Well, this was an interesting run. I was in Minnesota, my husband’s home state, for a memorial service for his grandmother who had passed away a couple of months ago. They waited on the memorial service, to coincide with an already-scheduled trip her out-of-state son had planned to Minnesota. In any event, I didn’t really know if I was going to get to run or not, but I had scheduled my shortest runs for my Minnesota days, just in case I had to skip them, and just in case I did get a chance to run, I wouldn’t be wasting my whole Minnesota trip with running.

I got up the first day, got dressed in my running gear, and started to leave Jon’s sister’s house where we were staying. Jon’s sister’s husband, my brother-in-law John, was up and saw me about to leave. I know he runs, too, so I asked him to point me in a good direction for my run. After a few moments of trying to think how to explain the running path to me, he decided it would just be easier to suit up and run with me. Although I knew it would be nice to have the company, it immediately sent terror into my heart. This guy is like well over 6 feet tall, mostly all legs, and quite athletic. Not necessarily an appropriate running partner for me. I warned him sufficiently about how slow he’d need to go and he assured me he hadn’t been running for 3 weeks and that this would be a good chance to see how well his injured ankle was healing.

Well, I set a personal record on that run with him. Although I did not specifically do my ‘speed’ run of 2.3 miles at 7 mph, I did, however, do 3.14 miles at 6.6 mph, finishing a 5k distance in 28:38, the first time I ever broke the 30-minute mark for a 5k! Cool! Thanks, John!