my new running buddy

I have to admit, I am a minimalist runner.  I don’t enjoy running with music, I hate carrying anything (including water), I really don’t even like running with the massive Garmin watch (which is still missing, BTW).  Sometimes this even includes running with other people.

Running is my time to think.  I come up with recipes, blog post entries, go through interview questions, plan things to do for the summer, make a timeline for my day, etc.  I love the serenity I get from running, and running with someone else just doesn’t give me that.

However, the occasional times I do run with other people, I really enjoy it.  This summer, while training for the Chicago Marathon, I found a running buddy in one of Matt’s co-coaches who was training for the Lewis + Clark Marathon.  We would meet almost every Saturday to get a long run in.  This made those long runs so much more bearable.  We hardly knew each other before we started running together, but it was great to share stories, questions, etc. with each other.

Every morning in the summer, Matt + I run with a running club.  The 2 other coaches are phenomenal runners who I have learned a lot about running and coaching from.  Plus, they are FAST and push me to give it my all each run.  I truly believe one of the reasons I was able to run my 19:58 5K time was because I had been training with them.

However, now that I’m pregnant, my normal running buddies are out of the question.  They are simply too fast for me to keep up, or are running much farther that my baby bump can handle.  Lucky for me, I found an awesome running buddy in my co-coach for Girls on the Run.

I’m not gonna lie:  we haven’t done much running with our girls at all the past 11 weeks with coaching GOTR.  Many times, the lesson involves our needing to be in one spot to hand out lap counters, answer questions, etc.  But, today was a day where we did a longer run for the girls.  So, we ran together.

It has been a long time since I have run with anyone, and it felt awesome!  We had a wonderfully easy pace that we kept the whole time, and it was so nice to girl talk on our run.  We ran 3 miles in a little under 30 minutes, and it FLEW by!  Having a friend to keep you company and keep your mind off how hard running can be made a huge difference!

I foresee many more runs together in our near future…