Come Join Us at Kacie’s Run

March 8, 2012 by · 2 Comments

Last year you might remember that Beth and I ran the Kacie’s Run to support Carrollton Farmers Branch Special Olympics (and ps if you look back at our post from last year its is slightly funny to see what a difference a  year makes, check out our stats & nervousness over this race last year and then our actual results from the race!)

So with that we are of course going to run again! This year I was able to take on the role of campus liaison and help register & get our campus motivated to run. This is a super easy, fast paced, flat race and will also make a GREAT “shake out” run for us and anyone running the Dallas Rock ‘n’ Roll Half the next day! Which means this year’s Kacie’s Run is March 24th!

Here is a little background as to the purpose of the race. The race is held in honor of Kacie Brekhus who as an R. L. Turner High School freshman became involved in the Torch Run, benefiting Special Olympics.  As a senior, she served as the student coordinator for that race. Kacie died in a traffic accident in October 2003 while a freshman at The University of Texas at Austin and many in her life believed that Kacie’s contributions to CFB Special Olympics and the Torch Run where so great, that they changed the race to honor her memory.

We are both registered and would love to meet and see you guys out there if it is possible. CFB has made it super easy to register and there are options for everyone – even the procrastinators. If you do decide you would like to join us and register we would so LOVE it if you joined “Team Perry!” Which is the school that I teach at and we are working to break last years number for participants!

How to get registered:

1. Go to https://secure.getmeregistered.com/KaciesRun

2. Register in person at Run On Coppell March 20-22 10am to 7pm

3. Register in person at Chick-fil-a Carrollton on Old Denton March 19th– 5-7pm

4. Race Day March 24th at Standridge Stadium, Carollton, Texas at 7am.

 

Hope to see you there! 🙂

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Trinity River Levee Run

March 5, 2012 by · 2 Comments

I woke up Friday morning with beginnings of a cold coming on. Ugh, not so perfect timing! But got to bed early for a 6 a.m. wake up call for the 10k. That seemed SO late considering how early Teal & I woke up for Princess Half!

First I should backup and say the packet pickup at Luke’s was pretty easy at Luke’s Locker especially since I heeded the advice from email to know my bib number before getting there. I walked up to the nice fireman, told him bib 962 and in under 30 seconds I was off and looking at the running clothes sale. 🙂 Kudos to this race for having firemen help with packet pickup! 🙂

I’d seen multiple things regarding driving directions to the race and I had every intention of following them until I found myself on the exact street it said to avoid. Oh, well! Quickly parked on the opposite side of the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge from where the race started, but ultimately I was glad because I got to walk across it twice in addition to running across it!

After crossing the bridge I found my friends Mary, Cory, Tom and Paige pretty quickly and in no time it seemed like we were off!  Since Teal was on a field trip with her students I just assumed I’d be running this race by myself and I was totally wrong!  Tom and I ended up running pretty much the whole race together.  We chatted about anything and everything!  Talking during races and even during training runs is not something I commonly do, so it was a nice change of pace.  Tom kept me updated periodically on what our pace was.  I knew I’d want to do another 6ish mile run later in the day so I was too concerned with pushing real hard in this race.  Overall the course was fun, lots of awesome volunteers out passing out powerade and water.  I don’t frequent that area of town all that much so it was fun seeing everything around there.

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Tom & I after the race - please enjoy the mess that is my hair!

The results for this race were a little tricky to find or maybe I’m just not that use to having to click on so many links to be taken to a word document containing a link that holds my results?  My chip time was 57:41, 201st female to finish and 661st person to finish overall.  The thing I was most proud of in this race was the kick I gave at the end.  When I stopped my runkeeper at the end it said I had been running at a 7:14 pace! So excited to see the difference my hill and tempo workouts have given me in a short amount of time!  Would also, like to give a shout out to Teal’s workout buddy, Cynthia I saw out there!  Wish I would have seen you after the race!

After the race was over I made sure to take a picture of one of the three murals that Shepherd Fairey recently put up on Singleton Avenue in Dallas.  Tons of people were having their picture taken with the murals so I got just this one with no one else in the picture before I headed out.

On my walk back to the car I took advantage of the time and snapped some more pictures of the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge or as I’ve already heard some referring to it as #largeMarge.  I’m going to hold out and put one of my favorite pictures I took walking across the bridge to the race on Facebook only, so come find it on our Facebook page! And if you haven’t liked us on Facebook yet – why not??

Later that afternoon I headed out for a 6 mile run that I was hoping would include some hills.  I set off on a bit of a new route for me, and to be honest in the beginning I wasn’t completely feeling this run.  As I was nearing the halfway point of my run which also was the point where I was running down my soon to be monster hill to run up, I saw a police officer and contemplated asking him to give me a ride home if I wimped out on the hill.  But let’s be honest – no matter how much I wanted to wimp out I wasn’t going to.  The hill was hard, but once I did it and recovered from it I felt great!  The whole last half of my run was fabulous!  I get more of a high from running when I accomplish something hard out in the course than if it was just completely flat.  Run #2 on Saturday felt like another victory for my tempo and hill workouts!

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!  There were so many people out racing and Teal & I are both excited to see your race recaps! 🙂

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Dr. Seuss, Levee Run & New Book

March 2, 2012 by · 5 Comments

So many things going on this Friday, but first of all – Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss!  So fun that we just got to visit Seuss Landing less than a week ago!  Anyone going to see The Lorax this weekend?  This is one movie that Teal will probably catch in the theaters despite not being a big movie person because The Lorax is her favorite Seuss book.

Tomorrow Beth will be running the Trinity River Levee Run 10k!  Sadly, Teal being the good teacher that she is, will be on a field trip with her students and cannot participate in this run. 🙁

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The new Margaret Hunt Hill bridge is officially open in Dallas as of this weekend, and the 8th Annual Trinity River Levee Run is the kickoff to a day of celebrating.  Part of the selling point for this year’s run is that this will be your only chance to run across the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge, well you know in a safe way were it’s blocked off for runners. It has also been a long time since either one of us has raced the 10k distance, so it’ll be good to get back out there and give it another go!  But we’ll have to find another 10k to do so Teal can revisit that distance too!  There isn’t really a goal for this race, but Beth’s 10k PR stands at 56:46.  That PR was accomplished in the July Texas Heat, so guess there could always be hope of a new PR this weekend!

On a completely different note, perhaps aimed more at the people who are big readers – Beth’s sister Kate as of today is an author!  About four years ago, Kate wrote a “chicklit” book, attempted to get publisher for it, and when that didn’t work she decided in today’s technology that she would self-publish!  We are both really excited for her in this endeavor and so proud of her for following one of her dreams!  The book is called Creative Chaos and will be available to purchase as an iBook & on your Nook today, and then to follow all you Kindle users will also be able to purchase it!

You can learn more about Kate over at her blog which also has some more details on the book!  If you buy it you have got to let us know!  And a big CONGRATS to Kate, the author! 🙂

Happy Friday to you all!  What do you have in store for your weekend?

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Princesses for a Day: Race Recap

February 28, 2012 by · 19 Comments

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Our alarm clock went off at 3:00 a.m.! Holy cow, Disney! We get it – you want everyone to get through and out of your parks before they open, but that is one early wake up call for a 5:45 a.m. race not to mention you HAD to be in your corral by 5:00 a.m. or ELSE! Ha (Guess who wasn’t in their corral by 5:00 a.m.??) We got dressed in our princess costumes and were out the door of Sheraton Safari by 3:40 a.m. ready to face race traffic.  Pretty sure we in the car for an hour which gave us time to make peanut butter sandwiches to keep us fueled.

Yummy - peanut butter sandwiches made with Beth's finger! Ha

Once we parked we had a good 20 minute walk to our corral, so we decided to not stop to use the rest room because it was slight madness. Plus we were running late at this point to get into the corral on time.  When we got to the corral area we knew that Heidi was in corral B so we began looking for her just knowing we would see her at the front of that corral.  Good thing we started looking early because there were Heidi & Brian at the front of corral C. Apparently if you are a Prince running this race you can’t go any higher up than corral C.

such a colorful picture!

We are not quite sure how it happened but we both were assigned the same corral for like the first time EVER and we were in corral A! It was awesome to be up front in a line of 20,000 people!

see how close we were to the start line?

We started right on time! Way to go Disney and since we had made getting to our corral a priority over anything else we both decided to make an immediate stop at the first port-o-potties we spotted on the course!  The whole first of half of the race flew by so it’s hard to remember everything by miles totally.  Our plan was to run together, treat it as a training run and take pictures with characters when we wanted to do so.  The competitive side to both of us still lives on a bit in that we still wanted a decent time despite the stops, but again we were fortunate to be in corral A because this gave us the advantage of being in front of thousands of people who would want to stop as well.  We did stop at the first group of characters that we saw….

We loved how real looking the step sisters and Cruella Deville were!

Cinderella's Castle was the half way point of the race

The volunteers out there were awesome!!  We didn’t even have to ask someone to take that picture, the volunteer noticed us stop and she just came up to us and asked if she could take the picture for us!

We really didn’t have a plan at who to stop at or what we wanted to do we just knew that we wanted to see our princesses! We ended up stopping at Buzz Lightyear who of course is a favorite not only to us but our little nephews!   As you will find out through our pictures it’s a good thing we stopped because Princess Ariel ended up not being on the course! 🙁

the other side of Cinderella's castle

Somewhere in the mile 7 part of the course we found Beth’s character – Belle!  Wonder what all the characters came up with to say to people as they were having their picture taken because Belle said to Beth “it looks like you’ve been in my closet!”

Speaking of mile markers! We loved the signs for each mile!  At mile 8 we finally snapped a picture of one:

There were a couple of hills in the last few miles and thanks to one of the toy soldiers from Toy Story for the encouragement to conquer the hill in  mile 10.  It was amazing how his voice was exactly like the movie!  We’ve said before we aren’t really big on stopping and starting on a run which is completely a personal preference we both share.  The picture breaks were hard on our bodies, but we pressed on despite that.  In hindsight it might have been a blessing in disguise that Ariel was not seen out there because our last stop at Belle was rough!  Our bodies might have been hurting but  with the kick we gave it at the end you never would have known!  If you look at our runkeeper entries for this race Teal finished her last .1 in a 6:20 pace and Beth finished in her last .1 in a 8:03 pace.  Perhaps this speaks to how it’s hard to have a GPS device be completely accurate as we crossed the finish line right next to each other.  A more accurate pace would probably be an average of the two times something more in the 7 minute range.  We were hauling!  We are really good at keep training runs JUST training runs. 🙂

Half Marathon number eight is in the bag!  We did and our very proud of ourselves!  Our official time was 2:13:35 exactly for both of us, and we tried to stop and start our runkeeper when would take picture breaks because we wanted to know the difference :), so that time was 2:03:49.  By the time we were finished both of us had A LOT of our fuel for the race leftover – swedish fish.  Once Teal got some ice on her foot and knee and Beth put biofreeze on her knees and calves we grabbed our checked bag and were out of there to find food. We were staaaarving!

Isn't it purdy?

So now we have 1/2 of the Coast to Coast challenge finished and just need to complete Disneyland Half Marathon in September which we thankfully got signed up in time as it was sold out before we left for the Princess Half!  Check back with us tomorrow to see what all we did in the non racing parts of the weekend! 🙂

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Seven Things Friday

January 27, 2012 by · 7 Comments

1. We are going to AUSTIN today after work!! Wheee!

2.  So that we can volunteer at the 3M Half Marathon!

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3. We are SO excited to get to meet these two:

 You know also known as @runthetrailsCO & @cisforcourtney

4.  We are officially signed up for the ZOOMA Austin Half on March 31, 2012!! We have a discount code good through the 31st for $5 off the 5k or $10 off the Half! Let us know if you want to join us and we’ll let ya have it! 🙂

5.  Neither of us have actually run in Austin and you know what? We are going to change that this weekend!

6.  We canNOT wait to get coffee at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf – have been dreaming about it since our last trip to Austin!

7.  We really wanted to post 27 things because, uh, duh – today is the 27th! BUT we thought that was excessive and that we wanted to keep our readers around! 😉  Thanks for hanging in there with us! 🙂

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[Not Entirely] Marathon Running Weekend Part 2

January 26, 2012 by · 1 Comment

Last year we both ran the Too Cold to Hold race together and just on whim decided to do it again. Beth mentioned wanting to run and Teal of course agreed. It’s not too hard to persuade each other to run something around here! You might recall Teal’s recap of her 5k on Saturday which started out at 36 degrees and in keeping with the craziness that is Texas weather, we were again not too surprised that our run started out Sunday morning at 52 degrees and ended up with a high of 78 for the day. Definitely NOT Too Cold too Hold!

We really were not all that prepared again for this race and had to discuss directions again.  Whoops!  Hopefully this direction problem isn’t turning into a trend. 🙂 We got to the park and made a b-line to the port-o-potties as usual. We ran into one of Beth’s Fiancé’s friend’s Hanes who we didn’t know would be there!

We waited around and met/chatted with many of our twitter friends and even met some new people in real life! SO good to meet Lee a.k.a. @runneronabudget and his son, Angel out there! Bonus for sure and really chatting with them was the only really highlights of this day.

We started out the race together as we both basically decided to run this race as a training run and not a true race since we have been a little off in our training. Beth had run about 9.5 miles on Saturday and Teal around 7, plus both of us did yoga, so our legs were in no way shape or form rested.

The race was in a word “normal”- nothing new or different and no real problems besides this dude who kept swerving in and out from us. At one point he basically cut Beth off weaving, would run backwards, look back and weirdly smile and randomly cheer for people whilst running backwards.  We couldn’t decide if he was running tangents or dizzy or what…We have no clue what he was doing but kept us entertained for a while due to he weirdness. 🙂

Around 4.5 we got the BEST surprise! This race is kind of boring because there are literally no spectators besides finished runners at the end so we were both pumped to see Heidi and Brian cheering us on around the turn around. This pumped us up and made it a little easier to keep running.  We made it a point to wave and cheer on our fellow North Texas Runners in an effort to pass time and keep from being bored, and of course be supportive.

A post race pic of our cheerleaders! The Luebs are awesome!

Teal and Beth split at about the 6 mile mark which made the last 3 miles a drain. At around 9 Teal saw Heidi again and she ran her in right up to the finish line! Such a great cheering surprise for a relatively routine and regular race!

Afterwards we hung around to celebrate Michelle’s birthday and eat with our running friends at Fuzzy’s! We got to here all about Greg’s upcoming 100miler at Rocky Raccoon in Huntsville and hang out with their precious girls, an all over great ending to the day!

Frunners!

Shout out to Mama C the awesome picture taker…we stole two pictures from you and the term frunner! =)

Love this photo! Marci and her age group award...a lil Ninja!

Frunners at Fuzzy's!

It was also SO good to meet Michelle a.k.a. Drum at this race!  We finally after a long time of chatting it up on twitter we saw her for two seconds at White Rock Mary but actually got to meet this weekend!  Also, a shout out to Stacy it was SO good to meet you too and hope that we see you again soon..you know not just on twitter! 🙂

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[Not Entirely a] Marathon Running Weekend Part 1

January 23, 2012 by · 5 Comments

Twitter Road Race:

You got to love the weather in Texas! On Friday it was a warm almost 80 degrees and Teal woke up on Saturday morning to a chilly 36 degrees. Teal headed out early on Saturday before work and completed her #TwitterRoadRace early. The first mile was terrible. Her lungs were burning like crazy the entire time. She was kind of worried about running with a lot of speed- stupid foot, but ended up finishing in 28:38. Fairly slow considering but overall not too bad. For Teal this is the first time she had even attempted to run outside since the New Year’s Double. Had it not been for the road race she would have never set foot outside because of the cold. Yep—so glad we don’t live up north and have to deal with the snow. It was so encouraging to know that others in the running community were out doing the same thing and based on twitter many dealt with way worse conditions. Once finished her ears were ringing and she basically wanted to go back to bed. Is that bad??

Beth has a relatively new standing “date” with her trainer on Saturday morning’s at 10:00 a.m. and with a jammed back day of stuff to do decided to have the morning to do what she wanted before that workout. After workout she was off to meet a new client/Bride to pick up her wedding invitation envelopes to address, then pick up her Too Cold to Hold race packet and try and make it back home to run before yoga.  Beth made a first attempt at the #TwitterRoadRace but stopped because realistically it was cutting too close to her next thing to do.  She ended up doing her 5k AFTER we did our trail run at NorthShore.

 

Results of the Road Race:

Teal –

Finished 185th out of 347 runners!

Beth –

For whatever reason her results didn’t get counted. Boo! 🙁  Beth ran her 5k in 26:38 and would have tied @RunfosRunner for 122nd place.

 

Northshore Trail Run:

We both met at Sunstone Yoga at 1:30 to fit in a quick yoga session before heading out to the trail.  Neither of us really knew where we were going and ended up getting lost like 5 times before actually making it out there. We have both lived in Dallas forever, if not our entire lives, but were completely backwards in terms of where we were supposed to turn. 🙂

 

We ended up making it the trail with a little over an hour to run. We showed up at the gate and the man was like “you guys are ambitious.” Whoops… We started out the trail walking a little bit just to see how it would do and picked up running about a .25 mile in. The trail was not crowded, perhaps because it was so late in the day. It was very nice and open, much different from Erwin Park. We didn’t have to dodge as many trees and limbs like before. Here are a few pics of our route.

We changed it up a little and talked the entire run, totally not normal for us! Mostly about wedding stuff and just the weekend coming up and managed to make 2 miles in about 30 minutes. It’s crazy how much slower we are when running trails. We started heading back and both of us were kind of paying attention to time but not that well and apparently our talking made it hard for us to remember where we came from. Just like our drive in we had to turn around a couple of times. The sun was really starting to set by this time and we had again taken the wrong route back. Apparently we were having major directional problems Saturday. As we were running back on the shore you could see the park ranger man in his truck waiting around by our car. We ran the last stretch and managed to get to the car literally 2 minutes before the 5:40 cut off. 4 miles on the trail was very nice! We really liked this trail and seriously want to run it again, next time with more time of course!

 

Getting out there late and running until right up to the park closing gave us some gorgeous views of Grapevine Lake when the sun was setting! Completely worth it!  We’ll have the 2nd half of this weekend up in the next couple days! 🙂

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New Year’s Double – Day Two

January 4, 2012 by · 5 Comments

The two days of racing somewhat blend together for us – perhaps we should have written some notes down after each day to help us out?  We are sure you wouldn’t appreciate a recap that says “It was fun!”  It would be the truth though! 🙂

New Year’s Day morning we headed out to the race course just the two of us as we are awesome and let Michael & Brent sleep in!  We might have done a slightly better job of eating breakfast before today’s race, but maybe just slightly. Haha.  When we got to Celebration Park we decided to sit in the car for as long as possible!  Ever since White Rock Mary Teal doesn’t like to be cold if she doesn’t have to be and Beth decided on an outfit warm enough for running not for hanging out waiting to run and no throw away items.

Teal’s friend Cynthia was running the half marathon relay this day and it was her text messages asking us where we were that finally got us out of the car!  We quickly found Cynthia and were able to chat some before the race started, and then found Heidi & Brian at Corral B!  Before we knew it we were starting the race!

Teal:  So if you think about how low my expectations were in terms of running for day 1 they were even lower for day 2. My foot (the bad one) was very tender and was even more tender on the outside because I ran on it for 13 miles the day before. I was thinking – “good lord, how much more can your poor little pinky toe take?” I had called Cynthia the day before and asked her what leg of the relay she was running because really my goal was to run the first leg with her to gauge pain, and then walk the second if need be. I had iced like crazy and stretched a ton the night before. My body felt much better than I had expected but still sore.

Beth:  Almost immediately after we got home from Day 1, I was on my way to Run On to get a new pair of shoes!  I refused to wear my tainted marathon shoes again and knew I had pain that wouldn’t be there had I already gotten a new pair of shoes.  So I was ready to go for Day 2’s race and really wanting to make sure I ran the whole thing again – no walking!

Teal:  Miles 1-3: I started in corral C with Cynthia, Beth and Heidi went out with Corral B and my running buddy from day 1, Brian, ran back with some other friends of ours. In my head I was like—“ boo, I really won’t make the second half because I will be alone.”  The first 3 miles were slow but not bad. Cynthia and I stayed together and I kind of just played with my angling on my foot to control any pain. My knee on the left was sore, but not too bad and was shockingly for once staying in place!

Beth:  I had my headphones with me today! Since I was so messed up with the mileage the day before I wanted to be sure and have periodic updates, but then sometimes I wouldn’t even fully listen to them.  🙂 Heidi and I got started together and our outfits matched just a whee bit this day!  We had some chatter going again, saw a lot of people out there again and were sure to cheer them on as well!  Seriously the seeing of other running friends out there was really the best part even though you are only passing them for a few seconds.

Thank you to Mama C for this picture out on the course!

Teal: Mile 3-6: Brian caught up to us! YES! I knew I had 3 more to go with Cynthia and when he caught up to us I felt better about the rest of the race. If he was going to keep running I could keep running. I started to feel tired and not in the mood to run anymore (even though I never really was in the first place) and 3-6 were actually pretty draining. It was at the point that I was like- You need to change your attitude because you will be out here for 9ish more miles whether you like it or not. I started encouraging Cynthia (not that she really needed it- she was doing great) and cheering on others, and thanking spectators, and chatting with Brian!

Beth:  There was a sign out by the turnaround that said “Oh, Shut up, Princess! No one ever drowned in sweat!” that I absolutely loved and it got me excited because Teal, Heidi, Brian and I will all be out in Orlando next month for the Princess Half.  This race weekend seemed like a glimpse of the fun the four of us will have out at that race!  It was about this time we’d have our first opportunity to see Teal & Brian, and Heidi & I were both anxious to see how they were doing.  I just wanted to make sure Teal was ok and that she wasn’t in any horrible foot or knee pain.  When we saw them Teal was all smiles, so I felt confident that she was OK out there and was glad she and Brian were running together again!

Teal: 6.55-10: I left Cynthia here at the relay exchange and began the second loop with Brian. This stretch was not wonderful mind wise but we both basically said the pace was ok and manageable and that we weren’t going to walk. I told Brian that I was scared to lock up my knee and walking would basically mean I wouldn’t start again. We powered through and made the last loop for what we knew was just 3 miles left. We saw Beth and Heidi around here and knew at this point that they had to have been hauling! We cheered them on and just kept smiling to keep our moods up and not let the pain and annoyance of running so slow get to us!

Beth: After Heidi and I finished our first loop I knew we were on pace to make it under 2:10.  Before day 1 of New Year’s Double the DRC Half had been my slowest half, mainly because it was treated as a training, and I made up my mind right then and there that I wasn’t going to let day 2 be my slowest or next in line for slowest half.  At somewhere around mile 8 I was huuungry! So I got out one of my GU’s and fueled up which then resulted in me getting my second wind.  Just the push I need to guarantee that sub 2:10 time for the day!  One thing that has not been mentioned yet is the wind!  It was out there and I guess making up for it’s lack of an appearance on New Year’s Eve.  One of the main parts the wind really got to me was in mile 12 (or 6 if you were on the first loop) the ONLY thing that made up for it was the volunteer that was standing right about the mile 19th sign (I just mentioned far too many different numbers of miles).  That was my fourth time to pass her that day and I finally said to her “you are the best cheerleader! Thank you!”  Just as I said it a lady come out for another loop responded with “she really is!”  She pushed me through, then the man I passed right before the 13 mile marker pushed me through, and then I got that awesome runner’s high from sprinting once I rounded the last corner.  I also passed another guy in the small bit of course left after the last corner. 🙂

Teal: 10-13.1: I looked at Brian and was like “we eat 3 miles for breakfast” this is nothing. I am pretty sure I stole those words from our friend, Courtney. Three is nothing! We got around to 11.5, and I of course, grabbed some gummy bears again which made me super happy. The last 1.5 was fast. We talked ourselves up and just kept one foot in front of the other. We both crossed that finish line having fully run BOTH days! We high fived and that was that!

It’s really weird because both of us are in no way disappointed. We ran the 2 slowest half marathons ever, but were so happy at the end! This weekend was so much fun and was so empowering!  Despite being slower than we both are use to and a lot of pain for Teal,who saw what her body was capable of, didn’t walk at all, and kept a good attitude. We were both shocked that not much endurance was lost having only run 8 miles for Teal and 14.3 miles for Beth since White Rock.  Overall just proud of both of us and also feel super blessed that we were able to run with Brian & Heidi!

Results

Teal: 2:25:53

Beth: 2:06:41

The medal for day 2

You put the two pieces together in the challenge plate and this is the complete New Year's Double medal

After the race on New Year’s Eve we didn’t really get to stick around and watch some of our friends running the marathon finish, so we made sure we’d get to see them on this day!  We watched Ninja complete his 2nd marathon in 24 hours and in the top 15 of finishers which earned him some fancy champagne glasses!  We got to see Lesley J. out there with her Racing It Off ladies! Y’all looked awesome!

Overall it was an awesome racing weekend for us!  We had so much fun being at an awesome race amongst so many running friends!

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New Year’s Double – Day One

January 3, 2012 by · 1 Comment

Well, the day finally arrived for our first ever double race weekend! Ok, we might have done a 5k and a half marathon relay in the same weekend back in March, but that doesn’t compare to back to back half marathon.

As we mentioned before, Michael & Brent were both coming out with us for this day of the race.  We showed up to the race relatively unprepared.  Neither of us had done a good job of having a good breakfast, Teal didn’t have any food for during the race and we both had forgotten gloves.  We stood around talking to running buddies until the last minute when we decided maybe we should go ahead and get in our corral.

Teal keeping warm before the race got started

Teal: I had no idea how day one of this weekend would go and really had very little expectations of anything good happening.  Being relatively new to running I had no idea how fast or easily endurance for a half marathon is lost and how well my other types of cardio had kept up my endurance.  I really didn’t know if this would be a holy mess of walking or not.

Beth:  I had no idea what to expect for this weekend.  I’d run a grand total of 14.3 miles since the marathon.  Most of the runs were on the treadmill and I kept noticing a pain in my foot which played a major role in my lack of running.  I just wanted to complete day one without walking at all.

Teal:  Prior to the race we had met up with Brian & Heidi and had discussed running together.  For the first few miles of the race all four of us did and kept up a pace faster than I had expected.  The running was not coming as easy as before, but it was not bad.  My foot was definitely feeling the pounding and I compensated by running more to the outside.  Not really a good thing, but it worked for that time.  Brian and I were basically running side by side behind Beth and Heidi because on the course you couldn’t run more than two people wide.  We chatted with them, waved at all the runners we knew and seriously had a good time.  We started to lose ground between Beth and Heidi and decided to try and keep them in our sight, but that ended up failing.  The race was entertaining based on the simple fact that we knew so many people out there.  It passed time to look for runners we knew and cheer them on.  The out & back loop made it super easy to see people three and four times.

Thanks to Michael for this picture! Brian & Teal on their way back in from their first loop

Beth:  Just as we got started I realized I had left my headphones in my fleece that I’d passed off to Brent.  So of course as we run off I yell that too him. 🙂 Before we even made it a half mile I had to stop and go the bathroom so he found me as I was exiting and handed off my headphones to me.  But in that short period of time I figured if we were running with Heidi and Brian I would not really need my headphones at all.  After my pit stop I caught up to the three of them to carry on!  Thanks to Heidi’s veerry colorful outfits it wasn’t hard to find them again.  Once I had my headphones in my hand I knew I wouldn’t actually end up using them at all.  Since the course was a loop there were people to see out there and had my running buddies with me to chat with!

Teal:  We hung back and ended up getting right in front of these two guys from Rockwall who seriously pushed our pace.  We ended on average at a 10:30ish pace, but when we ran with these guys it was about 10 minutes or better.  They ran right on our heels, which has never happened to me before it and it kind of made me nervous.  I couldn’t decide if they wanted to pass us or not.  They just kept talking to us about running and all the races they had been at and what not.  At one point the guy was like “this is a good pace” and I started to feel more comfortable about the face that that pace was where they wanted to stay.  We slowed a little because I felt less pressure now and then they ended up passing us just to wind up back behind us again!  Clearly they were determined to hang and chat.  Oh, and if you haven’t noticed there was a lot of chatting in this race.  Way more than ever before.  I even only ran with one ear phone in and really never listened except to get mileage updates (I kept losing track of the mileage though).  This made time fly and I really didn’t feel much during all of the stories.  By the time we stopped talking with them we were already around mile 9 or 10.  In my head I was like – Really? We are here already, I’m not totally dead, haven’t walked and all the pain is manageable! Score!

On the back part of the out & back course! Photo courteousy of Lesley J. also known as @RacingItOff

Beth:  I can’t even remember now all of the things Heidi and I discussed out there.  We did randomly enough discuss pregnancy weight.  Where that topic came from – yah, I don’t know! Ha  We just enjoyed seeing people out there.  Cheering them on, receiving cheers from them.  Also me feeling stupid because I missed Mama C’s hand when she tried to high five me. Hahaha  I made up for that later!  But somewhere around the middle of the race I noticed my knees were aching and my feet were hurting and I knew I should have trusted my gut – buy new shoes before this half marathon!  I didn’t and knew all of that pain was a result of it.  It’s very rare that I get knee aches and foot pain.  And I told myself that I would not be running the next day’s race in my same shoes which happen to be the same ones I ran White Rock Marathon in – they have to be tainted!

Teal:  By around mile 10 I was starving.  I think my expectations of not making it were kicking me now.  I wanted to eat!  I started to grab whatever was available from the volunteers.  Which ended up being a handful of gummy bears and pretzels and a jolly rancher during the last 3 miles.  I am in LOVE with gummy bears for fuel now!  It settled my stomach and passed the time to make it through!

Beth:  Since I wasn’t running where I could hear mileage updates from my Runkeeper app and Heidi and I got separated somewhere in mile 10 I was having a hard time keeping straight what mile I was on exactly.  And since we had been chit chatting a lot I really only paid attention to the times Heidi updated me on what mile we were at.  Plus there were signs out on the course for the marathoners, half marathoners and 5kers and I kept getting them all mixed up! Ha

Teal: Once we hit the 12 mile mark I was so excited! I never thought I would make it that far with this foot and the lack of running.  We crossed the finish line with a 2:16 something time.  Seriously not bad considering everything! I would not have made it had I not had Brian out there to run with me!  Mentally I was already done with the race before I got there and any kick just came from someone running next to me.

Beth:  Those last 2 miles and change I was just ready to get to the finish.  I was excited because I figured I could still make it across the finish line in under 2:15.  This would be my slowest half marathon time ever, but that didn’t matter to me since I was taking on a new challenge this weekend!

Teal:  I crossed the finish line and that is when the pain rushed up.  My left knee hurt so bad that I was sure I would pass out.  I didn’t look up and just sat on the edge of the medical truck.  I was grabbing my knee; it was seriously a pain I had not felt in a long time.  One time at my house I bumped my knee on a desk and ended up passing out due to the pain, this was similar.  I laid down on the ground, Beth got me ice and then held my hand to try and divert the pain!  I did not know how long I would be able to stand it.  I am not sure how long I was down there but all I wanted to do was go home and make it go away.  We got up and walked slowly to the car, iced on the way home, at home, and then again at night to try and calm whatever was happening.  All to get up and do it again the next day.

Results

Teal: 2:16:19

Beth: 2:12:18

Our first half of the New Year's Double medal!

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December’s Race

December 6, 2011 by · 39 Comments

Well, it’s that time for a recap on the race that ends our 2011 goal – you know until we added New Years Double to the schedule! 🙂

There are quite a few people to mention in this post and instead of interrupting every sentence with an explanation of who they are we thought a reference chart of names might be the best way to go. Voila –

Our race day starts out with Beth, Teal and Mary Alice running late to meet Bitner because Beth couldn’t find her arm band for her iPhone. 🙂 We encounter no traffic really getting to Fair Park because we know the back roads to the fair grounds from many a trips to the fair and to see musicals at the fair’s theater. Pretty much we end up only having time to walk to the fair grounds, go the bathroom and go line up in our corrals. It’s in our corral that we see Lisa a.k.a. @blossum15! So fun seeing you and meeting you!  From here we’ll let you into each of our heads –

hanging out in Corral C

Teal:  I am not 100% sure how to write a recap for this race because I still am not 100% sure I know how I feel about it and that says a lot considering I am basically a counselor and I know far too much about identifying feelings. Here is my range – maybe you can help me sort it out: Angry, sad, happy, excited, celebratory, pissed, irritated, jipped, annoyed, relieved, exhausted, irritated, accomplished, like a weenie, like a badass.  I’m sure there is more but you get the idea. I figured I would just give you a recap of the entire race to start with just to let you know I felt all of these ways.

Beth: Miles 1-6, don’t have tons to say here because I was familiar with this route from running the half last year. I wasn’t soaking at this point and felt good running. In mile 4 I saw a lady holding a sign that said “You are a Marathoner” and that was when the tears made their first attempt to show themselves. I knew I still had a lot of miles to cover but I was on my way to being a marathoner!

Teal:  Miles 1-6, I felt awesome. The rain was bad but not too bad, I was cold but not too cold and my feet were still relatively dry and we were both hanging with the 4:15 pacer, which I know now was WAY too fast for at least me. About the end of 6 maybe sooner my feet were officially crazy soaked from running through puddles. The theory of “you are already wet, it doesn’t matter” is bogus. It does matter, it adds so much more weight when you step in a pile than from just running. My feet were starting to get heavy.

Beth: Miles 7-12, I still don’t have tons to say here either. The words of Alex a.k.a. @aeross played in my head somewhere in here “remember to smile,” and Alex, I gave it my best! There was a point where I almost twisted my ankle from smiling and not paying attention to the ground. Ha. A chunk of this section is still familiar to us from our half last year and what’s not familiar is still off from White Rock Lake. At mile 9 the Marathoners and Half Marathoners turn off from each other and that was the second time in the course that tears tried to come. “I am doing this I am really doing this!” was what was running through my head.  If I’m remembering correctly it was somewhere shortly after that turn that we saw our first set of familiar faces, Ted & Kimberly! I remember thinking in mile 11 that there was a water station coming up and we’d see another familiar face – Michelle also known as @UltraDrum, and when we did see her I pointed at her and yelled “UltraDrum!!” then I see @runmassagerun next to her and yell “Eriiin!!”

Teal: Miles 7-12, Not bad still in terms of running. I took off my gloves somewhere within this stretch. BIG MISTAKE, big huge mistake. Even though they were wet I should have never taken them off. It was about this time that I noticed my neck and face were numb.  The neck part was a little scary and I started running thoughts in my head about if I was too cold or not.  I ate like 5 Swedish fish right after 6 and I wanted to eat again at 12 but my right arm was not working. I am internally freaking out at this point. My right arm is completely numb and my right hand is turning all shades of random colors and slightly swollen.  I tell Beth I am freezing at this point.

Beth: Mile 13, This mile starts out fine – I’m still cruising along.  I start to worry about Teal some at this point because I kept looking over at her and she’d never look back at me.  But I kept thinking, “Familiar faces are coming! Familiar faces!” Then I see one I wasn’t expecting! I hear “Beth Lynch!” and see a friend from college, I wave at Reid and keep trucking along!

Teal: Mile 13, The bad miles begin—I am so freaked out about my neck, face, and now arm that I fall back from Beth and pull to the side to take my damn arm sleeve off. It’s soaking wet and from the way my arm feels, I think its cutting off circulation. It was so hard to get off. I tried to hold my straw and I couldn’t – I dropped it and Beth told me I did. I knew I did but I couldn’t hold it. It is from here that I never see Beth again.

Beth: Miles 13 – 16, all of mile 13 I am paying attention to the spectators trying to find Kate, Brent & Michael!  Thank God I got a purple poncho for my sister to wear out there because that’s how I spotted them!  Right before I see them is where I lost Teal.  We got separated at a water stop a little but caught up to each other.  Then I turn around just as I see her stop to mess with her fuel.  I didn’t know if I was making the right decision to keep going or if I should have stopped with her, but I kept going.

Teal: Miles 13-16: I see our cheer squad!! Finally, a non-running human I know. I think I was still basically out of it and internally freaking out. At this point I am thinking, “there is no way in hell I am finishing this damn thing.” I high five Brent because he was the closest and hand them my arm sleeve because it was too cold to hold on to.  At this point I am mile per mile. Just get to the next one, just get to the next one.

Beth around Mile 19

Beth: Miles 16-19, Somewhere in Mile 16 is the first time I say to myself, “you have come too far to quit!!”  And then the rain picks up and is bad and my mind immediately goes “get me the [censored] away from the lake!” Sorry mom, but it was HARD!  For the first time I wonder if the hood of my poncho is collecting water and it was so I emptied it out.  I attempted to run here with my arms underneath my poncho, but I gave up on that, took my gloves off and stuck them in my pocket.  Then towards the end of this stretch there’s our cheer squad again!  But this time there’s Chaz & Colleen Bitner…and Mandy AND little Meranda…and Josh.  Again with the tears here!  I couldn’t believe Mandy & Josh had driven from Ft. Worth to come see us and brought my favorite 2 year old with them!

Mandy holding Meranda

Teal: Miles 16-19, REALLY?? Why?? I am not sure I have words. This stretch sucked! If there is a word better than sucked—insert here. This my friends is the “cold” side of the lake. It’s like pouring salt on the wound when you are already freezing your ass off and scared you are too cold to run a full marathon. I’m drenched, have been for a while, feet feel like bricks, I am in and out of feeling like I should just stop and then comes the BIG rain drops. You know the ones that hit your car window and you wonder what rock just hit you. It HURT. The girl next to me at this point was like “This sucks” and I was so tired that I could not respond to her. It was seriously hurting so bad and my eyes were burning and my poncho was every where. I am thinking – “if you make it off this lake you will finish. Just get off the lake! You have run for a freaking year, just get off the lake. It has to get better??”

Teal around Mile 19

Beth: Miles 20-23, One of the first hills I run up at this point I am wondering if what I’m doing even resembles running.  Here, I just keep telling myself “this is the last of the hills! Get through this stretch!” and of course the chanting of “you have come too far to quit” resumes!  It’s at this point too that I am thinking about Teal and wishing we were still together! Then I see Corina, point at her and yell “UltraMamaC!!!!” Haha, apparently all I could do was point and yell people’s names.  Then I realize that Marci (@BA_MarciRuns) is next to her – sorry I didn’t actually point and yell at you! 🙂  Oh and I forgot to mention previously that I had already been enduring some nice back pain since about mile 16 that would continue on for the rest of the race.  Something out on the race course I had decided was that I would only eat my fuel that was solid food.  I couldn’t do the gels, so I had 2 things of GU chomps and 1 baggie of Swedish fish to hold me over.  So in this stretch when I saw one of the beer tents you better believe I grabbed that cup and had my little chug of beer.

Teal: Miles 20-23, I knew the hills were coming and I heard a guy say next to me at about 20 that we have 1.5 more miles of hell then it’s easy. 1.5- OK I can do 1.5 just get me there! I was ok. I saw the hooters tent at 20.5 and knew I only had 1mile left to get over the hills. Then comes the signs “You are now entering the Dolly Parton hills” I see the dudes dressed up as Dolly and for the first time in a while I have an emotion other than fear of failure. I smiled at the guy and he ran with me up one of the short hills. PRAISE JESUS- I would have stopped if this crazy dude with his hanging out hairy belly hadn’t run/cheered me on. I assume he saw the fear in my face.

Beth: Miles 23-25.5, before the race even started I messed up my Runkeeper app by starting it early.  So when I tried to start it again it counted 10 minutes of me standing waiting to start the race.  Then somewhere along the lake the GPS decided I was further along than I really was. So this stretch I was missing mile marker signs, trying to decide where I might be in mileage based on my messed up app and losing my mind trying to do math. Ha  There was one point I was like “surely I’m almost to mile 23″ and then I went “duh, you already passed that mile marker and SAW the mile marker!”  Then in mile 25 I see Ted & Kimberly again!  I half hear Ted giving me a motivating pep talk “…..Beth!! You finish this race you started….” Then I almost start hyperventilating because I was about to finish what I started!! I was so close!  So I had to hold back my tears, but I loved that motivation at that point!

Teal: Miles 23-25.5, I made it over! A 5k left!! I am seriously in my head going, “you will finish this, who cares what the time is just finish.”  I had been back and forth with the 4:30 pacer for a while and had seen them again here. That 4:30 pacer lady was nuts so I tried the best I could to stay with her to hear her stories but I lost them. I saw Ted & Kimberly around here and their cheers were seriously awesome. Ted as like “you’ve got this, just keep going!” I’m dying for real here. I was not able to open my food so I have only eaten twice and the first time didn’t really count. I’m starving, freezing, and my feet seriously are killing me. I’m thinking this is the home stretch why do I not have a second wind? Why am I not excited. This crap sucks. Why is no feeling I thought I would have coming to me?

Beth: Miles 25.5-26.2, My iPhone dies. Haha.  The music stops which is no big deal.  Yes, I run with it but a lot of the time it is just background noise for me.  I know I’m getting closer to seeing my cheer squad again.  Right around mile 26 I see my dad with his camera then I see my mom! Brent stepped out and gave me a high five before I made one of the first curves to the finish line.  I had this! I just had to finish!  I crossed that finish line with my hands in the air! I did it! I AM A MARATHONER!  I knew I had finished just barely in a time that I had been hoping for – I wanted to cry and good Lord, I’ve never had so much trouble walking!

Teal: Miles 25.5- 26.2, Cynthia and Will were there – standing in the freaking corner. I hear Cynthia yell “TEAL” and Will cheering. I basically pass them and start crying. I needed to see them. I was dead. I’m thinking .7 miles left. This is two laps around the track. Michael and our cheerers were right at 26. I think at this point I was so emotional I didn’t even realize they were there until I passed. I saw the finish line! This lady had basically stopped and I watched this guy guide her in and remember thinking- “ok, no matter what I’m crossing the line” – I started crying. Once I stopped I felt like I was going to die. The world was spinning, I can’t stand still, I keep moving randomly in a weird circle motion. I see my brother, Brad & Lilia and am crying. Then turn the corner to see Sommer & Edward and Sloopy, the dog and I am hysterical at this point! It’s freaking over. Not good but it’s done.

.2 miles left

Beth: Once I crossed the finish line my legs were in pain.  The inside part of my right leg had some weird quiver going on in it during the last mile or so, I was told a little while later by Derek (@trigolfer) that was the muscle I used to pick up my leg and with the heavy & wet shoes my leg felt like it put in more mileage than 26.2.  I tried to stretch a little before walking in to get my medal and finisher’s shirt.  Once I walked in the building and had my medal I waited for Teal.  I wasn’t going to miss seeing her the moment she walked in!

Teal: I walk in the building and am searching for Beth- I have no clue how far ahead of me she got, I walk in and she is right there. I just hugged her and start crying. I know for a fact that I would have never in a million years made it this far with out her in training and in this race. Even though I didn’t see her for the hardest part I knew what she would have said to me. Once in the building from then on I don’t talk much. I didn’t have it in me and I was freezing. To the core freezing. I never really got warm. My arm was killing me, my feet are in so much pain, and all I want is dry clothes. This was by far the craziest thing I have ever done. It might take me a while to get to where I really know how I feel. Right now I still don’t know.  That was the worst conditions- I think snow would have been better- it’s softer, and I probably would have stayed dryer. I’m do not want to run White Rock again, unless it’s the half, it might take me a while to even run a race around that damn lake BUT I will run another Marathon because that was TERRIBLE. Memorable for sure, worth it, I think, but what I wanted, NO WAY.

Beth:  I am with Teal and do not want to run that marathon again.  The half? Sure! No, marathon!  Ultimately I am SO proud of us – I think that we both still killed it in those horrible conditions.  I like to believe that we are not only Marathoners but Survivors of horrid running conditions.  Neither one of us had done THAT much running in light rain that’s actually enjoyable, so this was a huge unknown to us!  Here’s to hoping Marathon No. 2 has good weather conditions!

Lessons Learned from this race:

  1. Really and truly do NOT set a time goal, especially in crappy weather as there is NO point!
  2. Wear a hat, do NOT take off your gloves (or if you do keep them in your pocket) and never take off the poncho.
  3. Investing in a rain coat is the smartest thing we did before this race!
  4. If it rains you need people with drying things to give you.  Having dry gloves might have made the biggest difference for Teal as she was too cold!
  5. If you can’t open your food, ask a volunteer to open it for you.
  6. Bag check dry clothes so you do not have to wait around forever freezing & wet.

 Results:

Teal: 4:40:12

Beth: 4:29:31

WE ARE MARATHONERS!!

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