Ft. Worth Marathon But You Know Only the Half

Perhaps it was the mix of activities for Beth’s wedding or the fact that both of our houses have been a complete disaster, or that we didn’t see each other for a week, or any number of other things but let’s just say this half definitely snuck up on us. We didn’t even do a pre-race post! Whoops?? Perhaps just another bit of proof of our not preparedness.

We double bagged our phones in case it really did rain during the race

Because we were driving to Ft. Worth we wanted to make sure we got to the race in time and especially since we had to get our packets that day!  Teal wasn’t even actually sure she had registered and the guy couldn’t find her name on the list… Oh, he was looking at the list for the marathon, but it was rather hilarious that we really couldn’t remember. So by the time we finished picking them up we had about an hour and a half to kill before our race started.  The different distances at this race are staggered by 30 minutes, so it was a 7:30 a.m. start for the marathon, 8:00 a.m. start for the 20 miler and a 8:30 a.m. start for the half.

Look at how long this race shirt is?!

Miles 1-5

Teal: We talked to Caron before the race and she had mentioned taking it 5 miles at a time. In my head that sounded like a good plan, I hadn’t fully registered that she was running the 20 mile when I decided that sounded great, and it sorta works for a ½ so I went with that. 1-5 seemed to take forever and I couldn’t really figure out why. I am usually done with a mile in about 3ish songs and by mile one I had heard 5. This was not registering with me. Apparently not being prepared also causes my brain to not work. The course was flat for the most part which made me happy! It was too windy to deal with hills too. The wind at points was rather ridiculous.

Beth:  I really didn’t have a game plan in my head AT ALL about this race.  I knew I needed to not start too fast considering the month of October I let my marathon training and mileage be all over the place. 🙁  Plus Thursday night I was hit with a 24 hour stomach bug. So I thought I’d just kind of play it by ear!  Soon after we started and I had turned on my runkeeper there was no music coming from it.  Then I remembered how I had turned the music option off in the app while I was in Hawaii, so I just tried to turn on some music.  When I did it was a slow song, so then I remembered how Thursday night I’d just put my music on shuffle during my stairmaster workout.  To make things even more fun I’d turn down the brightness on my iPhone to help save some battery life which means I couldn’t see through the two plastic bags I had my phone in to turn on a playlist.  My music during this race consisted of almost every slow song on my phone and Christmas music. Ha.

Miles 6-8

Teal: Still not bad but super freaking windy. I was ready to get to the turn around. Not to mentioned this women that had thrown her water on Beth was about to get my foot up her toosh! ( I mean I really would never do that) but she was that much on my nerves. She kept cutting me off for no reason, or running right next to me within like breathing distance. Sometimes Beth and I run like that next to each other but that is because we are LONG TIME RUNNING BUDDIES!! Back up off lady! At 8 I finally was annoyed at how long this seemed to be taking and the time not adding up so I asked Beth what we were really at. She said 7.96! Sweet! I had us at 7.41, so apparently my trusty little Garmin was also not prepared for the day! I actually felt a little energy

Beth: Um, yes to the freaking windy! Do you remember how at the Taco Run there was a guy that messed with my head for the last few miles of the race? Guess who was here at this race? Did you say the Mind Messer Man then you are correct!  I forget when but at one point we caught him and passed him a teeny tiny little bit, but don’t worry, y’all, he surged and he passed us! There was just this nice stretch of me being annoyed that he was there and with the lady who dumped the whole cup of water on me.  It’s one of those things where I get that you don’t want to STOP and walk with your water, but for the love, at least slow down a little.  Her technique of trying to grab a small cup of water at full speed was not affective.  At one water station where I didn’t even get water I was excited because she behind me so no water on me! Wrong, she spilled a cup on my feet. We should also mention that I for one ran more than 13.1 on this race course. Yes, I know tangents, we wrote a blog that included that in it.  There were a couple parts of the course where it split and was either a gravel/dirt path or a paved path and there were no markers to say stay this or what not. I just don’t like courses when it makes me wonder if I’m on the intended path or not?

Miles 9-13.1

Teal: My energy from that .6ish mile increase made me happy and until 10 I was happy. Then at like 10.1 I wanted to die. I had dropped a little behind Beth but just at the perfect timing she slowed to let me catch her! We stayed together until about 11 again and then it was just get home to the finish line. I could see the storm coming in and was just ready to be done mentally but my body just said, Nope you are staying at this pace. I managed to get in and done but was ready to die. My legs hurt and I was pretty shaky and actually a little dizzy. I think the fact that the running was off and 10 mile long runs missed made this difficult. Overall however, I am not disappointed! I finished with a clock time of 2:07 something and really wanted to find out the real time! I am not disappointed with that as it is still pretty quick for me!!

Beth: I was going back and forth on how I was doing and telling myself when you get to 10 it’s just going to be another 5k.  I kind of got pumped at one point and was like LET’S DO THIS!!!  Then at 10 I told myself to take a chill pill.  I was pushing myself too much too fast.  I was coming off inconsistent running and being stick with a stomach bug (a.k.a. not holding food down). So I stopped to find Teal because I was pretty sure if I didn’t chill out and run with her I was not going to make it. When we were about 2 miles out from the finish line I knew I could do this and pushed a little bit harder and at some point in here I passed Mind Messer Man when he stopped to get water. YES! All, I had to do was keep him behind me now! And I did! We actually talked briefly after he crossed the finish line. He was all – weren’t you at the Taco Run? Considering how the last month has been and being sick I am dang proud of this race, but now I got some work to do! We have another half coming up that if I don’t PR at it I better be dang near close!

 

Results:

Teal: 2:06:27, finished 17th in her age group

Beth: 2:05:15, finished 16th in her age group

The Day of Preparations {Wedding Weekend Take 2}

Just kidding there are some pictures of my aunts and cousin from the Bridal Luncheon! Tada –

Aunt Leslie, Kate and Aunt Cindy

Saturday morning things got rolling early, but not the butt crack of dawn early. Those of us staying in the hotel met at the Starbucks attached to it so we could wake up and make sure the below photo happened for the day.

At the Bridal Luncheon the day before the Bridesmaids passed out hoodies they’d gotten and one of their rockstar Mom’s embroidered them all with our names, well, my mom’s said “Mother of the Bride” and they gave me a men’s button down shirt they’d had embroidered as well for me to wear while I got ready (as seen in our latest Wordless Wednesday). Absolutely loved the shirt for getting ready AND my hoodie!

We all got to Old Red Courthouse about 9:00 a.m. to start getting the place ready for the entire wedding and the hair & makeup ladies were arriving shortly after that to get started on all of us ladies! There were reception centerpieces to set out, mantles to be decorated (the reception room had two), place cards to be put in corks, etc.  So very grateful to each and everyone of the ladies and Bitner for their help with everything! I really and truly have the best friends in the world!

 

 

One of the BIG wedding craft projects that took a TON of time was to make these flutter curtains. I’m pretty sure the original idea came from pinterest, but linked me to this blog.  You see I needed sooomething to decorate these beams that would be above the area that Brent and I stand for the wedding.  When I found the flutter curtains I wanted to do them just modified as narrow and long curtains.  Teal, Kate, Rebekah (on the right in picture below), Mandy, Brent and myself together probably cut a couple thousand fabric circles for this project.

Trying to figure out hanging the curtains, but ultimately my dad, Bitner and my brother would do the hanging later that day

I can’t even tell you how many hours went into making those curtains, but a whole heck of a lot of them that is for sure!  I like to think that it really wasn’t that stressful of a day.  We got things put out in good time and eventually got to all hang around in the bridal suite area of Old Red to watch others get their hair and makeup done. My wedding coordinator, Bethany, handled all the other details and if a vendor was late arriving, I had no idea! We may or may not have broken into some of the wine/prosecco/champagne at this point (shhhh – don’t tell the venue that) and the Caramel Eileen cupcakes I had Trailercakes bring extra with the delivery of the groom’s cupcakes so we could partake in a tasty treat before the wedding.

 

And then my flower girl, Meranda, and my ringer bear and nephew, Wesley showed up it meant we were really getting closer to the wedding getting started! The Groom and his Groomsmen and Ushers were arriving and pictures were beginning to happen.  My wedding coordinator had the idea of taking the follow picture since Brent and I were waiting to see each other until the ceremony, and I love how it turned out and that the huge staircase at Old Red made it work.

 

There are more with him turned around and me facing the wall and a couple of me peeking over the railing trying to see him. 🙂 The venue really does create a lot of great pictures and they do still have a courtroom in it which is where the wedding party mainly hungout before the ceremony began and then after while we waited to go back in the ceremony room for pictures.  I just think that Wesley and Meranda were the cutest on my wedding day and here are a couple of pictures of them in the courtroom.

 

And I can’t leave out a picture of my littlest nephew, Easton! He looked absolutely adorable this day!  This picture is technically from after the ceremony, but I wanted to include it now. This is half my blog I can do what I want right? 🙂

My brother, Scott, Easton & me

I’ll leave you with one last picture of me with my ladies before we officially started the evening!

 

The Good, the Messy & the Hilarious {Wedding Weekend Take 1}

For the two of us ladies the whole wedding weekend kind of kicked off Thursday afternoon! Teal rocks and took not only Friday off, but also Thursday to help me with last minute things.  Priorities first though we went that afternoon with my mom and sister, Kate, to get manicures & pedicures for the weekend.  The nail salon loved Kate, Teal and me because we all wanted the exact same colors on our fingers and toes, but it gave us more time to drink our wine since they only had one bottle of the green polish!

Green and gray to match the wedding colors!

Then the four of us were off to run a few errands.  Teal and I stopped by Target for wine and goldfish. 🙂 Y’all, these are essentials in our lives – haha! And then Teal very graciously continued to stick around and helped me do a mock of the cupcake table, pack up all those supplies in bins, get the place cards ready to go and really just get organized for the weekend.  Also, a big shout out to my sister too for all her input and helping me load up our cars that night to head to downtown Dallas Friday afternoon!

This is from Wednesday when my SIL, Tiffany, and littlest nephew, Easton, were over helping me with stuff. My sister & I’s house has been a wedding mess forever. Thanks for putting up with me and the wedding mess!

Friday my dad’s sisters and my one and only girl cousin threw me an awesome bridal luncheon! I’m sad because I don’t think I snapped a picture with just them at the luncheon. 🙁  But should you read this Aunt Cindy, Aunt Leslie and Erin I am truly blessed by the 3 of you and lucky to have such wonderful women in my life I get to call family! It was so fun to just get to hangout with the ladies in my family and  my wedding party!

Mother of the Bride & Bride

Sisters!

LiAR!

 

My House Party dude! 🙂

I was fiiinally able to give my Bridesmaids their presents for being in my wedding.  One of the things I gave them in particular I was trying really hard to either keep it all or aspects of it a secret, but one of them ended up having to teach my mom and me how to make so she knew ALL about it.  My mom sewed clutch purses for all of my Bridesmaids (well and me, my MIL and herself – a lot of purses!) and I don’t really sew so the only contribution I was really able to make was being the fabric cutter.  Lots of hours went into these bad boys but thankfully we started pretty early on them and they were done well in advance of the wedding! I think they’re sooo cuute!  Thank you to my mom for generously giving up all of that time to work on these for me amongst other things!

One of the other things I got them and was really excited about was that OPI in the spring, I think, came out with a Holland collection (my future last name), so I was able to find a good deal on a set of the Holland collection nail polishes. Perfect timing, OPI!

Anyway, after that we all kind of went in separate directions until the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner that night. Brent and I both grew up in Dallas, but didn’t know each other so pretty much the whole weekend of events was in Dallas proper which seemed appropriate with both of us being born (same hospital just a couple years apart) and raised here.  The wedding venue had some fabulous views of the Dallas skyline, and my in-laws also picked out a wonderful rehearsal dinner venue with just as awesome views!

Bride & Father of the Bride ready to rehearse!

with my in-laws to be (the next day)

The rehearsal dinner was full of good food, lots of laughs and just fun time with family and close friends.  Brent & I are truly blessed by the not only amazing family we have but the true friends in our lives!  After dinner a lot of us headed to the hotel bar to have more time to just hangout before we called it a night.  Eventually Brent left to head to his house for the night  and most of the wedding party was staying at the hotel so when we were ready to call it a night we just went upstairs.  And let’s end this Friday night on a funny note – when Kate, Teal and I got to our floor and off the elevator we look to our left and what do we see?  Two men in their boxer briefs wrestling. Haha.

**Disclaimer: There are SO many people that graciously gave of their time and helped me out throughout the last year of my life if you weren’t specifically mentioned in this post please know that doesn’t mean I forgot about you or by any means am not completely indebted to you for your time you shared with me.**

Wordless Wednesday No. 33

 

 

 

 

October Report & November Goals

There are just really not many clever ways to make the title of these blog posts more exciting….anyway!

The Report:

1. Complete the Tyler Rose half marathon for our 3rd race in the 4 seasons challenge. It’s coming up October 7th!

F: We bailed on this race because we decided it was the best life choice at the time in terms of getting to goal number 3 in one piece. Not to mention the fact that it was Beth’s dad’s birthday and it would have been madness to run the race in Tyler and get back to Dallas. We decided that Texas doesn’t really have 4 seasons anyways. 🙂

2. Start marathon training!

C: Sorta? We have done some of our running and have for sure missed 2 long runs so we shall see how the rest of this month goes. We hope it won’t kill us too much as they were “shorter long runs”

3. Get Beth married!

A++: Done! She is now a Holland! Recap of the wedding coming shortly!

This picture cracks me up!

It really was an an incredible night! Oh, and check out that ring – he’s really my husband now! 🙂

 

 

The Goals:

Teal –

1. Get my house in order without losing it! I am too routine and orderly for this mess. See this madness…

 

2. Get my butt/mind in gear for marathon training. I feel so blah about it right now. It doesn’t feel right or like it is supposed to happen and I need to figure out how to get excited about it!

3.  Send out Christmas cards by the end of the month! We have only done this once and I want to make it a tradition.

4. Successfully host Thanksgiving at my house for the first time (ties to number 1 big time). Pressure is on for number 1 for sure!

Beth –

Please be shocked and amazed that I find myself in sync with Teal and have almost all the same goals for this month! 🙂

1. Get my house in order!  I didn’t get ALL of my stuff moved out of my sister’s house before the wedding and with wedding presents there are A LOT of boxes over at my new house with my husband. 🙂 🙂 We both don’t like messes so this is hard to look at right now until we get it all organized and into place.

2. Get in the game with marathon training!

3. Have all Christmas cards addressed and ready to be sent out by December 1st!  I’m so excited to send out Christmas cards this year! 🙂  I have them already to order, so this goal shouldn’t be too hard to tackle!

4. I’m bringing back my yoga goals, and in baby steps. Yoga once a week!  If I don’t start doing this I’m going to need to either cancel my membership or freeze it to save some moolah.

Throwback Thursday: Teal’s Wedding

With Beth’s wedding this Saturday! Yep! Saturday! Raise your hand if you can’t believe it has been a year! We surely can’t.  We figured we would do a little Throwback Thursday so you could see a little of what Teal’s wedding was like. Her wedding was 4 years ago which was pre-blog and pre-crazy running life!  Teal is about to celebrate her 4th wedding anniversary and was married November 22, 2008 at the Delaney Vineyards in Grapevine, Texas.  Her love of wine and the fact that this place did not have a square inch of carpet made it a perfect place!

The day started out with a little pampering at the Green Peridot Salon in Frisco. Teal booked this place not knowing that it was Daniel Lewis who was voted fan favorite on the Bravo tv show Shear Genius! We all got our hair, makeup, and mini facials done, and even got to hang out with Daniel for a while!

The ceremony and reception were both at the same place to make life easier! We of course took all our pictures and hung out to wait for the wedding.  There is such a huge time crunch on wedding day and in order to get the pictures all done Michael and Teal opted to see each other before the actual ceremony. The photographer basically set up the shot and really still makes Teal cry to this day.

The ceremony was very special! Teal is close to both of her dads and it is such a hard thing to deal with as a daughter for what to do when you have two dads on your wedding day.  Another perfect thing about Delaney was that it had stairs leading to the aisle and she was able to “split” the walk down the aisle duties with both of her dads. Her step father walked her down the stairs to her dad, who then walked her down the aisle where Michael, and her brother, who was the “Reverend” would give the ceremony. Teal’s brother Brad became an ordained “Reverend” before the wedding to marry Michael and Teal. Yep they let you pick your title and he chose Reverend! Teal’s grandfather spoke at the wedding too and she still cherishes these pictures so much as he was lost only a month later.  Teal feels so lucky to have stood up with her most cherished of friends. Some from childhood and others from later but all loved and cherished the same!

Reverend Brad on the left & Grandfather on the right

The ceremony ended and every one enjoyed cocktail hour while the staff turned the ceremony site into the reception! The changed happened super fast and then it was time to party! We had a seated dinner and then danced the rest of the night away!

Here are just a few pics of the wedding!

The skunk on the groom’s cakes was to remember the proposal. The entire proposal was a mess but memorable. Michael tried to ask Teal 3 times but was interrupted by a sprinkler system turning on, rowdy kids, and finally a skunk that ran in front of them!

Instead of a grand exit in a limo, Teal and Michael opted to leave in the infamous Pickle wagon! This 1960’s VW bus was not even running the day before the wedding but managed to make it!

With all of that said I cannot wait to stand up on Saturday next to Beth and see her get married! I love Beth and Brent so much and they are such a huge part of my life and will be forever! Her friendship means more to me than I can explain and she deserves such a perfect day! We will of course recap the day for you! We can’t wait for Saturday!

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Our Survival Tips

After completely another cleanse we want to share with you some of our tips to help you get through it. 🙂

– The fiber drink you drink on the mornings of Day 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10 you want to CHUG IT.

– But before you even get to that stage mix the fiber drink packet with COLD water and feel free to add some more water in as you get towards the bottom (it has a weird consistency, not a taste thing, but a consistency thing).
-A newer tip we learned and tried this time around – if you buy Spark in the orange flavor mix your fiber drink packet with one spoonful of Spark and it’ll taste more like you are drinking OJ with pulp.
-Some people might actually find the Peaches n Cream flavored fiber drinks to be way better than the Citrus flavored fiber drink. Look into that!
-Do the cleanse with a buddy to keep yourself accountable!

-Plan all of your meals ahead of time so you are set! Preparation is clutch. We set up on Sunday for the 1st seven days and then Sunday to the end! Plan ahead of time to make sure you will have the least distraction within your 10 day time frame and whatever you do AVOID birthdays, big life events, etc!

There you have it!  Remember you can buy the Advocare cleanse or any of their products here through Teal.

Have you done the Advocare 10 day cleanse before, is there any advice you would give that we have left off?

Cheaters, Cheaters, Pumpkin Eaters!

If you saw our Wordless Wednesday post yesterday and you guessed that we cheated on our cleanse then CONGRATS you are correct!

Now pat yo’self on the back! 🙂

(source)

We aren’t really ashamed to admit this because we are after all HUMAN.  We hopefully have mentioned before that it is really hard to find 10 consecutive days that work to cleanse.  We discussed a couple of different start dates before we determined October 8th would be the day for us, and now we can see where these 10 days got us.

Life happens much like with when you are trying to block out 16 weeks to dedicate to a marathon, and you might miss a training run or two.  Beth had 3 last minute Birthday parties to attend one of which also included Teal (hence where the cheating pictures came from). Every Wednesday the culinary art students at Teal’s school cook and last Wednesday all of the counselors were going to eat their food?  Yep, a Wednesday during our 10 day Advocare cleanse.

Despite the hiccups (a.k.a. cheat moments) the cleanse is still a good reset for your body!  We both still reaped benefits from it – Beth is 5 pounds lighter and Teal is 5 pounds lighter.  Not bad, right?

We are officially off of the cleanse though we both are trying to keep our eating habits similar to it as much as possible for the next 9 days! 🙂  We’ll be back tomorrow with our survival tips for the 10 day Advocare Cleanse.

Wordless Wednesday No. 32

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: What We’re Eating

The cleanse is actually very easy to follow in terms of what you can and cannot eat, and once you have that down, making meals is pretty easy.

These are the bulk of what Teal will eat for the 10 days.

For Breakfast I am drinking Shakeology. Yes I am cheating on Advocare with this one and not using their meal replacement shakes. *gasp* I like Shakeology way more. Shhhh don’t tell them!

Here are the three main meals I made to mix in as either lunch or dinner throughout the time.

1. Southwest Quinoa Salad  ( 5 servings)

Approximate Cost per serving: $4.15

Ingredients: 1lb of chicken breast, ½ of a large red onion, one can of organic black beans, 1 cup of organic quinoa (technically this is 2 full servings and will be split over 5 meals), cherry tomatoes, spinach, salt and pepper to taste.

2. Vegetable Tuna Salad  (6 servings)

Approximate Cost per serving: $1.68

Ingredients: 3 cans tuna, ¾ cup celery chopped, ¾ cup carrot chopped, ½ of a red onion, 1 English seedless cucumber chopped, 2 tablespoons mayo. ( this is 2 servings spread over 6 meals so this is ok)

Serve over salad or use a cucumber and mini sweet bell peppers instead of crackers to eat! They crunch so you just have to trick yourself!

3. Soup:  have no clue what to call this because it’s like 2 recipes combined (6 servings)

Approximate Cost per serving: $3.45

Ingredients: 4-6 cups low sodium organic chicken stock, 1lb chicken breast, 1 can organic gazpacho beans, 1 can organic corn, 2 tomatoes diced, one small white onion, 2 green bell peppers chopped, cilantro, 1 jalapeño chopped, juice of 1 lime, cumin, chili powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes.

Snacks if needed: cucumber, carrots, mini sweet bell peppers, raw almonds or cashews, tangerines, apples, almond butter.

And for Beth the bulk of what she will be eating is as follows:

1. Chicken Taco Meat Salad (5 servings)

actually ate it without quinoa most of the week, but that is something you can put in this salad for sure!

The chicken in this form really goes a long way for me and this is usually me getting 2-3 organic chicken breasts.  You might remember seeing this meat from a previous Tasty Tuesday post from us.

Ingredients: Organic chicken, 4 cups low sodium chicken broth, and 1 packet of low sodium taco seasoning for just the meat.  For the salad I did green bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, and spinach leaves.

Approximate Cost per serving: Yah, Brent and I split the groceries so it made our receipts weird. I’m the slacker here. :-/

2. Turkey Meatloaf (4 servings)

Ingredients: 1.5 pounds of 99% lean turkey breast, 1 cup chopped onion, 1 cup frozen spinach, 3/4 cup of salsa, 1 egg (or two egg whites), 1/3 cup of oats, 1 teaspoon of paprika, 1 teaspoon of ground mustard, 2 tablespoons of dijon mustard, pepper to taste and 2 tablespoons of worchestire sauce.

3. Mexican Chicken Lime Soup (6 servings)

Ingredients: 2 Tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, 1 onion (finely chopped), 6 gloves of garlic, 6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs cut into 1/2 inch pieces, 2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, 6 cups of chicken broth, 1/2 cup of fresh cilantro, juice of 2 limes, salt and pepper and 1 hass avocado.

4. Egg Frittata (6 servings)

Ingredients: a dozen eggs, 1/2 of one roma tomato, one squash, 1/4 of green bell pepper, 1/4 of red bell pepper, garlic and salt & pepper to taste.

There was also turkey taco meat but I figure a lot of people know that one already and overall made about 29 meals to split between myself and Brent.

With some preparation on your part you can make doing this advocare 10 day cleanse easy to follow! We’ll be back with a post on our tips to surviving the cleanse! 🙂