The Fun of Negotiations

After my ice running fiasco (btw - everything melted yesterday, so running outside is good to go), I needed some sort of recovery. Something about running 5 miles where your foot never lands flat has a way of making your body feel like it did something wrong....er, challenging. So my tri-trainee and I went for a run today. Since she was still recovering from her weekend cold, she took yesterday off, so today was her chance to get a solid run in at HER pace.

One of the "unique" aspects of working out with your significant other is the constant negotiations of the workout. For us, it revolves around pace, distance, and time. Before starting our run, the negotiations begin: "How much are we running?", she asks. I reply, "Oh not that far." I'm sure you can empathize with her on this one. However, as her coach, I know what she can and cannot do and I wouldn't put her in the situation to fail. Nor would I push her too hard. Its always and interesting negotiation. Take for example, near the halfway point of our run yesterday. "We're turning around at that next bridge", she demands. "No, we're going to the next exit, which is only .25 miles further and you can even see it right there. It's right there!", I reply. "No, I'm turning around now.", she says. Well, I guess that's not much of a negotiation, but since she is recovering from her cold, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

Regardless of our "negotiation", she made it the whole way without stopping, for a whopping 47:23, or 49:00 according to her watch. For her first run outside, she really proved to herself that she shouldn't be afraid to run longer distances. As we continue to workout together, I hope she continues to push herself to new distances and thresholds. You can follow her version of the story on her blog but hopefully its the same story ;)

Ok, back to me. Cuz, this blog IS about me, right? I was happy with my overall numbers for this recovery run. Overall, my avg hr = 131, and that was mostly due to a few of the steep climbs, as you can see in the graph below. This is my first posting of my precious' graphs, so I hope you enjoy!