8AM and it's already been a good day

It's funny how waking up at 5AM on a Saturday morning to go running feels totally different than waking up at 5AM on a weekday, even if you do a workout before heading to work. I certainly wouldn't have been awake before 9AM today if not for Todd. He's finally back on the running plan, which is awesome. Here is why.
I get an email from him mid-week. The only thing in the email is a link to a 5 mile trail run race for Sunday.
I reply that I've gotta pass on the race but I would be up for going for a run this weekend.
He replies that Saturday 6AM would be his only window to do that and I'd have to be willing to run slowly and probably only 5 miles. (8:40 min/mile was his definition of slow).
I tell him I'm fine with that and ask where he wants to run.
He says to meet at the church. (this is our hardest hill run, what happened to slow/easy?)

We meet up at the church this morning. I suggest rather than taking on the monster hill in the first mile, let's run a mile the other direction to warm up. Then as we are approaching the big hill, I ask if he'd rather make the right and take the more gradual climb. He says your call. I decide to go gradual as I know the out and back will be nearly exactly 5 miles going this route. We get to the top and reverse course. As we get close to the steepest hill climb, he says, "We need to run the hill". Which caught me off guard and we start going up the hill. Only we made the wrong turn and it ends in a cul-de-sac. Didn't matter it was still a good climb. We reverse course and away we go. The monster climb was the next block down. Which when we got to it.... yup he says "Let's go up!". So we are climbing again. We didn't push hard but when it's steep, speed almost doesn't matter. It's still hard even when going slowly.
I think we ran 6.4 miles and got more hill work than I expected. It was great. If I was out on my own. I wouldn't have been out there until 10AM or later and I probably would have run 9-10 miles with fewer climbs. It's going to be nice to be running with Todd again. We are going to try to get back on the Tuesday/Thursday 5:45 AM runs again. I'm looking forward to it. It will help me get my run miles back up where it should be.
Oh, I forgot to mention. He's running the race tomorrow! I guess he's back on track.

The other news is I did in fact make an appointment to get my foot checked out. That will happen Wednesday morning. It will be good to have that question answered. I just hope I remember to ask about my elbow as well. Both are likely going to be simple Physical Therapy and they will tell me to rest... haha.