Penance Run

Since the 10 miler was more of a make-up for the missed Saturday and the Arby's meltdown, I still owed a run yesterday with Jason.  They always say "He who pays the piper calls the tune," but I think the Tuesday run was the exception.  I was paying the piper, but I didn't call the shots at all. 

Our usual weekday runs, as of late, have consisted of a nice short jog about 30ish minutes long by my place.  I gave up home field yesterday and went out to Jason's place to do his trail instead.  I barely even wanted to think about running.  It was steaming hot outside, and Jessi was at work, so I could have easily stayed in with the A/C going and got things done around the house.  That, or I could have easily sat around doing next to nothing, watching some Netflix DVDs, catching up on that table full of reading material I have sitting out, or swearing at Metroid Prime 2 (which I've been nursing for at least a year since I hardly ever play games anymore).  Instead, it was immediately changing into running clothes and going to Jason's right after work.

I pretty much knew I didn't want to do this.  However, I told myself no whining.  I wasn't going to mention the big run on Monday, or complain how it made me too tired to Jason.  I was just going to keep my mouth shut, and run with him, letting him lead the way and choose the path.  There really were only two goals for the run:  keep up and shut up.  I managed to stay with both.  Sure I mentioned that it was a tough run, the sweat-soaked light blue shirt was proof of that, but I didn't cop out and make excuses.  It's all part of my new "Don't Suck as a Running Partner" campaign.

Just to twist the knife a bit, though, we went further than we usually do because he wanted to.  I told him to lead the way, so we did our usual run, and then instead of going back, he wanted to head for the park like we used to.  After that, he asked "Do you want to go back up the hill on the way back" and I answered "I'm up for whatever, it's up to you."  I should have phrased that response better.  The way I said it pretty much gave him no choice but to do it.  I'm pretty sure "I'm up for whatever, it's up to you" when translated into runner speak means "I can, but if you decide not to, it's okay that you're a wussy."  When we hit the hill he asked "Why'd you talked me into this hill again?"  That was hilarious.

When we finished we realized neither one of us brought anything to determine how far we ran or how long we had been going for, so we had to do a little bit of estimating.  I tried to map it on Daily Mile, but with the trails not marked on any map or the distances not laid out on the trail maps, it's a little hard to get it very accurate.  I figured it was about 72 minutes and 6.8 miles or so, but there's no way to know for sure.  The only sure thing was that it's somewhere between 6 and 8 miles, and we were probably going about a 10:30 pace.  My estimate on Daily Mile is probably really conservative for pace and distance, but I logged it anyway. 

Anyway, the piper is paid, with interest.  I'm not even going to think about running today, but maybe we'll do that Ophelia Bonner 5K tomorrow.