After yesterday, a death in the family is always tough and even though you might not be very close to the person, it still makes you stop and think about life and death a bit more in your own life.

So I was a bit down and tired last night, but we got to sleep in this morning and with the new day it brought a freshness that hasn’t really been in my step for a couple of weeks.

Mary and I got to eat breakfast together, slowly begin our day…pretty much the way we imagined our retirement being versus the real life, but what is necessary for now.

She got to go for a run. If you look closely you can see her at the bottom of the hill – that is who Bennie is looking. He wanted to go catch her and he would very quickly.

Luckily at that time the temps were still in the 60’s, but as the day went on the temps dropped quite a bit. On the walk with Bennie, Jon emailed me and asked if I was interested in running with him at 11:00, so I changed my workout to go run in town.

It was a good choice.

• Day: Wednesday
• Time of Day: 11:03a
• Course: PF-Leighton 4.0 Miler
• Distance: 4.02
• Time of Run: 32:13
• Pace: 8:01
• Rating (1-4): 4
• Running Streak Day #: 9
• Weather: Drizzle/Light Rain/Overcast, 58*F, Humidity 84%, Wind 6 mph NNE

• Shoes Worn: Altra Impulse (19.8) I was very impressed at how well they handled the faster paces on the roads. Even though they are bit heavier than other “go faster”, they felt comfortable, encouraged me to land a bit lighter on my heels (a lot like the old Altra 3-Sums did back in the day) and best of all I felt as though I had another gear or two left.

Variables that impacted the run: The light rain/drizzles was a great test of the Impulse’s traction on wet roads. Unfortunately, I wore a long sleeve tech tee and a short sleeve one, when I really only needed the short sleeve.

Planned Workout: Originally I planned to run my Goodhue 7.0 Mile course at an easy pace, that got changed to running with Jon at Planet Fitness.

Comments: Jon was talking about how he wanted to start adding in some faster runs, something he felt was missing from his training, since his knee operation back in May.

Okay, we can do that.

However, I really was not expecting to run all that fast today, especially with him racing this weekend at the Maine Half Marathon. I kind of thought he was talking about next week, where instead I he was talking about starting today, because when we started out I was having a little difficulty catching my breath.

Once my body figured out that we were going to run faster today and after we got off Outer Civic Center Drive – AKA the wind tunnel, things got better for me. I found the right stride with the Impulse and after that I might have been able to push the pace every so often.

I know that we were working pretty hard, because after the first mile we stopped talking and focused on running. Which is the first time that we have had this kind of a run together. I do have to admit that it was easier for me to run harder with Jon on my shoulder than it is when I am trying to do those things by myself.

We hit mile 2 in 8:03 and mile 3 in 8:06, so while we were moving right along for a couple of over 60 year old guys, it wasn’t anything crazy. The last mile was 7:41, even with the little bump at the end. So it was a really good run and not the one that I expected that was for sure.

Now I won’t say that I was at race pace, but I did feel that I could have shifted into another gear or two once figured out the Impulse’s correct stride (which is slightly different than my non-zero drop shoes). However, I was training with Jon, not racing and he asked me to push him to a faster run.

If we had been racing, there were a few places where I knew if I had continued to pick up the pace, that I would have quickly created a pretty large gap between us and he would have lost contact. So at those points I eased off the gas until he got back up with me.

Jon is a lot better runner than I am and once he gets back into racing shape the tables will be a reverse of what happened today – I am sure. So I am not going to get too excited by being able to push him today, because my day is coming where he will kick my arse badly.

How did this run move me towards my goal(s)? Sometimes you just have to be flexible with your training and while being smart about the overall training loads, be willing to go with the flow on days that you seem to be ready to run a bit harder than planned/expected.

Cardio (walking, elliptical, bike, mowing, etc.) Total: 3.97

Weight: 158

Non Running Comments: This afternoon we had to take Elliot to the Vet and he did quite well, even though he was hiding behind the computer monitor when the Doc came in.