Other Parts of New Year’s Weekend

Well, Thursday isn’t totally a weekend day, but it is pre-Friday so we let’s just go ahead and include our day trip to College Station! You might remember from last week the arrival of baby Eliza, well, we took a road trip to meet her and see the new parents, Rebekah & Zac!

Eliza is an absolutely adorable, teeny tiny little girl! Congrats again to Rebekah & Zac! She’s lucky to have the two of you!

Friday Beth spent the afternoon with her sister and cousins for their annual Meatyball day! All of them are a quarter Swedish and get together every year to help Aunt Cindy make a big batch of her mother’s Swedish Meatball receipe and then have a feast!

Cousins! - Chase, Beth, Brice & Kate

Teal was one productive lady – she prepared an entire month’s worth of breakfast options to freeze and ready to go whenever she needs them! She made burritos full of egg whites, green bell pepper, a can of diced tomatoes & onions on flat outs and egg white, mushroom & spinach quiches.

Saturday after the first day of the New Years Double we went and watched a free screening of The Spirit of the Marathon thanks to Cinemark Allen who was one of the sponsors of the New Years Double race! A certain number of tickets were available to NYD runners and one guest per runner, so we jumped on the tickets and brought Michael and Brent along with us.

Ironically enough when we went to google map on our phone how to get to the theater this was the distance –

(source)

Should we have just run there?? Ha

If you have not seen or even heard about this movie – it follows the story of 6 people who will all be running the 2005 Chicago Marathon. They range from first time marathoners to Olympic athletes, and it is definitely an inspiring film to watch! The movie is available for purchase on it’s website, DVD or streaming on Netflix or Hulu Plus. After the movie the four of us headed to Maggiano’s to enjoy a nice New Year’s Eve dinner and fill up on some carbs for the next day’s race! And maybe a glass of wine too. *gasp* 🙂 Pretty sure neither one of us lasted until midnight to officially ring in the New Year. Big thank you again to Michael & Brent for putting up with our low key NYE this year!

The New Years Double race allowed us to meet quite a few people we find ourselves chatting with on twitter regularly….though there were still some we missed! 🙁 Hopefully we can change that at another race though!

After the second day of the race we went out with some running friends to feast on dim sum! Sooo good and we definitely enjoyed the company! Looking forward to doing it again soon! 🙂

New Year’s Double

We are beyond excited for this weekend because it is officially time for the New Year’s Double! This race is seriously unique and amazing and comes to us via Libby Jones, who we absolutely love! For those of you who don’t know her she is also the director of North Texas Runners, a full time race director and mommy! She runs like a wild women and is truly amazing! We admire her for her work, organization and passion about running.  You can read all about the growth of this race since last year at here. It’s really incredible to see how this has taken shape.

This race is so amazing because it is a true double race. Runners could choose from a range of distances to run over a two day time from, either a 5K, ½ relay, ½ marathon or a full marathon and you could mix and match any way you choose to run one on New Year’s Eve Day and one on New Year’s Day. Brilliant huh?? What better way to start and end a year RIGHT! We decided that we would run two half marathons. So starting tomorrow morning we will head out and run our NYE half, marking the official end to what has been an awesome year. We felt that this was just so fitting to do and can not be more excited to end the Year of Running like this. After the race we will then go home, rest up, and get to watch a free screening for The Spirit of the Marathon courtesy of Cinemark Allen! Our boys will even go with us to this! 🙂

Then NYE we will spend with our significant others, eat and wake up NYD and do it all again! Seems nuts but this really is the best way to start out the year being active!

The race is located in Allen, Texas not far from us and is a a looped course.  We will complete 2 6.55 mile loops. It’s a very nice course and will all be on paved sidewalk!

We will update you on the cool perks and loot from this race in our recap, we don’t want to give that away now 😉  Let’s just say if we really have ever been excited about race bling its for this race!

We usually set goals for our races as you have seen from the past, but we are not going to set time goals for this race. Coming off of the White Rock Marathon and the training for that we have definitely needed some recuperation. As many of you know Teal has had a nagging foot problem since the race and has been working hard to heal that foot (read about her foot problems here). She is still having some pain and has literally only run 8 mile total since White Rock. Beth has been keeping busy with yoga, Johnny’s, spin and has run very little as well and just healing her body.

Our goals are to run smart, safe, and to not be stubborn. We have never run a double before and while we know we can make 26.2 WAHOO! We do not know how our bodies will feel this weekend given the amount of running compared to the lack of running this month. The goal is to come out of this race enjoying the experience of a small, local, well put together race! It really is, as cheesy as this might be, a good time to reflect on the past year and to think about the year to come! Wish us luck! We’ll tell you all about it next week 🙂