My Brother and I

Wow, running with someone is a lot more fun than running alone!

Don't get me wrong I love the solitude of running alone. I love the time to think. I love the time with no outside interruptions (except for the occasional rude driver). I think I still even PREFER running alone, but running with a partner, my brother, for the first time was great!

Right after I finished my Half Marathon about a week ago he told me he wanted to do a half with me. Because we live in Minnesota and part of living in the north is dealing with winter, I didn't want a race later than early November, and since Jason is a new runner, I wanted to give him time to train enough to be prepared, so I knew it couldn't be earlier than late October. I chose the Wisconsin Dells Half Marathon which is on October 24^th mainly because we get some great stuff including long sleeve shirt, winter hat, winter gloves, and a medal for finishers. I know that 2 months is not very long to give Jason to get ready for the race but with our background in sports I expect him to do quite well. 

I have already told him, both during training and during the race I'm not going to leave him on his own. I have no desire to run a fast half this time, so I am thinking about slowing down about 5 steps before the finish to let him finish ahead of me, but it also sounds really cool to finish side by side. 

Anyway back to our first run together, Even though we ran quite a bit slower, somewhere around 10:00/mile, than I am used to running 4.5 miles to accommodate his slower pace I feel like the miles went by quicker. I guess having him there acted as a distraction. Another benefit is that running at the slower pace for him forced me to run at the “easy” run pace I was supposed to be running at anyway. I seem to have a problem running slower than I know I can, presumably because of the mentality I've had drilled into me by different coaches from the various sports I've been involved in. My whole like I've always wanted to know that every workout i gave it everything I could. I used to love throwing up at the end of a run because I felt like that meant I had worked out hard. Of course now I know it just means I either ate wrong or drank wrong. 

Almost the whole run I talked about things I had learned about running, about my race, explained about water stops, pace setters, and a few random things along the way. I was pleasantly surprised at how little talking affected my breathing. 

right around mile 3 1/2 we had a driver passing us ask if we wanted a ride. I couldn't help but crack up. our clothes were clearly running clothes, my shirt even said "half marathon", so I don't understand why anyone would think we would want a ride. so i chuckled and politely said no thank you, and that we like running.