said, "ready go!" To our surprise we would finish running within minutes, and one time seconds of each other without even having had a conversation about time. What we have discovered is that I run slightly faster than he does, but given he lives in Conifer, Colorado and I in Chicago, Illinois, he covers a great deal more vertical feet than I do in the same amount of time. I am lucky if I cover 10 vertical feet on any given run, and he has gotten close to 600 ft recently. He also burns double or triple the calories I do because of his weight and from often running straight uphill. Hopefully, we will stay pretty even from now until race day, September 27th.
Any and all advice is welcomed and much appreciated. Here are our current stats and feelings: (I even let P write his own!)
Shay
So far so good on my end. After running two days in a row on Monday and Tuesday of this week I was struggling. The soreness only got worse after cross-training on Wednesday and then I either caught a little cold or had bad allergies on Wednesday night and into Thursday/Friday so my Friday am run was rough. Luckily, by the four mile run on Saturday I was feeling good again! Today is Sunday and rest day, so I will enjoy it and be ready to go tomorrow morning with another 3 miler.
Patrick
My first week of training had its ups and downs (quite literally as Shay mentioned) but also with how my body felt. I did experience some achilles pain which reminded me how important it is to take care of your body while training. Unfortunately, I can no longer wake up, run five miles, and not be sore the next day. However, this week of training and specifically a run that I was fortunate enough to take while in Steamboat this weekend, reminded me why I love running in the first place. Running by lakes and empty pastures full of wildlife made me fall in love with the feeling all over again. And having a training partner (albeit a time zone away) has made the experience that much better.
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