Two's company

Following Monday night's epic run with Run Dem Crew West and the never-ending encouragement, I planned a run with a friend last night.  We both met through university rowing training about a hundred years ago so have known each other through some very good times and some very bad times - rowing tends to be a sport of extremes, just check out the Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race for some examples.  Add to this the fact that we both lived together when we moved to London, and now live five minutes walk away from each other – we’re very good friends.  Oh, and she ran a marathon in 3:14.  No jokes. 

Despite her amazing time, she is an awesome running buddy (I can't over-emphasis how concerned I was the first time she suggested running together..."how will I EVER keep up??!") because she completely paces herself to your speed rather than the other way around.  So when we both were talking about how much better it can be to run with someone, we decided to buddy up a couple of times a week for company.  This meant we could catch up (despite living five minutes from each other, life seems so hectic that sometimes we'll only email each other, which is crazy) and motivate each other to get the necessary miles done.  Now I (conveniently) work twenty minutes walk from home - approx. one mile - so a run home from my office would not be particularly badass.  But she lives about five and a half miles away from her office – a far more badass distance - so I changed into the ever-attractive lycra after work and took the tube to meet her for an epic run back. 

Despite the cold, it was a good run and having someone beside me really made the miles go quicker.  I was a little sore after running on Monday night - my legs were a bit tired - but as we were running home and it was absolutely freezing, running really was the quickest way to get back, we just kept on trucking.  So that's another five and a half miles under the belt *whoop*.  And although today is a rest day, we've booked in another early morning run tomorrow morning with a caffeinated reward at the end to make sure we both get out of bed. 

When it's this cold in the morning, it's all about the end-of-run-reward time...