Training tirade

Ali and I went running after work on Tuesday.  We have been on a schedule where we were running on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work and then Sundays.  We had worked up to running 5 miles + and doing it in under 10 minute mile pace.  Awhile ago Ali had some respiratory thing that affected her for 2 or 3 weeks, during which we did very little running.  Since that period it’s been a struggle to get back to where we were.  Well on Tuesday we were doing our “short” 30 minute run.  The run started on a slow pace, somewhere around 10:30 miles.  I had done legs at the gym over my lunch hour so they were tired already so I didn’t mind running on the slow side.  However as the run continued Ali’s pace slowed down from there and I started to get annoyed.  I knew she was capable of doing much better because she has shown me she can.  So I started offering up a couple bits of encouragement.  The pace still slowed, I offered more encouragement.  Finally we came into the last minute of the run and I said something about finishing strong which was received with venom.  We wound up covering 2.84 miles in 30 minutes, a pace we used to do 5 months ago.  Well I knew Ali hates getting any running advice from me, she views it instantly as criticism but I couldn’t help it.  I told her there was no point of me being her training partner if she wasn’t going to allow me to help push her.  That is what a training partner is for.  During the run she was using her watch to check her pulse and used that number as justification for not going faster even though I could tell from her breathing she was doing just fine.  I blurted out something about maybe it would be better to look for reasons to do better instead of excuses to do less.  Well of course that was not received well and she told me she didn’t want to train with me anymore, how she didn’t care about how fast she ran.  Well once I open the door it is hard to shut me up when an argument ensues.  I pointed out how she was the one who set the goal of doing a half marathon and how attaining that goal is going to require pushing herself.  And the bottomline is since we got started back up we haven’t been pushing nearly as hard as we did before.  I continued on, pointing out to Ali how she instantly recovered from the run, another sure sign that it was on cruise control.  It was pointless for me to continue talking as she already had turned me off and wasn’t interested in thinking logically about what I was saying.  She only heard it as criticism, nothing else.  So by the time we walked back to her work and stretched I stopped talking about it.  

She has had a chip on her shoulder ever since.  She said last night that she wanted to run at the gym tonight because then there would be no speed issues, we could both run at our own pace.  I told her that wasn’t my issue, I don’t care about running as fast as I can and running on a treadmill just doesn’t compare with real world running from a training benefit standpoint.  I told her I will keep my mouth shut and I just had to get it off my chest.  She grumbled something at me.  So we’ll see where we run tonight.  Hopefully if she can get by the anger she will see my point.  If she was running with anyone else but me she would actually consider their opinions, but I basically can’t say a damn word.