Did It Say "Walk Now"? or Workout #2 for June

This morning I had the pleasure of having a running partner I haven't had yet. Bear had an appointment at 9am, so there was no point in going to school for an hour (yes, I talked with his teacher about it), so he was home for the morning. I knew that if I waited to work out, I would not want to go, but would anyway. So I might as well go when I want to go, right?

He was very excited to run with me today, which helped. It was week 4, run 2 (4.2) of Couch to 5k, so fairly intense, and halfway through the program! Ethan wanted his own iPod, so we put mine on the speaker, set it in front of us, and headed out, after the bus picked up Lambie. I explained to him how it worked and he was thrilled.

After the first run, he said that "it felt like nothing!" He kept meticulous track of how many walks and runs we'd done. And talked about them incessantly. It proved to be very hard to "space out". He would say, things like "Wow, this is getting tougher!", "I don't know how this gets you skinnier because I feel like the size of a bathtub! Thump thump thump! BIG HEAVY STEPS!", "My muscles are getting bigger! Look at my arms! They're bigger!", "Wow! Aren't you tired?", "Look, they already sold their house! Good for them!", "I'll race you to the stop sign!", "I'm starting to get sweaty. I only do that in REAL sports.", "Look how sweaty you are!", "This says we have 3 minutes left to run. You're already tired, and you've only ran 2 minutes for this time."... and so forth.

Constant.

But it was fun. I didn't do the runs very well. I discovered that I should NOT watch the time tick down. It makes me focus on the seconds ticking by, rather than my progression. Plus, I was a weeee bit overstimulated, but I am confident for Saturday's run, 4.3, that I will be able to do it. We shall see, of course.

The best part of having Bear along is that he is very very intense about rule following. At one very brief moment, I slowed to a walk, and he said, "What are you doing? Did it say 'Walk now'? I didn't hear 'Walk now'." Of course I had to run. The whole time. Every time.

I love that he didn't get hurt. I love that he didn't complain about being tired, or the rain. I even love that he wanted me to remain accountable. What I loved most was him flexing his tiny biceps for me while I cooked dinner, so I could see his new muscles he got from running.