I don’t know what it is about my running speed, but I’m either too slow or too fast to run with a buddy or in a group. It’s like I give off some sort of anti-social pheromone (it’s probably sweat, which I do a lot) whereby people catch a whiff of it and are motivated to run a couple hundred yards ahead of me. Case in point: my recent track workout. I showed up for my first track night in like a month, but the pattern was eerily familiar. We all do some warm up laps and some drills before Teresa tells us what the workout is and assigns a pace for each of us. Every single time she does this, she assigns everyone a pace and seems to forget about me. I ask her “What’s my pace?” and she gives me one, then she scans the group and tries to find someone who runs at the same pace as me. And, I swear to God, whoever she pairs me with ends up running like a minute frickin’ faster than what Teresa assigned us as our pace. We all take off in a group and I check my watch to make sure I’m running at an appropriate speed, then I look up and see that the group I’m supposed to be running with is a million paces ahead of me, competing in some sort of unknown foot race that I’m most certainly going to lose. I mentally shake my fist at them and call them jerk face overachievers for running faster than they said they would. I then proceed to run by myself. This happens to me a lot. The same thing happens with Jason. We start off on a long run together and he half-ass jogs right in front of me because he thinks he needs to hang back and run at my pace. But then if I need to stop for whatever reason (e.g., I have a cramp, that hill nearly killed me, I’m fat and out of shape), he begrudgingly slows down and walks alongside me for roughly twelve seconds before whining, “Can’t you at least jog?” Then I snap at him to run at his own pace without me, which he ends up doing. He trots back to find me every so often, which I both hate and like (hate because I hate that he’s faster than me, like because at least he’s not completely ditching me). I’m starting to think that I’m destined to run by myself because apparently there is nobody in the entire Seattle metropolitan area who runs at the same pace as me. It’s like the Farmer in the Dell and I’m the cheese who stands alone. Or, in this scenario, I suppose I’m the cheese who runs alone. Hi-ho-the-dairy-o, the cheese runs alone. I’ve gotten pretty much used to it at this point, though. Besides, I’m not much of a talker when I run. I once ran around Greenlake with someone who talked my ear off the entire loop, with me offering up the occasional grunt and winded “Uh huh.” But still, there’s something about having a presence next to you that’s somewhat comforting. It’s like you mentally push each other to keep going and maintain a good pace. You don’t have to exchange words or have a lengthy, heart wrenching conversation about the meaning of life or anything. Oftentimes all you need is the physical presence of someone next to you to encourage you to keep going. And I don’t have that. (Well, Jason is pretty encouraging when we do our long runs, but I find his encouragement to...

On Sunday I dragged my sedentary ass outside and shuffled around Capitol Hill for four measly miles. The following is a transcript of the conversation I had with my body. Enjoy. Me: Hey body, get up. Body: What? Why? What for? Me: We’re going for a run. Body: Ehhhhhh, I don’t wanna. I want to sit on the couch and watch House Hunters while eating Reese’s pieces. Me: Come on, we haven’t gone on a run in weeks, and we haven’t had consistent workouts since October. Body: Meh. Me: You’re looking a little flabby lately… Body: Isn’t big supposed to be beautiful? Me: Yeah, but abs are more beautiful. Body: I wanna sit here and watch tee-vee-eee! Me: Don’t you remember how great you felt when you were 10 lbs lighter and when your resting heart rate was 48? Body: …yeah… Me: And remember how dedicated you said we’d be in 2009 and how we were going to improve all of our race times? Body: …maybe. Me: Well, we can’t improve our race times or achieve our goals if you keep sitting on your fat ass eating candy and watching Top Chef. Now get up and put your shoes on! Body: UGH. FINE. We head out the door and begin our run. Me: See, isn’t this great? It’s not too cold out, it’s not raining, it’s getting a bit dark but hey, that’s okay. Body: I hate this. Are we done yet? Me: No, we just started. Body: Hey, we’re running past the Kingfish! You wanna get some fried chicken? Me: NO. Keep going. Body: But everything’s all hurty and I don’t like it! Me: It’ll get better, I promise. Body: Ok…so how long have we been running? Me: I dunno, I don’t want to check. Keep running for a little while and then I’ll reward you by checking the time. Body: Ok…how about now? Me: No. Body: Fine…now? Me: No! Body: Come onnnnnnn, just look. Me: It’s been six minutes. Body: God damnit. We approach a hill. Me: Come on, we can do it. Body: This sucks! My chest hurts and my shoulder hurts and I can barely breathe and my side hurts and my abs feel tight and I hate this. Me: Don’t you remember when you used to do hill repeats on this hill? Suck it up and run! Body: Grumble grumble… We get to the top of the hill and keep running. Soon we see another runner up ahead. Me: Pass that runner. Body: What? Why? Me: Come on, we’re faster than her. Pick up the pace and pass her! Also, stop crossing your arms. And stand up straight. Stop leaning forward. Don’t run on your toes. Body: Jesus, anything else, your majesty? Me: Shut up and pass her. We pass the runner and reach the turn around point. There’s another long, gradual hill up ahead. Body: I hate you. Me: This is good for you! We live in a hilly neighborhood, and it’s great for training. Body: Arghhhh… Me: Keep running on 15th, I need to pick up a prescription before the pharmacy closes. Body: Fine. Whatever. We get to the pharmacy and quickly duck in. Body: Jesus Christ, it’s freakin’ HOT in here! Ugh, look at me. My face is beet red. I look like Louie Anderson after he’s just tied his shoes. Me: We’ll be back outside in a second. Head over to that counter. We walk over to the counter and pay for the prescription. The pharmacist gives us an odd look. Pharmacist: So, uh, decided to go for a run? Me/Body (trying to act casual): Oh yeah, no big deal,...