Running With Friends

Alyson, Brian and I

On the eve of my last day in North Carolina,  I was thinking of all of the wonderful people that I've met while I've been here.   First,  I had the pleasure to meet up with the Roanoke Valley Cycling Club and rode most every Tuesday and Thursday night during the summer heatwave that plagued much of this country.   We rode hard and had a blast.  Some nights I came out on top and other nights I had my ass handed to me.  Thanks guys for sharing your roads with this Montanan.

Next I traveled to Charlotte, the Queen City, and began to focus on running.  I am a social runner by nature, but so much of my time I fish, bike or run alone.  This is mostly because I don't know many people in the area and often times there aren't any clubs that I can find.  So I just go solo.   But Charlotte has many clubs and meeting places for just about any activity that one may want to try.  So one Thursday night I went to the U.S. Whitewater training center to meet the runners from the Charlotte Running Club for a trail run.  It was here that I met Brian and Alyson, a husband and wife team, that were both very good runners.   I exchanged numbers with Brian and he and I began running together on Sundays.   Brian and I have a similar pace and he was in the middle of his marathon training, so it made it nice to have someone to run long with on the weekends.   We got a few good runs in during my eight weeks here and let me tell you, this guy is going to qualify for Boston this December when he races in Florida.   Go Brian!

So thinking of Brian got me to thinking about my buddy Joel in Ketchikan, Alaska.   Joel and I ran almost every Sunday for most of the time I was in Alaska.  We even raced the Inaugural Road to Nowhere 10K on Gravina Island.   Joel was a great running partner and friend that I find that I often miss when I go out on my Sunday runs.

With Alaskan Joel and Missoulian, Nadia

But my initiation into long distance running with a group came from my good friend, Dean McGovern.   As a long-time member of Team Stampede, Dean has hosted the Sunday long run from his hose for more than a decade.  I started running with him in either 2000 or 2001, not long after we moved to Missoula.   I had taken several years off of both running and cycling due to injuries, but was ready to get my then, massive, out-of-shape body, back into condition.   So with the help of a group I got back into it.  And in the process I fell in love with big, epic runs in the wilderness and with the company of others who loved them the same as me.    Even today,  I feel that Dean is with me whenever I go BIG.

But let me not forget Joe Campana, Missoulian/world traveler, and good friend who I ran nearly every Tuesday and Thursday morning for years.   I could always count on him showing up at my front door about 5:35 am, listening to ESPN radio and ready to run.  We marathon trained and raced together for a few years and it has been infinitely harder to roll out of bed and hit the road on those days since we stopped running together (he and his family moved to India three years ago).

And last, but not least, there is Lyn.  Lyn and I started our friendship before I was old enough to drink beer (legally).   We started together as cycling partners that evolved into running partners and then into beer drinking partners and now are a nice mix of all of the above.  Lyn and I raced my first century together in 1986, my first 1/2 marathon together in 1995 and my first marathon together in 2003.  Talk about a long lasting relationship!

Lyn and I at the Palm Springs Half

So tomorrow I am off for a different part of the country, rural eastern New Mexico.  So who will I be running with?  Looks like I'll be running with Pete Pfitzinger (former Pro Marathoner).  Well, not exactly.  I have begun marathon training and am following his 18 week, 55 mile maximum weekly mileage program.   I have used my watered down version of his 18/55 program in the past and have been in good shape to run a decent marathon.   But this year I am going to stay more true to his plan, which is a much bigger plan than I have ever done.  Not so much with the mileage, as with the amount of interval and tempo work to improve my VO2 max and lactate threshold.   I have been feeling really good after the summer cycling and four month return to running program that I planned for myself.   So I'm going to give it a go and go for a new PR in the marathon.  Yes, I'm going to put it on paper.  I am going to run a 3:07 marathon this coming February in Austin, Texas.

There, I said it.  Now there's no going back.   So I'm counting on Pfitz to get me in shape to crush my old PR of 3:13.  Here is an example of this program that I got off of the Internet.  Pfitz.plan.

Well there may be a running group in New Mexico, but I'll be running with Pfitz and the fond memories of those who I've run with in the past.