Running Buddies.

For about 6 year I trained completely alone. Then I met a friend at a race who I was able to run with on weekends. We joke now that we are even still friends because the first run we did was in horrible weather, sleet, rain, and snow....and then we found more friends and then the next thing we knew, we were meeting at 5:30am to run 6-7 miles during the week before work,kids,house chaos kicked up. Now we meet at 5:15am, I am pretty sure we have reached the line with early times though, 5:15 is the cut off. Over the last few years through going to races I have met some incredible women (at this point about 15 women) and with time these ladies have gone from the runners I cheer for and take pictures of, to running buddies, to truly dear friends. I am so thankful for all of them, their friendship, their passion for running that encourages and pushes me, and of course their willingness to wake up at 4:30am to hit the asphalt for an hour or more! Cheers to you my friends!

This week's mileage was 46 road miles (4 running days on the roads) and 1 hour 45 minutes total in the pool over two days. If I had run the times I did in the pool 48 minutes and 57 minute it would have put me 59 miles, so that's awesome!

My Friday run was a tempo run, which I haven't done in months and months. It felt awesome. I just love that feeling of settling into pace, but at the same working hard, and finding 5th gear. After 7 miles of running on aver average between 7 min-7:10 miles (super hilly route in Holyoke, our slowest mile was a 7:16) we cranked it down to 6:33 our last mile, awesome.... yes! If you can get our body to run fast at 5:15 am, anything is possible!

Tomorrow back up into the 20's...today, lord knows I need to wash some dishes and actually fold the clean clothes in the basket. :)