Thanks to our special guest celebrity runner

I had one of my best runs in a while on Saturday thanks to former Race for the Cure colleague Stephanie Tanguay, who was in town with her son, Jonathan, while they checked out colleges in upstate New York.

We went for a four-mile run at about 6:30 Saturday morning. I really needed this run because my previous two runs had been very lackluster 40-minute affairs. I had been off my stride because I had taken a week off from running while waiting for the new pair of shoes.

It made for an interesting match up. While I am used to longer, slower runs, Stephanie is more accustomed to shorter faster runs of 3 miles. I ended up running faster than I'm used to. She ran longer than she was used to.

I took Stephanie on my usual route onto Greenridge Drive. I pointed out the quarter-mile mark without looking at my watch, but when we reached the half-mile mark I was stunned: 5:50.

I usually hit a half-mile somewhere between 6 and 6:30.

It's Stephanie's fault. She's in much better shape than I am.

We followed Greenridge Drive to Wygant and then to Meadowlark -- at the entrance to Birdland -- and I checked our time at the mile mark.

Holy Cow! 11:20.

We'd actually got faster since the half-mile mark.

In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "I don't know if I'm going to make it all the way." I still felt good, but wondered if I was going to suddenly fade on the return trip.

We started to slow a little by the 1.5 mile mark on Whipporwill, but as we approached the end of Redwing Drive, we were still way ahead of schedule. Now, we had a choice to make because I am not sure where the two-mile mark is.

If you believe Google maps, it's at the end of Redwing Drive. If you believe my car's odometer, it's a bit further down at the intersection of Veteran Hill and Empire Drive.

Stephanie tells me she has a similar problem with the two-mile mark on her run at home.

Anyway, although I was still feeling good and we were still covering a lot of distance and may have easily made it to Empire Drive, I tell Stephanie, "I think discretion is the better part of valor." And we turned around at the end of Redwing Drive.

We now had tons of time to get back before the deadline I had in my head: 48 minutes. We reached the three mile mark at around 32 minutes, but as we got onto Wygant I let Stephanie go ahead of me so we could be in a single file along this busy road.

That's when I started to fade a bit. The space between us opened up more and more and I dropped back. But I fought to get back to her as we turned onto Greenridge.

At 3.5 miles, I was barely keeping up with her, just off her elbow and a little behind.

"This is when Jonathan's football coach would say, 'It's the fourth quarter. Just finish."

So we hung on and finished at 44:12.

Wow! Personal best. Thanks Stephanie!

I then followed this run with a mile jog with the boys. Liam and I did a mile in 17:01, a personal best for him. Jack was a couple of minutes ahead of us. I think he was still sluggish because they had been laying off running recently. It was a return to the routine for them too.

My plan tonight is to put in some time on the exercise bike and try to run 5 miles on Monday. The boys and I will run again on Tuesday.

My weight is at 241.5, just slightly up because of the lay off. It could have been much worse.