Runsketeer run at Bethpage with SIOR

If she ran 12 and I ran six, why do I look twice as tired?

Today's run (Bethpage bike trail): 6 miles

As they say in baseball, this is a rebuilding year for my running. I'm accepting the precipitous decline in my performance and, although my ego has taken a hit, I still enjoy the running experience as much as ever. I ran with SIOR this morning and admitted to her that I was a little intimidated by her speed. Usually TPP serves as the performance buffer, able to keep up with SIOR for the majority of the time while I languish behind. Today I had no buffer.

I mentioned my concerns about that to SIOR after our run and she was completely supportive of the effort I put in today. She is training for an upcoming marathon in Utah and following the Hanson training method that includes slow runs. Of course her definition of slow is my current definition of 5K pace. I was really happy that we were able to run together for much of the last three miles. The way it worked was for her to slow down a lot more and for me to speed up a little.

SIOR's schedule called for 12 miles today and I was aiming to do about six. We worked out our plan so that SIOR ran six miles out and back north of the Bethpage lot and then three south where she'd rendezvous with me. From there we'd run our last three back to the lot together. We met up on the path just as planned and made our way north.

Today's route

While I know I can run faster when I have to, I tend to default to an easy pace. Post workout, we discussed the fact that my breathing sounds labored during my runs and we wondered if my bout with pneumonia in 2010 has had a long term effect on my lung capacity. I wasn't much faster when I ran with SIOR, but I did improve by a couple of minutes over the first three miles.

Once we'd finished our run, we headed over to Starbucks™, the official run recovery spot of the Runsketeers. We missed our buddy TPP today. She was with JC in Connecticut running with the Iron Cowboy to support his goal of running 50 Ironman distances in 50 days for the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation. SIOR and I covered a lot of subjects including her upcoming marathon and the challenges of high altitude running.

I had a great time with SIOR and realized later that today's six miles was my longest run so far in 2015. In past years I would have already run a 10K and/or a half marathon by this point. My experience today motivated me to try to push a little more next time. I look forward to our next Runsketeer run and I'm going to try to keep up with SIOR and TPP a little longer than I have. After yesterday's near trip that (happily) did not re-aggravate my disc issue, I'm think I'm ready for some intervals next weekend.