Hanging on for the run

I'm not sure what happened to Joe today.  This was supposed to be an easy 3 miles.  It was less than a quater mile into the run that I realized how hard I was breathing.  No problem, we took off a little fast, things will settle down.  Not really.  He pulled ahead towards the end of Mineral Spring, perfect posture, this was going to hurt. 

Joe runs 2 ways: tired - slunched over, barely picking up the feet and can often be masked by watching him chat with others in an attempt p distract from the run and slow everyone down; fast - looks like he did today, like a fridge on wheels, standing straight, perfectly bent arms.  

I thought about asking to slow down, but we turned on to Smithfield with includes a slight downhill.  I also thought we would slow down a little.  Didn't happen.  Coming up Power involves a slight uphill that normally knocks the wind out of our sails, but we kept on going.  For a moment I thought about holding on to the back of Joe's jacket and let him run us both home.  

When we made our turn back on to Mineral Spring I decided I could hold this until we got home.  A race ensued, although I'm not sure he even noticed.  I focused on staying next to him, which only made him run faster.  Our final turn on to Charles St, we both let it all go, sprinting the last 400 meters.  Finally done, he turned and smiled and asked "was that faster than yesterday".  Jackass!

Miles trained today: 3.05

Days till the Manhattan Half: 60