Best friends, worst ideas

The best stories of your life start with a spur of the moment idea, right? 

Well after my Practical Twin sent me this, my next story was decided.

After about 2.5 minutes discussing how cool her first half-marathon experience was and how out of shape I am we somehow came to the conclusion that we will be meeting up in Nashville to run a half marathon when I return to America. With our loves in tow (sorry Matt and John, I hope y'all don't mind!) we will spend the better part of a Saturday morning running until we think we're going to die. 

Have I ever run a half marathon? 

Nope. 

Did I ever plan on running anything over 5 miles in my life?

Nope.

Why did I decide to do it? 

I still have no idea, but for better or for worse I'm doing it!

After going all-in on this plan I figured I should probably start getting back in shape! Once it got cold out here back in early November my motivation to run completely dried up. My exercise for the last 3 months has been yoga in the comfort of my warm room! Not knocking my Jillian Michaels Yoga DVDs because you definitely get your sweat on, but a 45 minute session full of sun salutations and chattaranga push ups has not prepared me for 13.1 miles. 

After logging zero miles since November I decided I would start out with a 4 mile run and build from there. I decided I would do 3 days this week and then settle into long runs 2 days a week. I thought it was a great idea however my body disagreed! I ran my 4 miles, not at a competitive speed but I finished in under 38 minutes, which isn't a terrible start. I was feeling pretty good about my goal up until I tried to get out of bed the next day! 

I haven't hobbled around this much since I was a senior in high school and I decided it would be a good idea to sign up for sports training and "lifetime activities" aka dodgeball, baseball and kickball all period in the same day, during daily doubles. Don't get me wrong, its a good sore and I welcome it, although my quads SCREAM when I try walking down the stairs! 

I'm still committed to my plan for three reasons:

1. I refuse to let being in Afghanistan make me less healthy and active

2. Matt, being the amazing man that he is, already agreed to run the half marathon with me and is starting his 'training' now too. I put training in quotations because he's already perfectly fit and he's just running because I asked him to.

3. Nashville is going to be 100x better if I'm not hobbling and suffering for the rest of the weekend! 

As always, when you put Carly and I together you are sure to get the best memories, even if the ideas  are a little haphazardous and the planning is non-existent. 

Like the time we wrangled up the boys and decided to go jump off some waterfalls.

And the time we decided to go camping in the woods, with no equipment or supplies.

And the time Carly tried to give herself rabies...