Thank You & Happy New Year!

Every year we hear the same tune,

"So this is Christmas, and what have you done?
Another year over, a new one just begun"

It seems to pause us into reflection and personally rewind the previous year's  experiences, and growth. With 2012 coming to a close, we look back on our 2DreamRunners inaugural year with pride, a sense of accomplishment and excitement for the new year.

What have we done?

It's always good to check in on your success from time to time, and reward yourself for your hard work. Our first year of 2DreamRunners was ambitious. Our goals were to:

1) Establish our purpose.
2) Develop a web presence
3) Formulate and execute our 2012 campaign.

Our campaign was to embark on fundraising for the Make-A-Wish Foundation B.C and Yukon. We also planned to train for and participate in 3 major events to drive our personal goals and raise money for Make-A-Wish.

So how did we do??

Our purpose is to help make dreams come true through the positive energy of health and wellness.

We have created a solid web presence with our blog and Facebook. Our blog has had just under 1200 page views of our 20 blog posts from Canada, USA, Russia, UK, Germany, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, France, and Malaysia!

On Facebook, we have 135 friends from around the world-THANK YOU for joining with us :)

1) We completed the Vancouver Marathon- Barry did his first full marathon while Karen did a half marathon.








 2) We completed the Sinister   7 ultra relay in a team of 6







3) We completed the Dublin Marathon which was Karen's first full marathon where we also had the pleasure of meeting one of our mentors, Stephen Price.

 In our Make-A-Wish campaign, with the help of many generous friends and family we raised $579 for Make-A-Wish B.C and Yukon. While we didn't get anywhere near our goal of  $8,000, we have helped Make-A-Wish by increasing awareness of what they do and raised enough to contribute to the granting of a child's wish.

We did accomplish all of our running goals combining for over 3,000 km of running and collecting a raft of medals, memories and runner's highs. Both of us ran our first marathons and with our team completed one of the toughest trail ultra-marathons in the world.

2012 was epic!

2013 is right around the corner and we have some very exciting plans and expect it to be another awesome year. We'll be posting our 2013 plans very shortly.

Until then.....

"Another year over, and a new one just begun.

 Let's hope it's a good one full of happiness and cheer!"

Karen and Whiskey (the dog)

Every morning when I wake, I have our beautiful big black dog anxiously awaiting her morning ritual of a fast pace 3.5k walk around the neighborhood. She is always ready to go. She has no excuses of why she can't make it. It doesn't matter what is going on in the day. It doesn't even matter if I am training for a marathon, the first 45 minutes of my day is spent with my best walking buddy, Whiskey.

We rescued her from the SPCA about 6 years ago . She is getting older, but still has the energy of a pup sometimes.

I have tried many times to run with her and it goes okay, but it is a little awkward. She can't go much more than 5k without fading. My form suffers a bit because I am holding the leash, and every now and again a pheasant, or an alluring smell will capture more of her attention than me. I totally expect and accept that. I mean she is a dog really, and I believe it is the best part of her day, next to eating and sleeping of course.

I've been seriously wanting to train her to run with me sometimes. At least for a little while. Ideally by the time I hit marathon training next summer I would like to be able to safely run with her for at least 5k and on my longer days I could drop her off at home and continue on to complete my mileage. This way I wouldn't be walking the dog and then running. Not that I mind doing both, but one of my intentions this year is to workout smarter.

I started researching running leashes a few weeks ago, and came across a site called irondoggy.com To my delight, they specialize in hands free running leashes and have had many outstanding reviews. They are for strong, stubborn dogs who sometimes have a mind of their own. No hesitation here! I ordered one up right away.

When my new leash arrived, I was so excited to try it. I felt like a little kid with a brand new toy, BUT, my realistic side reminded myself that this won't be perfect, and there is snow on the ground. I decided that we would walk before we run.

So off we went onto our dark,snowy morning route. Indeed the first few blocks were a little chaotic. The leash is designed to make dogs feel like they are free. Then when they get too far, a bungee cord corrects them back.

Whiskey was so joyful! I played around with the adjustments so that we could find our most comfortable leash length. She kept looking at me with happiness and delight in her eyes as she sniffed the ground and ate the snow all while sticking with me.

I decided to go for it. I wanted to see how it would feel to run with her hands free. We were on a safe stretch of road and it was uphill, so ideally that would take some of the speed out of Whiskey, or so I thought.

I let out the leash to the longest length and started to run. Soon, she was running way out ahead of me and the leash was almost stretched to the max. Just as I was thinking that we weren't doing it right, I realized she was pulling me up the hill. It was easier to run, so I kept going for a few more blocks. I laughed out loud when I realized how funny we must have looked. Anyone need an extra reindeer?

So now I have gone back to plan A and I am training her to know exactly where I want her, so that when the snow is gone, we will be ready to run together. Until then we will just keep practicing. Happy winter:)