Stretch your limits: 100 miles till high school.

Thank you Athleta for sponsoring this post. While this was a sponsored opportunity, all content and opinions expressed here are my own.

I’m so excited to partner with Athleta today to tell you all about their amazing Athleta girl line, the running tights I am obsessed with, and to share the experience I had setting a bit goal with Hannah last spring to run 100 miles before high school.

I love Athleta because the brand is all about empowerment and strength, about women feeling their best in their own body.  They provide beautiful premium quality workout apparel, that not only fits but makes me feel great.  I was so excited when they came out with their new girls line, we both love their tights, because they are super comfortable, perfect for running (especially in the fall) and really versatile.  And I’m so glad they make them for both women and girls now,  providing Hannah’s generation with high quality, comfortable apparel that will help cultivate an active and healthy lifestyle.

shop these looks here.

This spring, right before Hannah graduated from 8th grade, I came to the sudden and shocking realization that I was about to have a high schooler.  O.M. GOODNESS.  That snuck up on me.

I don’t know how it happened so fast, but elementary and middle school were over, and suddenly I felt terribly afraid of how fast the next four years are going to go.  High school is such a formative time in a kid’s life; everything changes so much in those few short years.  I decided I wanted to do something with Hannah, accomplish something big and special before she started high school.

I’ve always had a strong, close relationship with Hannah.  She’s so much like her dad, so of course we get along really well and I just think the absolute world of her.  She’s literally the perfect oldest child.  Hard working, responsible, motherly… (just ask her brothers).  I’ve never had to nag her about doing her homework, she always works really hard in school, gets phenomenal grades, helps around the house.  She’s fun to be around, sure of herself, and not afraid to do hard things.  She doesn’t whine about life when it’s unfair, and I’ve rarely seen her feel sorry for herself.  Literally, she is a unicorn child.

We started talking about what we could do together before she went to high school, and we decided we would start running together.  I was already running on my own every morning, and Hannah really wanted to fall in love with exercise and get in the habit of being physically fit while she was young.  I loved the idea of getting to spend a little more time one-on-one together every day, talking and working towards a goal.  I believe in doing hard things and stretching yourself, and have seen just how beneficial it has been for my kids to learn how much they are capable of by pushing themselves to do more than they have done before.

We decided to set a goal to run 100 miles together before she started high school.  We started in June getting up a half an hour earlier than we had before and running 2-2.5 miles every day.  It was a struggle for Hannah at first, but the more we ran, the better she got.  We talked about everything on those runs.  Things she was worried about, things she was excited about, our summer plans, books we’d both been reading.  Every mile made us stronger, and brought us closer together.

We were running 10-12 miles a week, and had run 70 miles together by the time we left for Europe.   We didn’t run while we were traveling (although we did walk close 100 miles while we were in Europe) and since Hannah started school the morning after we got back, we didn’t quite hit our goal of running all 100 miles before high school.

 But! We haven’t given up.  We’re still working to finish those 100 miles, and are running 4-6 miles a week together until we hit our goal.  We should be done in a few more weeks.

The funny thing is, I think we both learned more by not quite hitting our goal in time than if we hadn’t.  Life is messy and sometimes, even if you are working hard towards something you might not get there right when you wanted to.  That’s okay.  You don’t give up, you just keep pushing and working and stretching yourself until you make it happen.  It’s a little trickier now that school has started to find a time when both of us can go running.  We can’t log as many miles as quickly as we were in the summer, but we are getting there, one mile at a time.  Running towards our goal.  And even if it takes a little longer than we were hoping for, we’re going to get there, together.

Stretch yourself, and never give up.

That’s what we’re taking with us.