For the first time in at least a couple of years, I ran with a partner today: Jake Thompson (new to FRB under http://jaket.fastrunningblog.com/). We took it easy and it was great to have some good company. Jake's trying to talk me into running shorter races to increase my turnover as part of my training to go sub-2:30. The problem is that fast for him is like warp speed for an old guy like me. However, I think he's got the right idea. It might take some time to persuade me to actually set my pride aside and run a few races where I'm lucky to finish in the top 100, but running with Jake might--might--help bring me around. We're going to try to run together regularly, at least through the winter. He's looking at running some collegiate races unattached (he ran for Weber pre-mission), so our training paths will necessarily diverge at some point, but I'm looking forward to the opportunity to break out of my anti-social running shell for a while. | 