I know exactly how incredibly fortunate I am that my husband, S, runs with me. Not just runs with me, but does so cheerfully. Happily. Kindly. Lovingly.
We generally train on our own during the week when work & family schedules are tightest, but we nearly always do our long runs together on the weekend. Running independently during the week allows us to do some running at our own paces, on our own favorite routes, and it allows me (the social runner) to run with girlfriends, too.
I call our weekend long runs "date runs" if they are on Saturday or "worshipping at the Church of the Deserted Trail" if they are on Sunday. Our kids are old enough to be left home alone, which makes running together a lot easier. I don't know that we could have handled running logistics 10 years ago. I guess I am lucky we didn't discover running until our kids were old enough to be home alone.
At first, I dragged S along on this running project. In fact, I sort of hauled him and all the kids outside and made them do the first couple weeks of Couch 2 5k a few weeks after I started it in fall, 2010. We were at the beach on vacation, all together, and they had no way to avoid me, and no good excuse not to run for a half an hour. I also bribed S with massages for each week of c25k that he completed. It worked. In my experience with my husband and kids, I've found that well chosen bribery always works.
S has become a willing runner. Once through Couch 2 5k and running a half hour, he was soon heading out and running further and faster. Then there was that day a few months later when he had two or three spare hours on the trail while our kids were volunteering to pick up garbage, so he just went out and ran 14 miles just because he had the time to kill. Of course, upping mileage like that would have taken me months of careful planning and training. . .
Even though I am still the one setting all the goals and picking the races and training plans, he now enjoys running and, like I do, he enjoys the many benefits to his mental and physical health. He and I are doing our first marathon together in May. We've got a really nice hotel booked for the two nights, and my mom has agreed to babysit the kids at home, and so we will make it a date weekend.
I run more, cross train more, and plan out all our training, but he gets the running plan done, and importantly, he is generally willing to do whatever craziness I set out for us. He lets me plan routes and set the pace. Fortunately, our paces are not terribly far apart. Right now, our ideal training paces differ by just a minute a mile or so (and even overlap by a little window on my fast end and his slow end), and he is cheerfully willing to go slower for me, and, when I am feeling strong enough, especially on the second half of long runs, I push my pace towards my fast end for him, even though he never asks. He does love to do a fast last mile or so on our long runs, so we usually split up for the last half mile to mile at the end, and I get to watch him cruise back to the car, where he gets out the chocolate milk before I get there. It always makes me smile to see him kick up his heels and cruise to the trail head, even after 16 miles of hard running in a cold rain. He always has a spark left at the end of every run. His energy is bottomless, and his good cheer is unquenchable.
Of course, being a MAN, he is getting faster more quickly than I am, but I figure that if I keep training harder and longer than he does, I'll hopefully be able to keep my pace close enough to his that we can still enjoy long runs together forever.
There is nothing more awesome than puttering along together, along the river, just us and our dog, for a few hours, and then getting his high five and kiss at the end of a 15 mile long run. Or, when that runner's high hits at mile 10 or mile 15, I get to smile at him and share the bliss, and exclaim that I can suddenly run effortlessly (at least for the 5 minutes the high lasts). Or, when a favorite love song comes on the playlist, sometimes I sing the lyrics to him. (That might not be his favorite thing, since I am definitely a horrible singer, but he smiles at me anyway.)
Our runs together are my favorite part of the week. We usually chat some, and listen to our tunes some, too. I always keep an ear bud in one ear, and the other ear open, so I can always hear him to chat whenever the fancy strikes us. When conversation breaks, I just tune back into my playlist.
S is also super helpful in always handling the water, gatorade, gels, etc. logistics. I hate stopping on a run, but my husband doesn't mind. Our (awesome) dog carries a backpack with fuels, gatorade bottles, etc, and my husband will happily jog ahead a bit, grab stuff from the dog's pack, then catch back up with me, hand off bottles and gels, etc. He'll do that every couple miles or whenever I need something. When we stop for refilling water bottles, he always mixes the gatorade packets. When I run solo, of course I do all that myself, but there is something very wonderful about being nurtured and cared for that way in the midst of a long hard run.
Yes, I have the best running husband in the universe. I know.
(And, no, we're not newlyweds. We'll be married 17 years this June.)
So, sweetheart, thanks for running with me. On the trail, in life, every day, all the time, I am ever grateful that you are by my side.
