Day 28: (the unofficial) Grandparent's Day

Apparently Athena has been getting tired of running to my grandma's house, so she decided a great long run would be to head to her grandparents' house!  Ben must have been in on it too, because we "just happened" to go right by his grandma's house too!  That's alright with me, though, because something grandparents are notorious for is warmly welcoming you in, and if you're lucky, you may also get some hot chocolate out of it too.  A big thanks to Marvin and Nancy Gibble for your hospitality, and for sharing your birthday cake and hot chocolate with us...what a great finish line!


My thoughts were not as charitable towards Athena, however, during the 6.6 mile run.  I should have figured that if we were running to Seven Valleys, it was extremely possible that we would have to run down and then up several of the valleys.  I guess I just wasn't prepared to do six of the seven...  


It hurt.


Ben stayed pretty much ahead of us the entire run, occasionally checking to make sure we hadn't passed out along the way.  Athena did great, never stopping or walking once.  She tried to encourage me to keep going, but the last big hill did me in (she called it a "gradual uphill grade"--it was Mount Everest).  I had to walk the last 30 or so feet to the top, although my walking was not much slower than her running.  ; )  She had a hard time figuring why I couldn't just run the rest of the way if I was walking a similar pace.  Her dad pointed out that walking uses different muscles, and let me tell you, I've been using those muscles for over 20 years.  These new running muscles have only been in use the last 8 weeks!


We (Athena and I) finished the route in 1 hour and 18 minutes, with Ben probably shaving a minute or two off that time.