This past weekend we -- Krista and I -- shared another seven-miler on a Saturday morning. The sun was out, it was above freezing temperature-wise, and it still sucked. For me at least. The running, not the company.

With unplowed streets and sidewalks and the snow covering them the consistency of sugar sand, seven miles felt like twenty. By the end, my ankles hurt, my lower back was screaming, and my feet were numb...just not from the cold this time. Oh, and some old IM injury that never really materialized but never really went away (feels like an IT band issue, only it runs along the back of my leg and over the corresponding butt cheek) kept flaring up. And along the way, I complained about it all -- the snow, the aches and pains, et cetera -- again and again. I cajoled Krista into stopping to stretch more than once. Partially because the IM injury-ish thing was aggravating, and partially because I jut plain old wanted a reprieve from the damn unrelenting sugar snow underfoot. I was, in part or in whole, a substandard running partner.

But, that's how you know when you've found a good one. They let you stop and stretch without running circles around you, or sighing disapprovingly while they check their Garmin.

And they talk to you. Like old friends talk, even if you've only met a couple of times.

There's just something about sharing a run with someone. And for once, words fail me as to what it is.

I remember pouring my heart out to my roommate Jamie during college as we pounded out a quick four-miles roundtrip through the streets and bridges of DePere about the difficulties of our (or my) living situation, and/or boys. To this day, I remember the tie-dyed shirt she wore and her uber-efficient stride that I can't keep up with even now. And I remember those runs as the starting, defining moment of our friendship.

I remember running with Pammy one day during graduate school, in the dead of a Marquette winter. We were quiet nearly the whole time. Yet, I can still pick that run out of so many others; I can see it in my mind's eye. Us slogging our way through the slush and snow and cold, shoulder to shoulder, footfalls perfectly matched.

Or running with Patrick during the one hour he could spare in between other engagements the last time he was in Madison. It was muggy and hot, and we packed more catching up into one six-mile run than we likely could have over one six-pack, and it was far more fulfilling. Yet, it still wasn't quite enough.

And then there are all of the runs I've shared with Chief of Stuff over the past two years or so. The runs when I was still with The Ex, when we were just getting to know one another. The IM training runs he'd do with me -- especially the oh-my-god-this-seems-like-it's-going-to-last-forever 16-miler we did side-by-side on treadmills last March, watching episode after episode of Workout. Or the four miles we did just last week in the dark, in the cold, in which he let me bitch for forty minutes straight about my work issue du jour.

Now and then, running alone is just what you need. But until recently, I'd forgotten the sheer comfort of a regular or even semi-regular running partner. I'd forgotten what I was missing. And now that I've rediscovered it, I'm hooked on the sound of the extra set of footsteps beside me.