Escape.

I've never been one to seek out running partners. More so, I've avoided them. Running has always served as "me" time, a means to escape the trappings of our "do it all and have it done yesterday" society. When running with someone else, or even worse, a group of someone elses, I've found it impossible to get to my happy place. Inevitably, I would get caught up in a pace that wasn't comfortable (or was too comfortable), a distance that wasn't of my choosing, a route that was inconvenient, and God forbid, a conversation of which I wanted no part. It's only been about a year since I've tolerated running with other people, and even still, it was just barely.

Two weeks ago, something changed.

The past few months, my husband, a friend, (we'll call them "the Boys") and I have been training for a 50 mile race in February. As I'm sure you can imagine, the mileage has been adding up. Our long run last week was 31 miles. It seemed as though the stars aligned with the perfect opportunity for this run: Croom Zoom. A race up in Brooksville that had a 50k (31 mile) option. How serendipitous! Actually, not really, because it was my weekend to go play my role as an officer in the Army Reserves. So, the Boys enjoyed themselves (and smashed their PRs) at Croom while I was protecting the free world. My only option was to do the 31 mile training run the weekend before by myself in Myakka. I thought this would be excellent! It had been so long since I was able to enjoy the solitude of my pace and my iPod. I was secretly stoked.

It was a particularly cold Florida morning, hovering in the 40's with a blistering wind. Being that it was 5:30AM, I was greeted by the better half of Myakka's animal population foraging for their morning sustenance. Myakka is beautiful anytime of the day, but there is something ethereal, other-worldly about it in the pre-dawn hours. Between the wildlife and wilderness, I was hardly alone on this run. It was mostly easy going. I was clicking off the miles with relative ease. Other than a nagging ankle injury, my body felt strong and and my stride was sure. I was able to catch up on my audiobook. Simply fabulous. Then, about 25 miles in, I began to experience a feeling I'd never encounter while running: loneliness. I was no longer enjoying my run. Suddenly, I started noticing how tired my legs were, how heavy my CamelBak was. The remaining 6 miles seemed interminably long.

I managed to eek out the rest of the run, but I wasn't happy about it. I just wanted to be finished. I didn't even really care that I had bested my previous 50k time by almost an hour. Having no one with which to share it made the task seem trite. (Side note: Of course it wasn't trite. I had just run 31.1 miles in 5 hours and 17 minutes on some pretty gnarly terrain. That's nothing to sneeze at.) Unbeknownst to me, I had turned into a pack runner, actually enjoying the company of the Boys on our runs. (Not to say that I didn't enjoy their company while not running!) Over the miles of the previous months, I had come to crave our musing of future races, current life problems, the validity of the theory that alien life exists in the Orion constellation, solidifying roles for the Zombie Apocalypse. All worth-while subjects for long run cogitation.

Turns out that I've partially changed my hermit-esque ways. Now, I look forward to their company as much as a do the miles. This is a special thing that we are doing, and it's made even more so because we are doing it together. It isn't often that you find one person willing to train for and run a 50 miler, much less common to find three. I still get to escape, now I'm just bringing friends with me.