Running Buddies

On Friday, I did something I rarely do – I ran with a friend.

When it comes to exercise, I’m kind of a loner. It’s not necessarily by choice; none of my close friends are active (except for Josh but he gets his exercise through sports, which I don’t like so we don’t really jive in that respect) so, other than occasionally going to the gym with my sister, I’ve grown accustomed to working out alone.

The only exception is my friend Cailie but she moved to Vancouver in January. She’s actually the person who introduced me to running back in March of last year when I first started to exercise.

Did I mention that she’s a national athlete, certified personal trainer and recipient of virtually every Athlete of the Year award throughout high school and university?

Here’s a little piece of advice from the Captain Obvious files – when heading out for your very first run, don’t do it with someone whose athletic abilities are so obviously superior to your own.

I’ll give her credit, she tried to slow her pace to match mine the first time we ran together but after about twenty tortuous minutes, I gave her my blessing to go on without me. She sped off while I limped the rest of the way home with an injured hip flexor that rendered me immobile for the next two days.

Fun times.

And yet I still kept running although almost all of my subsequent runs were solo missions. As a result, I’m used to zoning out to my music and letting my mind wander during my runs. The idea of trying to carry on a conversation throughout a run has never appealed to me.

That all changed on Friday. Cailie is in town this week and after a fun day of shopping, she suggested we go for a run together. My immediate response was “no way.” I didn’t have any music to listen to and I’m not used to running with someone else. The memories of our first and only run together still lingered in the back of my mind and, on top of that, I had run almost 14 km the night before and my legs were stiff and heavy the entire time.  

Well, I’m glad she talked me into it because it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable runs I’ve ever been on. We chatted the entire time, which made the forty minutes fly by; it was nice using gossip instead of music as a distraction. We also ran a really nice route by the ravine near her house, which was a nice change of scenery from running on the main road. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that we went again on Saturday afternoon and have two more running dates scheduled for next week before she goes back to B.C. I’m hooked!

Do you prefer to run alone or with a friend?

Do you have a lot of friends who are active or do you find yourself in the minority among your friends when it come to healthy living?

The Week in Fitness

Here’s what the rest of the week looked like:

My week got off to a slow start thanks to an unplanned rest day on Sunday and a lame 3km run on Monday. The lack of activity on those two days coupled with some major indulging over the weekend had me fiending for a couple of good sweat sessions, which I took care of on Tuesday with a morning RPM class and an evening Body Pump class. Wednesday was my scheduled rest day in preparation for my long run on Thursday. I also ran on Friday and Saturday and did Body Pump Saturday morning. Pretty good for what started out as a less than stellar week.

This week, I’m supposed to scale back my mileage with three easy 6 km runs. However, I missed my speedwork last week so I’m going replace one of my easy runs with a speedwork session on Monday. Other than that, my week will pretty much look the same – RPM and Body Pump mixed with running. Oh, and I’d also like to get in at least one Body Flow class since I missed out on that as well last week.

I also officially start working full-time tomorrow so it will be interesting to see how I adjust to the new schedule. :S