Streaking & Strangers

So I picked up an idea from another blogger who happens to also be a part of Team Tough Chik.  I was going to link her blog, but now I can't find it. Not to mention I don't remember her name since she is one of over 150 AMAZING women on the team.  So my apologies team mate, I'd give you proper credit if I could.  Anyway it's getting late in the day & I MUST get this posted!!

Anyway, she has committed to running every single day for at least 1 mile.  She is seeing how long of a streak she can go before not running.  I fell in love with the idea and have decided to join that challenge.  She started at the beginning of the year.  My streak started last Saturday.  Everyday, at least 1 mile.  Easy peasy!!  I told my idea to Angela, my running partner, and joked that I can see me sick as a dog and dragging myself onto my treadmill saying "it's just ONE mile".  To break that down it's at most 15 minutes of my day (not that it takes me that long to run it, but factor in changing clothes, etc.) that I can handle.    I know many of you think that I run ALL THE FLIPPIN' time, but in actuality I only run 2-3, maybe 4 days a week.  I don't think that is much at all.  I know....I know...it's all about perspective.  Maybe at the end of my streak, whatever that may be, I will be able to say.....yeah, I run ALL the time : ) 

So I mention Strangers because of my new team mates and NONE of them that I have ever met in person.  Yes, I suppose it's a crazy notion that I handed over some money to people I've never known to be on their "team".  And that I've joined well over 100 women in this adventure and embrace them as team mates & friends.    Yet, any person could knock on my door and say "hi, I'm ...., your team mate".  And I'd be like OK!  Come on in!  Or better yet, let's go for a run!"  If you know me personally it's not a far stretch to believe that I have never met a stranger.  It's a saying, you know, to imply that I would talk to and be friendly to anyone I ever met.

This whole strangers as friends is not a new concept to me.  I joined the Hearts at Home bulletin board several years ago.  It didn't take but a few months before I was packing my bags, heading to conference with thousands of women and meeting up with some of them for the first time ever.  Within a year I was visiting them & vice versa.  The next year at conference many of us roomed together yet had just met each other in person that same day.  Oh, we had shared stories, posted pictures of ourselves & family & conversed like crazy via the internet.  But for all we knew one of us was a 500 lb. man with nothing better to do all day.  Luckily, nobody was : )

Joining Team Tough Chik is opening me to a whole new realm of "strangers".  I have read many of their blogs.  Joined in conversation with them on facebook.  Honestly, I'm about in love with some of them.  They are so flippin awesome!!!!  Sometimes it takes a stranger to inspire me to do something crazy like streaking (the running, not naked, kind) and I'm up for that challenge!!

Here is from today's run.  Even though the temps were in the mid-teens (cold yes, but I've ran in sub zero temps and it wasn't that bad) it was brutal out there.  The only bright (literally) side of it all was when I headed south the sun was bright & full and with the wind to my back I actually felt a little warm.  A little in a freezing cold kind of way : )