back in the groove

saturday mornings are a weekly scheduled run with brian and i. since the half marathon in long beach, he's missed every one. either i've been out of town and he hasn't run the prescribed distances, or he's had other commitments/excuses. i called him on friday evening, half expecting him to bail again, but instead, he answered the phone excited and enthusiastic about getting out to run.

we met up saturday morning at the laguna hills community center so we could run the aliso creek trail. i figured he'd be up for about 4 miles, i'd run that with him and then run an additional 4 on my own. instead, brian suggested we run 6. i thought it would be a stretch for him, but we'd give it a try.

we set off at a decent pace (11 min miles - quick for brian) and settled into a comfortable groove. as we neared our turn-around at mile 3, i asked him if he'd mind me running on for another mile and catching back up with him. i really wanted to get in 8 miles, and tacking a simple two on at the end didn't seem as enticing as adding them in the middle of the run. brian suggested that he try to run the full 8 with me. wow. and he was hanging in there pretty well too.

as we neared the 3.5 we agreed that he'd turn around there to do a total of 7, and i'd run on at my pace to 4 and then catch up with him. i took off and pushed a pretty hard pace, turned around at 4 miles and attempted to do the math to figure out at what point i'd catch him. if i'd had the garmin, i would have been able to figure it out easier, but i was pushing faster than what i had guessed and i ended up catching him at 5.5. we ran the rest together and finished pretty strong coming in at 1:28:47. it ended up being just under a 13 minute pace for brian. after taking several weeks off, i was amazed that he was able to do so well.

well, not so much amazed, more excited since he definitely was back into his groove.

Posted by jeff at November 21, 2004 9:35 AM