Shut Up and Run

Coming off Ironman Canada I was really looking forward to some time off. I was going to do some waterskiing cut some firewood and get ready for winter. My plans were changed a little when a really lame skiing crash bruised a lung and broke some ribs. This was just 1 week post Canada. A couple of days later The Little Faulker, yes that's really her name, challenged me to run the Tr1 Cities marathon. Having a good base I thought it might not be a bad idea. Meghan and I have ran together several times over the past few months and we run well together. So I decided to run the Sandpoint half marathon with her and if the bruised lung could take the punishment then I would commit to training with her. The race went fine and I was ready to give it a go. There are several things that make good training partners. You have to push each other and support each other and hold each other accountable to the rigors of the training schedule. But the thing, I think, that makes us good training partners is that neither of us feels the need or actually want to talk while we're training. I know there are a lot of people that like to spend there training time talking about their day or the problems in their life or just basically chitchat. Don't get me wrong if there is something that needs said we talk. Things like "watch out for that car" or "that hill really sucked" or "was that the last one" but for the most part the training is the focus. I think some people use conversation as a distraction so they don't notice how much they are suffering. Others just don't seem to be able to shut the fuck up. When I'm going out of my way to suffer for a purpose that's what I'm there to do, not talk about my day. Usually the suffering is a way for me to try to forget my day, not rehash it for somebody that really doesn't give a shit. But I digress. We are a little over a week away from the race now and I'm really not sure what to expect come race day. The one thing that I do know is that having a training partner has pushed me every single workout. Even when she was sick and couldn't get to the workout I still felt accountable to the goals we had set, and I got it done. So next week we will see if I have what it takes to go to Boston. Thanks Little Faulker for the push. As a not so insignificant side note. Meghan and I's training had a bit of a ripple effect. She, being the social media mogul that she is, invited all of our Tri-Fusion friends to our speed work track session. We had several people show up consistently. None more consistently though than my Jayne. Jayne even came the day Meghan was sick and ran the 800's in the crazy wind. And just so you know this past weekend Jayne PR'd in the Spokane half marathon by 5 minutes. Thats is a tough course to get a PR. She credits David Dennison for pacing her, and I'm sure that helped. But what really made the difference was Jayne learning, out on that track, that she CAN run fast. Really proud of her!