I convinced my mom to train for, and run, a half-marathon with me this spring.

She got really into yoga after I introduced her to it, and I would love if running could become something she enjoys doing after this is all said and done.

After I ran my marathon last fall I only ran a handful of times over the past three months (because I can’t be bothered to run outside in the cold.) But now that spring is here, and the weather has been teetering around almost warm, it’s been great to get back outside again.

Normally, I don’t like running with other people. I like being in control of my own pace, walking when I want and choosing where I want to run. Thankfully, my mom lets me be in control of all that for our runs together.

We’ll be on our fourth week of training together at the time of this post, but we’ve been going pretty strong from the start.

The training plan I chose to base ours off of was pretty mild, starting with 2 or 3 miles of a walk/jog combo that first week. But my mom is kind of an overachiever, always saying no let’s do more than 2 miles. There was one day we set out to do three and ended up running five miles.

The place my mom works is on my way to the coffee shop I’ve been enjoying working from so I’ve been stopping in and saying hi quite a bit, but it’s nice to have this extra time to get outside, run together and chat about who knows what.

And the best, most unexpected part of all this has been their new little puppy. She’s a little Dachshund named Martini (I call her Weenie), and she is the best little running buddy. We leave her in the car with my mom’s other little dog on the really nippy days, but if it’s in the 40’s she usually goes with us.

There was a rare nice day in February after I got back from Sri Lanka, and I went for a walk around Grays with my mom and the two little dogs. Weenie was about three months old at that point and didn’t quite get the whole “walk on a leash” thing. Plus she would get pretty distracted by all the smells (and people) around her, just begging to get sniffed.

Now she’s able to stay on course without getting tangled in your legs or stopping to sniff something new every 3.2 seconds.

Not to mention she’s very popular when she’s running with us. People find it hilarious and oh so cute that this tiny little weiner dog is our running buddy.

For now, we’ve got the one race booked for June, but I’m on the hunt for more this summer!