4 Human Feet, 2 Dogs, 8+ Miles

You all have already seen these pictures but I wanted something to demonstrate the awesomeness that was this evening. I've posted lately about the hub joining in on my evening runs and it really has become one of my favorite things of the day. The first year of running I primarily spent covering mileage on my own (although the last 3 months I had my gal pal and then also the neighbor down the road), but throughout the last month the hub's been pretty excited about coming along and the dogs are loving have the two of us leash them up almost every evening.

So after many miles on the last pair of running shoes (Oct, 60+ in Nov, 75 in Dec, and 80 in January) and the last two days being able to feel the gravel through my shoes and the start of shin splints coming on, we went to the local store this afternoon and picked up a replacement pair of the same pair of running shoes I've been using throughout the last year ($30 Asics!). (On a side note: Hub primarily runs in Vibram Five Fingers shoes and he loves them!) I've been covering 15-25 miles a week throughout the last 2-3 months and we'd talked about taking today off.....

However this evening was too nice to just sit inside....so we pulled on the shoes, scrounged semi-clean running gear out of the laundry pile, leashed up the dogs and set off with the intention to take a new side trail today. And take a new route we did.....as we kept going, and forking, and going, and forking, and going, until finally we came out in the direction where we knew we would eventually come out....and then we spent the next four miles running the paved trail and road back home. We ran just about every type of surface you can imagine: gravel, sand, dirt, pavement, grass. We ran through amazing woods and grassy clearings and alongside ponds. We ran across bridges and up hills, hopped around streams, and around corners. We followed the setting sun and made it home about 40 minutes after dark had set....making me very glad indeed to have hub along.

We both hit our groove and probably could have kept on going, especially since even the dogs were doing great, but altogether we landed a new distance Personal Record (PR) for me as we figure we covered at least eight miles today. So maybe a half marathon isn't a too far fetched idea after all.....hmmmm.

Regardless a pretty fun and incredible evening spent together, enjoying a beautiful southern spring evening!