Plain Can Be Lovely

The other day Kristen asked me if I have updated my blog lately.

“No…” I replied sheepishly.

“You know I do check sometimes,” she said.

The last time I posted we were in the midst of Canada Reads.  Unfortunately, I still haven’t had a chance to listen to the rest of the Canada Reads debates which is why I never finished posting.

Kristen has inspired me to write a post just for her (and see if she really is still checking;).

As I mentioned before, Kristen is a good friend and my running buddy.  I’ve been trying to be a runner since approximately May 2010.  It all started when I joined the Ultimate Frisbee Team in Sault Ste. Marie.  Kristen convinced me that it would be a fun not too serious team activity and we would get to drink beer after each game.  At the time I considered myself to be pretty fit and naively thought that running for an hour wouldn’t be a big deal.  Unfortunately our first game was against a group of 16 year old high school track stars and I spent an hour chasing a girl much faster and younger than me.  I can’t even describe the pain I was in during and even after the game (I had shin splints for the first time in my life and they didn’t go away for over 2 weeks.  It hurt to get out of bed, it hurt to walk up stairs let alone run for an hour).  “We need to start training,” Kristen said.  That’s when we started running together, along with her chocolate lab Maggie.  I had never really  run in my life before  and frisbee became the ultimate reason for learning to run (though thankfully none of the other teams were as young or as fast as that first one).

Fast forward to now, and Kristen has convinced me to run the Disney World Half Marathon with her in January 2012.  And by convince I mean the conversation went like this:

Kristen: “Mei, do you want to run the Disney Half Marathon with me?  You get a Donald Duck medal.”

Mei: “Ok!”

So now even though we don’t live in the same city, we are still continuing to train together.

For her birthday I gave Kristen a copy of Christopher McDougall‘s book “Born to Run.”  Right after I bought the book, Christopher McDougall’s TED talk was featured.  His talk is incredibly inspiring . Wish us luck in our pursuit for the Donald Duck medal!