Just Twenty Miles

I’ve held off writ­ing much about run­ning the past few weeks. Okay, so I’ve held off writ­ing about much of any­thing the past few weeks (up until this week­end any­way). Well, that was main­ly because I want­ed to wait until after this morn­ing to write about what we have accom­plished so far.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, on a sun­ny and cool day, Angela and I ran togeth­er for 20 miles. We fin­ished in 4 hours and 45 min­utes, which won’t exact­ly break any records. How­ev­er, the point is that we fin­ished and we did it togeth­er. It is real­ly hard to write just how proud of her I am. Just a few years ago, not being a run­ner as a kid or in col­lege, she ran her first 5k. Just this past Spring, she ran her the Mon­u­ment Avenue 10k, anoth­er per­son­al record for dis­tance. Now, she has reached what is con­sid­ered by most to be the longest train­ing used in dis­tance run­ning. That is no small feat and it requires real ded­i­ca­tion to achieve. Fur­ther, while it may seem counter-intu­itive, run­ning slow­er on those long runs means being out there for just that much longer. Near­ly five hours of stren­u­ous phys­i­cal activ­i­ty is tough on any­one, and she fin­ished with her usu­al big smile, as if we’d just been walk­ing around the block.

Because of the way our train­ing was set up, Angela was on the novice team which would have one 20 mile run. My team, which was for some­what more advanced run­ners (which I do not claim to be; it was decid­ed for me), ran three 20 mile days, the last coin­cid­ing with the novice group. I ran the first one at a rel­a­tive­ly slow pace, as it was a first for me. The sec­ond, I real­ly want­ed to see what I was capa­ble of doing, so I ran faster. I had thought all along that run­ning this last one with Angela might be fun, espe­cial­ly to keep her com­pa­ny. One of the coach­es agreed that using the mid­dle 20-mil­er as the more stren­u­ous test run would be a good idea, so I went with that plan. I have to say, that although the com­pa­ny I had on the first two was great, the one yes­ter­day with Angela was so much fun.

Way to go, Angela. You proved to the run­ning group and every­one we know that you can do it. What’s more, you fin­ished with a smile and then took me to lunch. Who could ask for a bet­ter part­ner to run with and hang out with for the rest of our lives? You’re awesome.