The Story of Teal & Beth

September 30, 2011 by · 1 Comment

So we officially became bloggers 7 months ago and we started off with race talk immediately, the goals we had for ourselves, why we were blogging and all that fun stuff.  We both realized that really you guys probably don’t know much about us besides that fact that we run, run some more, brunch, and well you know indulge in the occasional adult beverage, but what you may not know is how we met and how we have actually gotten to where we are now—Friends!

We met each other really randomly the first time through a party one our mutual friends had at the time. I had always heard about the infamous Beth Lynch and was really kind of nervous to meet her. She came to the party and we didn’t talk much, but rather I just sort of stayed close to our mutual friend.  In 2006, Beth and I, and our friend were all graduating from college and decided to take a beach trip! Basically to celebrate that accomplishment and it turned out later to be an annual thing… more about that later! I would definitely say we were “friends” at this point but really didn’t do much together or talk or really hang out on our own. I don’t even think we even had each other’s phone number at that point. Our beach trip was awesome, but we really never “bonded” about much. Just talked and stuck with the people we knew most at that point.

After returning to Texas we hung out a while, went to birthday’s, random get togethers and had even starting a “craft night” to which my husband refers to as, “drink and gossip” night. One of Beth’s best friends, Rebekah, around this time had gotten engaged and was planning her wedding. We all gathered basically once a week and helped her prepare for her wedding- glue stuff together, address and lick envelopes- you know crazy wedding stuff!

Rebekah's wedding in Pampa, TX

As I mentioned earlier the beach trip turned into somewhat of a tradition and that next summer of 2007 we made it to Cancun again. Definitely by this time we both had grown much closer in terms of friendship—we had each other’s numbers for sure 😉

Rebekah, Beth, Teal & Vanessa - 2nd Annual Beach Trip!

In 2007 Teal got engaged to her long time boyfriend and really this is when things really changed.  I really wanted to have Beth be a part of my life on a more of a “ yea she is my friend” level and I asked her to be a bridesmaid in my wedding. She of course said yes and then everything just sort of went from there. Beth and I bonded big time about my wedding and the happenings involved with that. I really felt like she cared- You can tell, she makes a great deal of time and effort into her friends and really did anything and everything she could to help and support me with the wedding.  I was slightly crazy (don’t judge- most brides are) – but she never batted an eye- including nights where we would glue, unwrap, wrap, and make crap for hours. (Notice a pattern?) She was there! Not to mention I got to use her amazing handwriting – yes you should be jealous!

So you know how we mentioned that annual beach trip—in 2008 we decided to change things up and went to the Dominican Republic! Of course as you have probably guessed by now- more bonding and hanging out and all that fun friend type stuff.  My wedding was in November of 2008 and basically everything went off without a hitch- minus of course a short temporary moment of panic about my bracelet, but beyond that nothing. Below you can see Beth in her running around madness at the wedding!

Dominican Republic Beach Trip

We flew to Hawai’i that next year to visit Rebekah and tour Hawai’i – Beth who has now flown with me a million times had gotten used to my routine, holds my hand, lets me cry like a 2 year old, and lets me sit by her! A task I am sure not many want! Hawai’i was probably the best trip of my life!

On our way to Pearl Harbor and our hair got stuck together

Things kind of got a little crazy after this year. I had started graduate school, had started working for my dad at MowerMedic and was also teaching. Life was insane. So insane in fact that I had no time off, ended up exhausted and ran around like a crazy person trying to get everything done. Beth always managed to stay around and was always encouraging to me. No real trip took place that year, but I did meet a girl through grad school who would but a bug in my system about running a half marathon. I had talked to this girl in my program about running a 1/2 and neither one of us really thought we could do it. We had talked about it with each other and really realized this was a goal and something we both wanted to do! By September Beth and I really started training and kind of kicked things off with the Tour de Fleurs race and basically went from there- both completing our first half marathon at White Rock.

Mary Alice (who happens to be Rebekah's sister), Teal and Beth after finishing White Rock Half

Upon finishing you could tell that neither one of us was really that satisfied. I honestly think it went something like “that’s it?”  I know for me I looked around at all the people finishing the marathon and was like—we have to do that! Beth of course said “if you’re in, I’m in” and that is how we got to where we are now.

Since finishing the first half we have spent super amounts of time together, the four of us Mandy, Rebekah, Beth and I have spent New Year’s together, traveled to Mandy’s wedding in Cancun and hang out all the time! It is safe to say that this is a friendship I cherish with all my heart- as cheesy as it might sound. She’s not just my running buddy- I think you can see!

New Year's Eve 2010

We are only two short months away from this year’s goal and I know I would never have been here without her support and out support of each other. Beth has a six sense really about the social media world and mentioned a blog- I really have no idea how to do anything technological- She is the brains behind this posting business!! I really kind of thought this blog would not be what is now! This has not only helped us running wise in terms of motivation and accountability but also to learn so much more about each other and become better friends in the process and not to mention has opened both of our eyes to the huge running community.

And a couple of goofy pictures of us to end it all:

– Teal

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Why I Wear a Go Sport ID

September 29, 2011 by · 1 Comment

I have been running and/or exercising with some sort of identification and emergency contact information on me for at least a couple of years now.  Being from Dallas I’ve heard the news stories of a young female who passed away during a well known race here and a young female who was in accident on a well known trail which resulted in her death. Sorry, this is not one of our typical happy go lucky posts.

Sometimes there are instances where even having that ID on you makes absolutely no difference.  Which is NOT me saying us that as an excuse to NOT take measures to make sure people know who you are, who your emergency contacts are and what you are allergic to in emergency situations.

How many of you have been in or around an emergency situation?  Is that what made you go out and buy an identification product?  Or had you already decided it was the safe thing to do?

My memory is foggy now on whether my ID came first or the holy crap moment, but nonetheless my sad experience is this –

I’m not normally a late evening worker outer (meaning after say 8pm), but  for whatever reason I had gone to my gym (who shall remain nameless) and parked myself on an elliptical with my music going one evening.  I am doing my workout thing and notice a dude gets on the elliptical next to me.  Oh, and look he doesn’t stay on for that long so I think “must be doing a pre weights warm up.”  I can see him out of the corner of my eye as he got off and went behind the machines which back up to a wall.  Then all of a sudden he’s no longer in my peripheral vision and there’s a thud.

When I look he’s fallen flat on his face.  None of the gym members working out in that area really knew what happened, but as people began to talk to him it was clear that he was unresponsive.  I grabbed my phone and dialed 911.  While I am on the phone with them we all see he’s stopped breathing normally and ever thirty seconds or so his body is gasping for air.  A bunch of gym members flip him over on his back and then the member that was a nurse began administering CPR on him.  The paramedics get there and being to work on him.  I have to be honest and say that the gym employees were really not a big help in this situation nor did they seem very prepared for it.  We all watched this guy get wheeled out of the gym and I looked at my phone to see how long it had been since I’d dialed 911.  Being a former lifeguard and going through all the training I knew that the 45 minutes spent trying to revive this guy without success meant it would take a miracle for him to be alive.

The next day I put up some sort of facebook status about what I’d witnessed and how important I thought it was to have an ID on you while exercising.  My status is followed by a message from a college friend asking me for details, naming a High School friend of her’s and that he’d passed away last night.  Of course, I immediately search for his name on facebook and it’s the guy from the elliptical next to me.

I find out he’s only two weeks older than me.  Than me!  At that time I only had a few months left of being a 25 year old!  A 25 year old guy next to me at the gym had a heart attack and died!  He’d been in a serious relationship for a number of years and of course I start thinking about how my boyfriend and I just celebrated 2 years together.  My heart immediately hurt for the dude’s girlfriend (and it did for his family).  I can’t even tell you how shook up I was from those 45 minutes at the gym that night.

From that day forward I’ve been a huge promoter of wearing IDs when running.  I am not sure in this dude’s situation if it would have changed anything, but I know his parents and girlfriend might have known sooner.

Are you someone who has put off getting an ID? How come?

On weight loss shows you often hear contestants say “I need to lose the weight so I can be around for my kids as they grow up!”  To me the next step from there is protecting yourself when you are exercising to lose the weight or running outdoors so that you can ensure you are around for your kids in that way as well.

Over the past few months we’ve kind of fallen in love with the Go Sport ID.  The heart and spirit of this company is felt through the twitterverse! 🙂  And we can’t help but love that they are a Texas based company!  We both have been rocking the Inspire ID and love them! Whoever decided to give customers the option of buying a multipack of colors for the wristbands was GENUIS!  I get all stupid excited to change the band out!  The Inspire only costs $18.95, the multipack of band is an extra $5-6 and there is FREE shipping!

That means it costs less than $20 for someone to know what you’re allergic to in case of an emergency.  Less than $20 for someone to contact a family member even if something minor happens to you and you can’t call.  How is that not worth it?

Have our Go Sport IDs shirts on at Disneyland Half Expo and we got some demon eyes in this pic!

-Beth

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Wordless Wednesday No. 7

September 28, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

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September Race No. 3

September 27, 2011 by · 2 Comments

Since we both did different things on this race day here is a race post that’s a little back and forth from both of us! Enjoy! 🙂

Beth – Going into race morning I had NO idea what I was going to be doing exactly, but nonetheless I was excited to be behind the scenes of a race!  I got to the Shops at Legacy at 5:00 a.m. and shortly thereafter I was given a golf cart.  I’d actually never driven a golf cart before, so it was exciting for me.  At this point the majority of our vendors were setting everything up.  Only problem we had was the barricades hadn’t exactly been put up so off I went (on the golf cart) with my boss lady for the morning to keep people out of our 5k course.  I am not even sure how the time passed so quickly from 5:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m. when opening ceremony began, and I can’t even remember everything I did but I basically was a gopher.  I’d already determined I was not going to run the 5k as I’d have no clue what I’d be doing the moment it started not to mention where I’d keep my bib, armband for my iphone, headphones and anything else I might want to run with while we were getting ready for the race.

Teal – I was excited about the race this weekend because I knew how much Beth had been involved in the process and also because I was going to get to run with a few friends from teaching. My friend Chris from work joined the team- he is also training to run the White Rock Marathon in December and we talk basically every day about our running. The last time we actually got to run together was back in March for Kacie’s Run for our school district. My fellow work-out buddy, morning motivator, and friend Cynthia also joined the team and ran with us this morning. She has recently come off a long, nagging foot injury and is currently building and training to run the Rock n Roll Dallas half in March, so they are awesome fellow runners! Cynthia and I also ran into our personal trainer friend, Nemo from 24 hour fitness and one we both see at least twice a week when we are training with Will. While he’s super in shape he is not a distance runner so it was fun to pick on him at the end!

Beth- As the runners began to arrive I was pretty much just hanging out in the golf cart after eating my Chickfila chicken biscuit and waiting for my next job.  Thanks, Chickfila for providing the 5k Committee and volunteers with breakfast! Haha  But I got to see my mom and sister who I’d signed up for the race. 🙂 As well as a bunch of other friends that had started to arrive to support this great cause!

Teal – I met Chris early and we were able to catch Beth in full volunteer mode and chat with her a while. Somebody at Heroes for Children gave her a golf-cart to drive around—she seriously looked official. I was sad she wasn’t running with me but just overall impressed by her volunteer spirit! The race did a very cool balloon release thing at the beginning. The yellow balloons were released to represent each child battling cancer & their family that had been helped in the past year by Heroes for Children.  Then they also released 2 red heart balloons to represent the two little girls of the mothers who started Heroes for Children in their honor!

 

Beth- I do not think I’ve mentioned much about the co-founders of HFC, so let me take this opportunity to do so.  I met Jenny Scott (co-founder) through yoga at the end of January this year, and learned her story and her daughter, Allie.  She was Jenny’s first born child and at 8 months and 27 days passed away from Acute Myeloid Leukemia in September of 2004.  Larissa Linton’s (co-founder) 4 year old daughter, Taylor passed away in Novemeber 2001 of Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  It was after the death of Taylor that Larissa formed Taylor’s Angels, a non-profit that provided financial assistance to families who had a child battling cancer.  Larissa and Jenny meet in October of 2004 and realized the need for Heroes for Children.  On race day I actually saw a runner wearing a Taylor’s Angels race shirt which was very neat. If you’d like to see a picture of Taylor and Allie or read a little bit more about them then please visit the HFC website here.

Teal – Chris and I had discussed prior in the week how fast we wanted to run. He mentioned 24 mins and in my head I was like- no way. I’ll try but I highly doubt I can do that, my goal was 25:19. We both lined up together at the start line and we were not paying attention and had to wait a while to start after the gun went off, because none of my technology was ready… Runkeeper wasn’t up and my music hadn’t start- priorities!!! One day I may learn to do with out but for now this is a requirement! We took off and dodged and ran on the outside until about the end of the first mile, we passed the clock at about 7:14—what?? Really? I knew we were a little behind the clock but not more than like 30 secs. In my head I was like 1 down 2 to go, which mentally at this point is NOTHING, we are used to saying 1 down- 13 to go or whatever the crazy distance is for that week. I was able to maintain this pace fairly well; I lost Chris at about the 2 mile mark, but only by a few seconds. I managed to run the rest of the race right on the tail of what looked to be a 7 year old, this kid was hauling! Keep in mind I am 5’10” and I could not pass this kid who was like 4 feet tall! My goal at that point was to beat him, or at least attempt to keep up with him since he was the closest person around. I crossed the finish line at what I thought was about 25 minutes. Slightly wondering what my official time was. Chris was able to stay for the entire awards ceremony which was awesome because I can never stay. I managed to set a new PR by over a minute! I was seriously surprised and super excited because Chris even stayed long enough to pick up my medal! I was second in my age group! I have not won an individual medal for running before!!  Overall the race was awesome! Flat, spread out, not a lot of issues with walkers, dogs, strollers, all those random things you get at a lot of races! Cynthia and I also discussed at the end how awesome it was to see the pictures of the kids along the way that HFC has helped and how it was hard to not get choked up by the pictures. Very inspiring race and atmosphere!

Beth – Just as the 1 mile race began I got to drive Hannah & Hannah to the pace car a.k.a. a Ferrari provided by Boardwalk.  Hannah & Hannah were selected to ride in the pace car by the nurses at Medical City Children’s Hospital.  I loved it – they were getting driven over along with one of their little brother’s and a HFC staff member and I heard one of them say “I wanna ride on the one with the girl!”  So I happily drove them over on the golf cart and told them to have fun! Then I quickly took off to get some trash cans out to the awesome volunteers at the water stations and made it back to the start line just as the 5k was beginning.  Here’s a picture right after the gun went off – 

I kept looking for Teal and Chris and never saw them.  Maybe it was because of their technology mishap – I just figured since they are both so tall there would be no way I missed them, but I was wrong!  Then I met up with my mom and sister at the finish line a few minutes before Hannah & Hannah were on their way in on the pace car bringing in the first runner who finished in 17:38.  Then I got to see Teal coming up on the finish –

And just a minute or so behind Teal there was Chris (on the right) coming up on the finish line-

All three of us got to watch Cynthia cross the finish line! [So sorry Cynthia I didn’t snap a picture! :(]

Chris & Teal

Teal & Cynthia

Nemo & Teal

Since we did not take any pictures with Disney characters while we were in California for Disneyland Half we took advantage of all of the Disney characters that came out Saturday for the 5k.  Here we are with Tiana from The Princess and the Frog –


This is such a great race to bring your little kids to since there were the Disney characters and there were also firemen out there with their fire truck – SO many fun kid things!  It was such an honor to be a part of this race.  If you live in the Dallas area we’d definitely encourage you to put it on your calendar/racing schedule for 2012.

Results:

Teal: 23:58; 2nd in age group, 13th female to finish and 39th finisher overall

And one last picture for the road…we ended up having the same workout shorts on that day AND the same yellow band to go with our Go Sport IDs

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Happy Fall, Y’all!

September 23, 2011 by · 1 Comment

Happy first day of fall! Happy cooler temperatures!

20110923-080444.jpg

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7th Annual Heroes for Children 5k

September 22, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

We have reached our FINAL race weekend for the month of September!  Wow, this month sure has flown by!  Back in March Beth got involved with Heroes for Children and immediately knew she wanted to be apart of their 5k committee.  Well, we’ve finally arrived to the week leading up to the big 5k race!

This 5k specifically benefits Heroes for Children and enables them to continue to help families who have a child battling cancer.  The average gift HFC is able to give a family is $750 which often goes towards paying their mortgage, utilities bill, car payments or even for their child’s funeral.  Each month more than $45,000 is given to families who have a child with cancer.  One of the great details that goes along with who HFC gives money to is the age range for children they’ll help, 18-22 years old, so even college age kids and their families are able to receive financial assistance.

Laptops for Love is another way HFC helps by donating a new laptop to a teenager battling cancer so that they are still connected to the outside world while undergoing treatment and even keeping up with their school work while they are unable to attend school. “Between January 2005 and December 2010, Laptops for Love has provided 384 teenagers with a laptop!”  So as you can see this organization does SO much to help out these families and we are so excited to be apart of the 5k this year!

The race is taking place at the Shops at Legacy in Plano, an area we are VERY familiar with as we started pretty much all of our training runs for White Rock Half 2010 at the Shops.  Teal has recruited a few teachers from her school to participate with us and Beth has recruited a couple of her family members to participate as well!

Weather:

Precip: 10%

Wind: 5-10 mph

High: 85

Low: 62

Goals:

Teal: To run it in 25:19 which would beat her Kacie’s Run 5k time in March!

Beth: I haven’t even thought much about a goal since I’m volunteering and not sure if I’ll actually get to run or not…

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Celebrating Cindy

September 21, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Today would have been Cindy’s 54th Birthday.  If she were alive today she’d be about  3 weeks away from welcoming her first grandbaby, Jack, into the world!  And about 4 months away from the birth of her second grandbaby, Cindy!

Cynthia (l) and Julie (r) at a baby shower for Jack!

I remember having a conversation with Julie awhile back about how her mom probably got to hold her grandbabies up in heaven before they were ever in existence.  And I know that Cindy is looking down upon Julie & Cynthia with a full heart.  Those two are going to be fabulous mothers and even though Cindy is not physically with them on earth I know that she is a part of every moment of their every day.  Baby Jack & Baby Cindy have a wonderful heavenly grandmom, and I know their moms will make sure they know who Cindy was.

Teal and I are raising money for breast cancer in honor of Cindy.  We will be running the Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon in San Antonio, Texas on November 13, 2011 wearing our Team Cindy shirts.  It is a big honor to us to be able to wear these shirts in memory of such a great woman! Today we are not quite at 50% of our goal and our deadline is rapidly approaching.  We would appreciate any and all support that you can offer us!

Giving up a drink at Starbucks and donate $5.

Giving up a workday lunch out and donate $10.

Thanks for reading a little bit about Cindy today – if you’d like to donate to Team Cindy please go here!  And if you’d like to read a little bit more about her life and family you can find that here! We’ll leave you with a picture of Cynthia and her husband Mike at the Tulsa Komen Race for the Cure for this past weekend sporting their Team Cindy shirts.

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Wordless Wednesday No. 6

September 21, 2011 by · 5 Comments

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September Race No. 2

September 19, 2011 by · 4 Comments

As we were thinking back over the Tour des Fleurs race this weekend we realized that this was literally the race that kicked off our first half marathon training last year. We only ran the 10k last year and actually ended up running the longest distance of our life only 1 short year later. We were up early as usual and rode out to the Arboretum together and met our friend Steven (a.k.a. Bitner) for the race. I am not sure either of us was really worried about the race itself, but rather the extra 3.6 miles at the end to make the 16 mile run.  Before the race we ran into our friend Katie and then as we lined up for the race we saw fellow North Texas Runner, Michelle!

 

We decided to stay together for this race as well because we both really knew that we were going to need each other at the end. We decided to not dodge anyone and stay at a constant pace for the entire race, get the miles in and don’t die! We started out  pretty strong, running faster than we had recently trained and really maintained that for most of the race. The last section was seriously crazy. It seemed like every time we turned a corner we had a huge up hill leg to run. Around us you could seriously hear the collective sighs of people as we approached the hills. At one point a college friend of Beth’s was next to us and was like ‘it is way to close to the end of the race for this.” It seriously seemed like they lasted for about 3 miles, and really as annoying as it is to admit we wanted to stop—they were nuts. We didn’t, we just kept talking to each other, giving reminders of distance and just saying keep going. Here are the hills from our runkeeper:

 

We powered through really not dealing with much else and just concentrated on maintaining our pace and not stopping. As we approached the finish line we started to look for Steven to catch him to run the lat 3.6. We weren’t 100% sure what we would do at the finish because this was the first time we actually had to keep running past the finish line. We saw him and literally neither of us stopped. We jumped down to the actual trail part of White Rock Lake and just kept going. We finished the 16 miles right around the same time. 2:47 min. The longest run of our life! With that said- 16 was hard but better than we thought, we both ended tired, sore, and with random cuts from god knows what article of clothing but we finished and are able to walk today!

First chaffing from the ol' camelbak

Results:

Teal: 2:05:04

Beth:  2:05:04

And that’s all the result information you get – maybe there is something wrong with us but we do not totally get the break down and what all the different numbers mean on the result page for this race! 🙂After the race we headed up and grabbed a beer and frozen yogurt from the vendors and actually got to meet another runner we have talked to on twitter, Heidi and her husband. We hope to meet up with them sometime and run the hills around our usual area in Plano! Hopefully that will help make those crazy hills we ran today seem like nothing.

 Since the Tour des Fleurs is always at the Dallas Arboretum we had to take advantage of our surroundings and take some cheesy pictures! 🙂 Enjoy!

pumpkin house

Cinderella's carriage

And in true Beth and Teal fashion we didn’t rest and kept up the day, Beth attended a 1 year old’s birthday party, Teal to work, and then we both went to Steven’s for drinks and dinner to celebrate his 29th birthday!

 

Mustaches & margs at 1 year old's Birthday party

Happy Birthday, Bitner!
Happy Birthday, Bitner!

Overall another great Tour des Fleurs race for us, but we would be lying if we didn’t say we were definitely disappointed we didn’t get hats at the end of the race like in the last 3 years at least! They’ve always been great hats to run in, oh, well!

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Tour des Fleurs

September 16, 2011 by · 1 Comment

Wheee! Another race weekend is in front of us. Tomorrow we will be running the Tour des Fleurs (TDF) benefiting the Dallas Arboretum.  This race is either a 10k or 20k distance – pick your poison.  We have run this race before and only as a 10k.  If you look at our PR page you’ll notice this is our very FIRST time running a 20k race, so yah!! No matter what we’ll both PR this weekend. 🙂

If you checked out our marathon training schedule you’ll notice we put 20k race + 4 miles…well, we decided we are going to attempt a total of 16 miles tomorrow.  Our plan is to run the 20k and keep in mind we have a little bit more than a 5k to do afterwards.  So if you see two crazy girls grab their TDF hats at the finish line and keeping going that’s why!  We’ll actually be out there with our friend Bitner (whom we’ve run with before) and I believe he plans on doing the same thing as he is also in marathon training for White Rock.

Here is what our course looks like:

We have run around White Rock Lake a handful of times so the only surprise for us will be the NOT around the lake part.  We are confident we will do fine tomorrow.  Maybe we still have a Disneyland Half high mixed with oh my gosh the weather is starting to be awesome again in Dallas high!

Weather:

Precip: 10%

Wind: 7mph

High: 89*

Low: 70*

Goals:

We share the same goals this week – do our best with the 20k and have our minds mentally prepared for the additional mileage we’ll put in after the race!  Which will also mean that this is the first time we’ve EVER run more than 13.1 miles! We got this!

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