My new running partner

For the last couple of months, I have found myself a new running partner. The new partner is just this: a partner. If it had been completely down to me, I would have chosen him fitter, faster, or the perfect pacer, which he is not. But you have to give him credit for it, he never lets me down, and comes running with me every time I want to head out. Whether I go long or for a short jog round the block, face the snow or take advantage of a sunny winter day, hit the asphalt or run up alpine trails, no questions asked, he is just coming.

I enjoy running with the new partner, and, icing on the cake, the husband is not even jealous. Problem is, the more we run together, the more he seems to have a pretty detrimental effect on my running. It is actually dead simple: the more we go, the slower we are. But hey, I guess it is normal when one is pregnant.

Yep, you read well.

Now, I am a runner, not a triathlete, and even less a swimmer, but a few months ago, I took the plunge. Or rather, I guess Martin and I did, although, at least until this little thing I am “housing” inside me gets out, I feel I am plunging a bit more than Martin.

My new running partner and I did our first race together in early January: a Trail Blanc, or race in the snow, in the Southern Alps. It was great. The new running partner, our collaboration entering its 6th week, was still clearly showing some goodwill, since I did not feel too slow, too out of breath, too tired. Actually, be the truth told, I was totally feeling my normal self. Read: stressed out at the start. Competitive against myself. Annoyed against the competitors who, for a while, slowed me down to the point of walking (yes, a walk. During a race. A running race. Horror), being literally and figuratively frozen at the sight of a steep slope of deep snow waiting to be climbed. And, frozen fellow runners aside, decently fast. So far, so good.

Then for a (too long) while, the new running partner, although still never letting me down when it came to get outside, was clearly not too keen on helping either: every 5-miler felt like I had run a few marathons back-to-back the previous day. Not that I could log in a lot of 5-milers anyway, because I was just too exhausted.

The husband and I both have our own - and slightly diverging - theory about this lack of cooperation. Martin, who believes the little stranger inside me is a girl, thinks she is just showing some early stage of rebellion against the mother (I, at least, waited until I was a teenager to become a pain in the neck with my own mother) by showing a non-negotiable opposition whenever I decide to put on the running shoes. I, on the other hand, am convinced we will have a little dude, who, faithful to his gender, is already showing us what lazy b*** men are, most of the time.

The situation has however greatly improved lately. Maybe is it because I am out of the infamous first trimester. Or maybe is it just that my new running partner, whatever its gender is, has understood Mummy will always have the last word, especially when it comes to going running. So let’s move our (two) butts, and off we go.