The Best Running Buddy Ever

There are some friends that you hangout with. There are some friends that you travel with. There are some friends that you party with. Then, there are some friends that you live life with. Emma is a friend that embodies all those.


It wasn't too long ago when I schemed up the idea of running at Camp Pendleton. After asking half a dozen people and hearing "Are you crazy?! Why would you want to do that? Of course I'm NOT going to do that with you." Emma was the one person who was gung ho. Not only that, she shared my passion for it, despite neither of us being runners previously.


Since then we continue to pick new challenges to tackle. Our conversations go something like this:
J: "So I have news. I've decided to run a marathon for my birthday."
E: "No Way!!! Can I do it too?!"
J: "Yeah!!! We're gonna collapse at the finish line together."


Or maybe another good one had recently:
E: "I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon next year. Let's train together."
J: "As long as one of the training races is the North Pole Marathon, I'm in."

Yup, we're a crazy pair. A few weeks ago when Emma emailed and asked if I wanted to do the 13.1 half marathon for one of our training runs I was a little hesitant, because I didn't want to derail our training. It would mean a decrease in mileage actually, because we were supposed to do 15 miles that weekend. Then again, how can you say no to a red head that is all amped up?


The race was soooo much fun. Running with Emma and knowing that even with all of the obstacles which challenged us beyond just the long mileage, we were in it together kept me going strong. At mile 8 & 9 when we hit the big hills and Emma was really starting to feel her knee pain, we kept each other going. I picked out two annoying girls who I decided we were going to beat. A little visualization never hurts. Emma was the pace setter, who reminded me "Uh Jordan, you have another 5 miles left, maybe you don't want to run at your mile pace."

We didn't quite cross the line together, but Emma had two new friends...Grapefruit knee #1 and Grapefruit knee #2. Perhaps we should give her knees more humanistic names considering they almost had their own zip codes. How bout Nichos and Neal? Huh, huh? Yeah, you'll read that 2 or 3 times and you won't laugh but then later in the day you'll think about it and crack a smile.

In conclusion, thanks to the Emazing Emmers for being such a good running buddy and for always sticking it out.