Back Again

Hola amigos! After 3 weeks of soaking up the sun, staying up late, and hanging with fam, pals, and pups, we're ready for some new adventures. Right now we have three in the works- two that'll happen somewhat soon and one that's more of a long term journey.

Numero Uno: What: Mini bike trip to Lake Whitney with our pal Jeff. We'll hitch a ride with Jeff's mom to Red Oak (to avoid the D-town craziness), then ride 60 miles to the Lake, chill there for a night, and ride back to Red Oak the next morning. When: An upcoming weekend

Numero Dos: What: Bike tour from Dallas to Austin. This one's gonna take some planning since getting out of Dallas and through some of the other cities can be dicey. Also Texas state parks are few and far between and none have the hiker/biker sites we enjoyed on the West Coast. Still, it should be a sweet ride, taking us through the Hill Country and into beautiful Austin, where we'll hopefully be able to bum some floor space from a friend. When: Not sure yet- maybe Thanksgiving week, maybe earlier- gotta get the maps

Numero Tres: What: Becoming supa runners! As some of you will recall, I was consumed during our bike tour with finding the ever sly and slippery Born to Run. Jeff kindly ordered a copy for us on Amazon and Arik and I tore through it two weeks ago. It's a life-changing book and we couldn't get running fast enough. The premise of the book is that humans are born to run but running shoes make us run a way we weren't born to, leading to the injuries that plague most runners. So we high-tailed it to Whole Earth, bought two pairs of Vibram Five Fingers shoes, which are as close as you can get to running barefoot whilst still wearing something that'll keep the glass shards out of your flesh, and started pounding the Oak Cliff pavement.

We've changed our form (no heel-first foot striking and lotsa pitter pattering) but more importantly we've changed our approach to running. We are goofy and happy and carefree while we run- doing somersaults on the golf course, flying karate kicks off hills, and just enjoying doing what we now realize we were born to do. We're running 5 days/week and are up to 3.5 miles/day. Our bodies feel good, we're injury free, and we wake up itching to run.

We're going to start doing races, not for the competitive aspect (we have a "distance first, the speed will come" mentality right now), but because they will take us to cool places, put us on unique courses, and usually include quirky tshirts. :)

We will continue to draw inspiration from the people we rode for, and have been donning our jerseys for our runs. We'll also try to do a good job of chronicling our upcoming adventures on this here blog!

Arik's been working his photoshop magic on the bike tour pix- we'll post them once he's done.

Be well,

Arik and Mia