Do you have a Tara?

A Tara? When Chad and I are talking about running friends, sometime we use the funny phrase 'my Tara' or 'your Tara' to talk about who we are running with. If you've ever had a running partner that runs your same pace, who likes to run the same distances as you, has similar running habits, who shares the majority of your miles with you, then you have a 'Tara' too.

Today during our run, I mentioned to Tara that I thought we were very lucky to have each other as running partners. I sincerely believe she makes me a better runner. Some days I am faster. Some days she is faster. Some days I hold back so that she can hang. Some days she holds back so that I can hang. We know when to say 'go ahead' during a workout when one of us feels like a 'rockstar'. We both know the other is going to show up, so every day we are there (even when we are not physically running together, we know the other one is putting in the miles or has a damn good excuse as to why she isn't). We know each other's quirks and share stories through the miles to distract from the fatigue. It is easy to run with her because we just go the same speed together.

When Tara moved to NYC for 18 months, it took awhile for me to get used to not running with her. Chad and I started using the phrase 'my Tara'. I missed 'my Tara'. When she moved back to Austin this June, we joked that I had 'my Tara' back. The difference between training in April and May, and the rest of the summer with 'my Tara' was night and day. It is just more fun running when you have 'your Tara'.

Hopefully you have had the good fortune of having a Tara, too.