Day 17: New Year's Run!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!

Athena's Run:

What a great way to bring in the new year - with a long run!  Our marathon schedule says Kendra & I are to do 60 minutes of running on the last day of our 4th week, so that's what we planned!  Unfortunately for my running buddy... I'm currently away in North Carolina, visiting some family friends, so this was our first official run apart :(

I'm not disciplined enough to run on my own, so it took a lot of encouraging from family & friends to actually do a run at all.  I thought about having some of my family members join me for 15 minute running shifts and somehow almost talked my little sister into running the full distance with me, but those plans changed...

I ended up discovering that the state line between North and South Carolina wasn't too far away, so - without even knowing how far exactly - I headed out for my solo run to the state line.  Thankfully my future brother-in-law allowed me to borrow his iPod, which definitely made time go faster.  AND... I got to listen a very random mix of songs from Aladdin, Guster, Juliana Theory, Santana, etc.  Thanks, Mark!!  :)

My parents drove out to find me when I was somewhere around mile four.  I think Mom was concerned that I'd be out lost somewhere on unknown North Carolina roads... haha!  Anyway, they ended up driving past me a bunch of times to encourage me, which was helpful.  And three different times they passed me and informed me that I only had a mile to go... was I really going nowhere?!?  Anyway, they then parked at the state line in order to take me back home when I finished my run.

Dad clocked my run on the way back and found that I did 5.8 miles in 63 minutes, running all the way to South Carolina!  So it was just about an 11 minute mile for just about 6 miles.  I was pretty happy with the run and even felt pretty good about it.  I guess it helped that the weather was warm and the scenery was new and different (complete with dogs wanting to chase me, and horses coming over to their fences to see what was happening).  Plus, there were only 3 real hills to run up, so that wasn't too bad.

Check out the video that my mom took of me running!!  She was testing out her brand new digital camera... haha!

Kendra's Run:

Unfortunately I did not get  to run 60 minutes (or 63, like Athena) on New Year's day.  I hate to say I got to partying the night before, but it's kinda true.  We had a bunch of friends over for an all-nighter celebration...only sparkling grape juice, folks...  : )  But these were true friends because they agreed to run a short 2-miler with me, Kari and Amanda!  Wow!  So five of us ran, and here's the video to prove it... (better late than never, right?)