I’ll admit it — today a lot of the Buckeye Striders were going to be out of town, so Deb and I went to a different location for the Saturday morning walk. (I know, it was divisive.)

We were scheduled to do 8 miles, but because we didn’t get up to 10 miles last week, we left 10 as an option.

We went to Sharon Woods at 7 a.m. and it was still dark and it was cold! I hate dark and cold mornings! This park has a 3.8-mile loop and large mile markers. It always takes me a while to get warmed up enough that I can walk fast comfortably. Our first mile I thought Deb had set too fast of a pace, but it took us just 14:09, not too fast at all. We tried to hover around that pace, and even got down to 13:58 for mile 3.

The first lap was uneventful except the park was beautiful! The second lap we really slowed with our slowest mile 14:25 (Deb stopped to get a drink from the fountain, so I slowed to wait for her). After 8 miles we felt great, so we decided to do two more miles. I made the executive decision to pick up the pace for mile 9 to see how fast we could get. Though she was not entirely sold on the idea, Deb hung in there, and I would not let her slow down. We did that mile in 13:38! Because she was such a good sport, we used the last mile as our cool down and finished it in a very slow 15 min.

It was a beautiful morning! The temps were perfect, though I can’t stand being cold first thing in the morning. And though we did not see any deer, we did see the flock of wild turkeys. (No, wild turkeys are NOT cute!)

I’m glad Deb talked me into leaving my jacket in the car, and she is glad I talked her into walking mile 9 fast — and that is why we train so well together!

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