Couples Therapy 101

For those of you wondering where I’ve been for the last few months, Jason and I embarked on a type of couples counseling so to speak, in training for the Taupo Half-Marathon. This marked my third year running the event and Jason’s first. Against the advice of many of his friends, we thought it would be nice to train for and run a few hours together each week. So each Sunday, for the last twelve weeks we have run progressively longer distances together. It became a routine of waking to sun or occasional rain, eating some oatmeal, reading the Sunday paper and then donning our running gear to run the designated distance and discuss/debate the news events of the day. It was actually quite pleasurable and in no way dampened our spirits to wed. That’s until the day of the race. We had always agreed to run the race together and cross the line in joined hands of accomplishment. Unfortunately, I had succumbed to one of the worst colds of my life the two weeks prior to the race, necessitating time off work and several boxes of tissues. It put a serious damper on my final training and my spirits for the race. Despite work colleagues’ eager attempts to keep me from running as I sat coughing up a lung in between seeing patients, I vowed that I would run the race, or die trying.

Rain poured the day before the event, dampening my spirits even more, as Jason attempted to instill excitement in me for the event. With clouds lingering overhead we rose to the alarm clock (Jason clearly quicker then me) and prepared for the two hour event, my energy level rising thanks to the aide of a cup of instant coffee. Before we knew it we were off across the line, steadily passing other runners as we went. The pace felt good and Jason kept me going with his exuberance. By half way, we were just shy of our hour mark and I was starting to feel the lactic acid building up. Then we hit the wind, and more wind, and more wind. Somehow we continued to pass runners, Jason now running a few steps in front, with my meager voice calling out to him to slow down. Fortunately he didn’t hear and kept the pace going. With three kilometers to go, my usual distance to pick up the pace, all I could focus on was finishing. The lactic acid had become too much. Jason kindly pulled back as we mustered up the final hill, ran down the shoot, and as promised, crossed the line with joined hands. At which point I did nearly cough up a lung, necessitating a side trip to the chemist for an inhaler.

Despite the misery, we still managed to finish in 2:09.40. Respectable, but we know we can do better. There’s another half-marathon in Hamilton in October, you say? Looks like the counseling will continue.