5 Miles for 5 Years

Today was the 5 year anniversary of when we officially started dating. What better way to celebrate than to take Our Love On The Run for 5 miles, 1 mile for each year. We decided to take a camera and stop every mile to take a picture.

Mile 1: Hatch Shell

Mile 2: Museum of Science

Mile 3: Overlooking Boston, from Cambridge

Mile 3: Overlooking Boston, from Cambridge (luckily enough we ran into Ryan's coworker as we were taking the picture ourself, so she took one for us. Thanks Kristen!)

Mile 4: The Citgo Sign

Mile 4 (from the other direction): Zakim Bridge off in the distance

Mile 5: B.Good on Newbury St.

Post-run: Delicious relatively 'clean' meal :-)

We've had a nice evening together, now we're going to sit back, watch a movie and eat some nice clean sorbet from Trader Joe's. Yum!

Trails with the KRDP

Today was a great run. We ran with the KRDP on the trails. It was a little wet and rainy at the beginning, thanks to Hurricane Bill, but that just made it even more fun. Splashing around through the puddles was great. Ryan had a nice 12 mile run (longest since Boston), while Bethany did 10 (her long run was on Friday this week). Not even a nice fall/face full of dirt and a bloodied nipple could dampen Ryan's day.

Here we are post-run.

I even had nipple band-aids on, but the wet/rainy conditions made them fall off. Bad luck!

**Tomorrow will be our 5-year anniversary, and thus a 5-mile Love On the Run is in order! One mile for each year, let's make it a tradition! Check back tomorrow!**

Common Fence Point 5 Miler - 8-16-09

So, I won't elaborate on this one. We'll just suffice it to say that it was quite the disappointment. After all the preparation (which turned out to not be nearly enough), I got smoked in the Clydesdale division of the CFP 5 miler. 3rd Clydesdale overall, which was NOT what I was hoping for. Tough course, lots of turns, a tough hill, 10am start, and a HOT HOT HOT day. I do not do well in heat. Miss Bethany does, but I do NOT. So here's the pics.

Pre-race jitters.

No pre-race jitters.

Disappointment all over my face.

When we sign up for races, we try to sign up so we can get back-to-back numbers, but this race went by alphabetical order! So we had to get creative to make the connection. :-)

How It All Started (2004-Today)

So here it is. The story of how it all began. Just a brief background on our pre-running relationship:

We went to preschool together, and then met back up again in high school. Ryan was a football captain, valedictorian, and physics club member (a.k.a. nerd). Miss Bethany was one of the 'popular' girls, pretty, skinny, and too good for Ryan. However, things changed after high school. We started chatting again after freshman year of college, and things have only gotten better since. Our first date was August 4th, 2004, and we started 'officially' dating on August 24th, 2004. Bethany has been running since she was 12, and Ryan was a rather large rugby player with a keen distaste for running. So that's it in a nutshell. However, Miss Bethany convinced Ryan to start "running" (i.e. slow jogging) and we started in Spring 2005, and ran our first race together in Summer 2005. See below for the past 4 years of 'Our Love on the Run' in a nutshell.

August 2005: Feast of the Blessed Sacrament 5k
Our FIRST Love On The Run

February 2006: Hyannis 10k (Ryan) and Hyannis Marathon (Bethany)
Back in Ryan's SUPER Clydesdale Days :-)

August 2006: Louie's Run 5k

January 2007: Disney Half Marathon
Ryan's First Painful Foray into Distance Running

January 2007: Disney Half Marathon
Ryan was in so much pain, Bethany had to feed him.

January 2007: Disney Marathon
Miss Bethany's Second Goofy's Challenge

August 2007: Louie's Run 5k

January 2008: Disney Half Marathon
Miss Bethany's Third Goofy's Challenge

May 2008: Cox Providence Half Marathon
Our first half marathon that we ran side by side

October 2008: Tufts 10k For Women
Bethany even got Ryan's Mom into running!

January 2009: Disney Half Marathon
Note Ryan's face. After putting his arm around Minnie, she quickly moved his arm away. Bad boy. Bethany's Fourth Goofy's Challenge.

February 14, 2009: Martha's Vineyard 20 Miler
What better way to spend Valentine's Day than running 20 miles side by side? Ryan's FIRST Podium Finish: 2nd Place Age Group!

April 20, 2009: Boston Marathon
Just Engaged! The bench where the pre-race proposal occurred.

April 20, 2009: Boston Marathon
"Hopkinton: It all starts here."

April 20, 2009: Boston Marathon
Ryan struggling around the mile 24.5 mark, with Miss Bethany pulling him along.

April 20, 2009: Boston Marathon
WOW! What a day! Ryan's FIRST 26.2, and our engagement!

We've run countless races together over the past 5 years, and as you'll come to see, Our Love On The Run only gets stronger with each mile!

Our First Post

Welcome! And thanks for checking out our new blog! We wanted to document our training in order to show how endurance sports can help strengthen not only the body and mind, but also the love between two like-minded individuals. In the coming days, we'll put together a sort of 'retrospective' of how this all started and how we came to love our sports as much as we love each other. For now, we'll just start with some pics from our most recent mini-vacation and some good runs we had while there.

We vacationed for 3 days up in York, ME with Ryan's parents and brother and stayed at a nice little hotel right on the beach. It was a nice 4 mile loop run around the Cape Neddick Light House, which was beautiful. Here's Miss Bethany running up to the lighthouse.

Here's a nice picture of us two lovebirds, taken at the lighthouse mid-run. The picture below speaks for itself ;-p

So welcome, and be sure to follow Our Love On the Run! It gets better each day!