Week 2, Day 2

Tonight was a night of firsts for me: first time running at night, and first time running with another person. Or, people, as the case may be.

My friend Sheena and her sister Yvonne are staying with us for the night as part of their road trip across the country. Sheena is actually the one who introduced me to SparkPeople, after Yvonne introduced her. In turn, I introduced Sara. So we are all connected in one big web of health. Anyway, Sheena and Yvonne are in town, and in the process of planning their stay Sheena mentioned how hard it was to get some good exercise done while on the road. Luckily for them, I was planning on running today, so I offered that we could all go running together. Also in the course of this conversation I discovered that Yvonne had done the Couch-to-5k program, finished successfully, and can now easily run for 15 minutes at a time even when she hasn't been in a while. Yay!

So we all went out to dinner to this new Japanese/Thai place that was delicious (I actually liked their curry!), then went shopping in some stores in Coventry (a cool neighborhood near where we live) where we got some heavily discounted earrings and centerpieces for Sheena's upcoming wedding, and came home for a run. By the time we left it was 9:15, so night had fallen. We were running in a safe area, though, with a running path away from the road but within eyesight, so especially with three of us we were still good-to-go. I liked running out of the sun, but I don't think I would go by myself at night. I need to find a local running buddy, maybe (no offense, Sara).

Running with others definitely made me push myself harder than I otherwise would. Yvonne definitely kicked all our bums, and I suspect Sheena could have kicked my bum as well but was sticking back with me for the camaraderie. But pushing myself was good. We even added an extra minute-long run at the end, because "Eye of the Tiger" came on Sheena's iPod and she was inspired.

We definitely had a talk about how SparkPeople was really the reason that all three of us wanted to go running tonight, because it had inspired us to live more healthful lives. Yay!


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And then we went back again, for a total of 2.9 miles. Ignore the little side-trip onto Coventry, we only went where the white dots are.

Since we were talking a little during the walking segments, it was a little hard to judge how good the songs were. But that was okay. I still enjoyed them. Especially Walker's contribution. I just think I might use mostly this same playlist on Friday. Except for the Squarepusher song - there wasn't really a tempo for most of it.

As always, aqua songs are running, navy are walking. This is all music from TJ's collection.

• Bongo Confront / Return of the Candyman - Charlie Hunter & Pound for Pound (1:21)
  
• The Wicked Messenger / John Wesley Harding - Bob Dylan (2:03)
  
• St. Andrew (This Battle is in the Air) / Icky Thump - The White Stripes (1:50)
  
• Road / Pink Moon - Nick Drake (2:03)
  
• Unreleased (3) / Burningn'n Tree - Squarepusher (1:28)
  
• Them Good Ol' Fashioned Parallels - Walker Evans (1:58)
  
• Latino Interactive / B-Side - Ikue Mori (1:30)
  
• Faust Arp / In Rainbows - Radiohead (2:10)
  
• Chippewa / The Bribe - John Zorn (1:25)
  
• Deianara Crush / Sweden - The Mountain Goats (1:54)
  
• Gilly (Breakdown) / The Genius of the Electric Guitar - Charlie Christian & the Benny Goodman Sextet (1:32)
  
• Sonja / I Love Everybody - Lyle Lovett (2:00)
  
• I'm So Tired / The White Album - The Beatles (2:03)*
  
• Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / The White Album - The Beatles (3:09)
  
• While My Guitar Gently Weeps / The White Album - The Beatles (4:45)

*I actually ran to 1:00 of this song while Sheena tried to sing "Eye of the Tiger." It's hard to sing while you're running, even if you have a masters degree in vocal performance.