White Rock Marathon

December 2, 2011 by · 6 Comments

Well, after a year of running and training the big weekend is fiiinally here. CRAZY! Its is pretty clear that we have been a full range of emotions this week and are pretty sure that will continue through the weekend. I think we’ll save the details of that for the recap! I’m sure you can’t wait for whatever stream of writing comes from that! 🙂 As many of you know we will be running in the Dallas White Rock Marathon on Sunday!

 

So we figured we would give you a few details about the race- especially for those not from here! Based on the news yesterday it is cool that this race is designed by over 40 runners for runners and has awesome features to accommodate the actual runners! (did we say runners enough in that last sentence??) It is pretty interesting also to note that this is also the oldest and largest marathon in Texas and the race benefits the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.  The course has been improved this year and we recently read an awesome article that details the top 10 things that runners and spectators should know about the race. You can find the link here but we figured we would tell you we are excited about the improved starting times. Last year as we ran the half marathon it actually took us almost 45 minutes to start—eeek. And they said that this year all runners should have crossed the start line within 35minutes! Also the route is wider in areas which is super helpful because there was some strange bottlenecking spots in the ½ last year!

 

We are so ready for this to start! SO READY! We have been a little nuts this week. Teal went home on Wednesday and was such a mess. She ended up baking cookies, making a wreath, uploading pictures and then tossing and turning all night. These may seem relatively normal but are actually things that never happen at all. She even left the stupid hot glue gun on all day and while driving to grad school she missed the exit. She has gone to that school for nearly 7 years – Can it be race day yet?? Beth has been staying occupied by…well, anytime she thinks about the marathon she immediately stops thinking about the marathon. 🙂  And as actually taken a HUGE step back from normal activities and read A LOT and caught up on the DVR this past week!

 

So in getting with the details of the race the course is described as mostly flat with rolling hills. We have heard different stories about those “rolling hills” and many have even called them the “Dolly Parton” hills. We hope they are more like the 12 year old Dolly and not the current Dolly.  We can’t wait to see Michelle‘s (@rnrgrltx) husband out there at the Dolly hills!  Here is a picture of the course with the elevation! We are excited that the last part is basically down hill!

 

Another aspect of the race that is making us a tad bit nervous is the weather.  And by a tad bit nervous we mean constantly freaking out! 🙂 We are not shy or worried about running in the cold. We have done that plenty of times before but we are worried about RAIN. We have been checking the weather since Monday and it is pretty safe to say that that was not the best idea! As of today the weather is as follows:

 

We have both purchased rain gear.  We hope it’s enough!  Beth actually purchased this awesome jacket for the race –

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgaeFQE0sc0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgaeFQEosco]

Thanks to Mary Alice for telling Beth about it and not killing her for running off and buying one for herself!

And Teal for the FIRST time ever has actually purchased something with a little color (you’re welcome, Beth!) –

We are still worry about whether or not we will be warm enough out there should it really rain and if it should rain reeeeally hard!  We’ll both be wearing our Brooks Arm Sleeves again. Green for Teal and yellow for Beth –

We’ll both be wearing the same shirt and Teal will be wearing the Nike pants on the left and Beth will be wearing the CW-X pants on the right.  So should you see one of these combos of clothing with one of our jackets on us – you found us! HA

We have tons of friends & family coming to watch us and we could not be more grateful!! We appreciate your support SO MUCH!! We have been working on strategically placing them along the course to help us out!  We have also set up RunKeeper Elite because the race does not have official tracking this year. 🙁  So if anyone wants to track us you can find us both by following these links:

Beth is at –  http://runkeeper.com/user/ealynch12/races

Teal is at –  http://runkeeper.com/user/tealperez/races

Although we think that we should both show up on the same map, but just in case you have the link for each of us.  Fingers crossed!

Our goal is rather different for this race – first and foremost we want to finish!  And not only do we want to finish we want to do it without stopping – no walking!  It is not in either one of us to stop and start it again.  We cannot tell you how HARD it is for us to get going after we stop to walk. We want to run the entire thing.  So with that ultimate goal accomplished we are going to run at a pace that would hopefully put us finishing the marathon between 4:15 and 4:20.  We will ultimately be happy with either of these things occurring and we are SO excited about actually achieving this goal!

 If you have any tips for and or suggestions for running in the rain we will gladly take them!

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November Race No. 3

November 28, 2011 by · 4 Comments

Our last race in November is in the books!  How have 11 months of our goal year already passed??

Thanksgiving morning we woke up and did not necessarily have to be up super early since the Turkey Trot didn’t start until 9:00 a.m. SO late!  Teal and Beth’s cousin, Chase met over at Beth’s house to carpool together downtown for our Thanksgiving run.  We really had no issues with traffic or parking down there just had to fret over whether or not we might get a ticket when our metered parking spot expired.  We have no fear we were ticketless! Hooray!

Chase opted not to dress up as a turkey with us, but we quickly made our way over to the table to get our costumes approved and into the Turkey Coop we went!  The Dallas Turkey Trot this year was attempting to set a new Guinness World Record  for the largest gathering of humans dressed as turkeys!  All of us turkeys 🙂 had to wait around in the Coop until 8:35 when the clock started and we were all in the coop for 10 minutes with our costumes on.  We never actually heard it declared that a new record was set, but we did see the person with Guinness World Record there counting each of the turkeys as the passed through the entrance of the Coop.  We will hopefully receive a certificate in our email for participating in setting a New Guiness World Record!

The Pilgrims who came to shoot the Turkeys 🙂

One of the guys with the YMCA in his freaking awesome Turkey costume!

Once it hit 8:45 a.m. all of us turkeys were then walked over to the start line.  We were all excited this year to not have to dodge as many people since timed runners started 5 minutes before everyone else, buuut dressing like a turkey didn’t really allow us to make that earlier start.  This race we might have stayed together for maaybe a whole minute then Teal darted off and Beth stayed behind doing her own dodging.

This year was much like last year – lots of dodging around until the 5k turn off.  It was also around this part of the race where our distance got off.  All three of us discussed after the race how our Runkeeper app had us almost a half mile ahead of where we were and Chase mentioned it happened around the time we were all passing through a part of downtown with lots of buildings that must have messed up our GPS.  Here are our splits and we wish we were as awesome in mile 3 as our Runkeeper app tries to make us out to be:

Teal's Splits

Beth's Splits

Beth had actually stayed up late trying to sew the feathers onto the back of our shirts, so was literally running on only about 4 hours of sleep and was SO glad we had run that same race last year to know what kind of hills were coming a long the course.  Teal had forgotten about the hills throughout the race, but you would never think that based on her time!  Teal completely crushed her time from last year by almost 14 minutes exactly!  Here are our results –

Teal: 1:11:06, finished 82nd in her age group, 424th female to finish and 1,724th to finish overall

Beth: 1:11:46, finished 87th in her age group,  455th female to finish and  1,799th to finish overall

Turkey Trot 8 mile Elevation

Once we were all finished and found each other we went immediately back to the car and to head back to Beth’s house.  Beth’s sister, Kate, is awesome and had some mimosas and champagne punch waiting for us when we arrived back from the race!

Checkout that Go Sport ID shirt Chase is wearing! =)

We will leave you with this little tidbit of information – I think we both have been asked before ‘How did they come up with an 8 mile distance to this race too??‘ Well here is your answer straight from the Dallas Turkey Trot website –

The unique eight mile distance was created when the one hundred and seven participants were instructed to run along the shores of White Rock Lake “to the big oak tree and back”.  By 1979, the race had become so popular that it was moved to the downtown area to accommodate more runners and to showcase “Big D”.

We hope you all had a safe and happy Thanksgiving with your families! 🙂

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November Race No. 2

November 15, 2011 by · 7 Comments

Well, we completed our 4th half of 2011 and 5th half overall this past weekend at Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio!  So many of our running friends were out there too, but we’ll touch on everything we did when not racing in another post!

We were both REALLY excited for this race!  We signed up for this half back in June and began our fundraising efforts for Team Cindy then.  We spent 5 months talking about Cindy Marshall-Death in blog posts and tweets, and so many of  you out there read her story and donated to us!  Because so many people stood with us by donating and because Cindy’s story touches both of our lives this race meant A LOT to us!

We started the race day by waking up at 4:30 a.m. to drive to the shuttle bus pick up, but that ended up being a cluster and we ultimately parked for $18 (ahhh) by the start line. We ended up standing around basically for an hour and a half, but with friends so it was all good!  We both ate peanut butter sandwiches around 6:30 a.m. and were already hungry by the time our corral started the race at 8:00 a.m.

Mary Alice, Teal, Chase, Beth & Bitner

Overall the beginning of the race was great. We seriously felt awesome! For Teal nothing was hurting, well besides her knee that does not like to stay in socket, but other than that all good. We kept a good pace to get across the finish in under 2 hours and that stayed until about mile 9.  It was in those first 9 miles that we ran by a woman wearing a shirt that said “I kicked cancer’s butt twice” and both of us were on the verge of tears. It was shortly after that we began to hear spectators saying “Go Team Cindy,” and the first time we heard that the tears wanted to come again! Neither of us talked about this during the race, but did afterwards and discussed how we both had to get it together to keep going.  Also, Rock ‘n’ Roll – why do you not put names on people’s bibs?? It would make it SO much easier for the spectators to cheer us ALL on!

Us waiting patiently in our corral - notice the straws?? And our ribbons with all of our donators names written on them?

During those first 9 miles we basically moved in and out from people pretty easily but it was annoying and slightly exhausting. We did fairly well for the water stops. Teal had decided to carry a straw this race because she wanted to run sans camelbak and Beth thought she’d try it out with her.  It seriously was awesome.  We both just tucked the straw in our sports bras. Teal just took it out when she needed water – wish we could have somehow gotten a picture of her running and drinking out of her straw at the same time.  People probably thought she was nuts, but it’s better than choking! Beth never actually used the straw and just crunched up the cup to get the water and keep up with the running.

Teal – At about mile 9, I lost my patience and let the annoyance get to me. I ended up stuck behind people at the water stop, the roads had narrowed a bunch, the crowd at points was in the run path and I was like, GET AWAY, I slowed down, I had felt at this point that Beth was running faster than me and I didn’t feel like I could keep up so I slowed down a little.

Beth – It was at a water stop in mile 9 that Teal and I got really separated for the first time.  We were doing some serious dodging at that specific water stop more than any other.  It was around this time that I knew I was teetering a fine line of making it less than 2 hours and just barely missing the goal, so I knew I had to step it up a little bit just to be on the safe side.  I kept thinking about how people would yell for Team Cindy and I’d responded with “Thank you” and send them a smile – did I have more in me and I wasn’t pushing hard enough?

Teal – I ran mile 10 about 30 seconds slower than the previous 10 miles. The last 3 basically sucked in my opinion. I thought I would still make it under 2 hours even with the 30 second slower pace because my Runkeeper kept saying a pace that I knew would make it under 2 and at mile 12.05 (yes I remember it because I was like under a mile) it said I had like 10 minutes and something seconds to make it to the finish under 2 hours and that my current pace would get me there in time. I picked it up a little but was sure I would make it.

Beth – I was keeping my pace pretty consist around 9:00 minute miles and I would say the last 3 miles were hard!  I don’t remember there being much shade and it had gotten HOT and HUMID!  Somewhere in mile 10, I believe, I saw our friend, Heidi, and she asked me if I was on target for finishing sub 2:00.  I told her I thought I was and she told me to go get it!  Appreciated that encouragement right then! Thanks, Heidi!  🙂 When I got to the 11 mile marker I knew I had roughly 20 minutes left before two hours.  I just kept telling myself you are running 9 minute miles, you got this, keep it up!  Don’t give up now when you are so close.  And honestly I never felt like I wanted to stop or give up.  Was it hard? Yes, but I was determined and hungry for the sub 2:00.

The last part of the race before you turn and haul to cross that finish line was freaking uphill!  Pretty sure we both saw that and just thought you have got to be kidding me!  Don’t worry we made sure to take a picture at the end of the race so those of you who weren’t there could see just what this hill looked like.

This one is kind of dark, but hopefully you can get the idea!

Teal – I picked it up a little but was sure I would make it. As I was running up the last hill the stupid 2 hour time sounded in my ear from Runkeeper and I was literally in sight of the finish. Slightly pissed I crossed the line and turned off my timer. 2:01:15. I thought well maybe just maybe my timer was off and I didn’t know the official time. I found out a few minutes later because our dear twitter friend Betsy (@WarriorBetsy), was tracking Beth and I and she tweeted our finish times- 2:00.56.  Initially bummed, but a PR is a PR. I ran that race the fastest I have ever run a half-marathon. It was hot, humid, crowded, and slightly stinky and I still ran it the fastest ever. Oh and I learned something knew about my runkeeper  that I feel dumb for not getting before, but it doesn’t tell the current pace- or at least I am not set on that, so my final 3 miles were actually too slow to make it, but my updates confused me and I still thought I was fin. Live and learn! When I got over it I was super proud of both of us- I am impressed by Beth who was able to get it under 2 hours and super close to her PR, we are definitely stronger than we were when we started all this! Oh and plus, I will have another ½ this year to get in under 2 hours—New Years Double – ekkkk I said it, but first, 3 weeks to the marathon!

Beth – When I crossed the finish line I knew I had to have made it! It might have been barely, but I knew it! I couldn’t get my Runkeeper turned off because 1. I’d needed to go the bathroom (no. 1 only people) since right before the race started and was so focused on getting to a port-a-potty [Sorry mom if you are reading this :)] and 2. I’d turned down the brightness on my iPhone so low to save battery power I couldn’t even see the screen with how bright the sun was.  It was a good 15 minutes later I found out from Betsy what my time was! 1:58:46! But then looking at the official results yesterday they had me clocked at 1:58:47 – oh my, a whole second longer! Haha 🙂

That was a hard race!  We are both VERY proud of what we accomplished out there.  We ran smart races! We drank water, we fueled up a little after the one hour mark of running, and we only pushed ourselves to what our limits where for that day given the temperature and the humidity!  We are proud of our friends who were out there with us!  It was a hard race and no matter what crossing that finish line was a big feat!  So congrats to each and every one of you!

Thank you to Betsy for tracking us and keeping others updated on where we were! It was so cool to see your tweets after the race! Thank you!

White Rock Marathon or BUST!!

Results:

Teal – 2:00:56, a new PR!!  Finished 3,074th overall, 1,055th out of all the females and 209th in age group

Beth – 1:58:47, finished 2,710th overall, 890th out of all the females and 177 in age group

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November Race No. 1

November 8, 2011 by · 7 Comments

Ok so we admit, we might have had ulterior motives for Sunday’s race, at least a little bit, and it seems more justified after our brief conversation with Racing it Off, but really, who doesn’t want a little race bling for completing long runs? As you know we both decided it would be an awesome idea to sign up for the DRC ½ on Sunday after a little convincing from Heidi. Beth’s convo to Teal was like –

“So, how do you feel about running the DRC Sunday?”

“Lets do it!”

“Great ok I’ll sign us up at lunch!”

Bling & a long run- not a bad deal not to mention good practice with running around the lake.!

So anyways, we’re sure you want some of the race recap! We set out Sunday at around 6:30- feeling well rested given the extra hour of sleep and headed to White Rock Lake. Neither of us had nerves for the race but rather nerves for the fact that we wanted to run 22 miles Sunday and make that our last official super long run for our training. Neither of us wanted to die and we had just come off a rather good 20 miler the week before! We got to the race and waited in the bathroom line forever – Caught up on race stuff, life and even tried to convince a lady and her hubby to sign up for the New Year’s Double!

Right before the race we met up with some fellow Twitter friends and wished our friend Heidi good luck – she wanted to PR! We got to meet a new twitter friend April! We lined up and we were off. The race started out almost exactly like Too Hot to Handle was and Teal had to remind Beth to not go the wrong way… see this post if you’re not sure what we are talking about.  😉  The beginning of the race was very tight, there were tons of us jumbled into to a fairly narrow space and it was like that for a good 3 miles. At one point you basically had to walk to get through parts, which is slightly a pain. We managed to stay at a good pace considering and stayed pretty much under 10 minutes a mile given we were going to run for 22. The rest of the race wasn’t bad. The hills were there a little bit between mile 4 and 7ish but it’s not THAT bad. The stations were awesome as usual and one guy was even handing out Oreos! We saw him too late and were both slightly bummed. Cookies sound really good during a race for some reason. We also had to keep a watch out for the dude in front of us who kept blowing snot rockets! Seriously??  It’s gross! We wondered if that just gets worse with the weather.

Teal, Heidi & Beth

We both kept counting down to each other with every mile we passed. Only 13 more, 12 more, 11 more..you get the point.  Both of us felt pretty good overall, Teal mentioned slight pain in her booty – stupid hills, but other than that not bad at all. We got down to about 1.5 miles left and separated a little bit. Teal wasn’t quite sure what was happening but Beth knew we were close and could finish the race under 2:10 so she picked it up a little. Teal was just in her own little world and was like —we’ve got 10 left – I am not moving any faster than I am now. We both finished and really did not want to keep running. We got our race bling and hung around to chat with Heidi and her hubby, Brian. Ran into Michelle again – love how many races we see you at!! We ate, sat for a while and decided we would pick up our extra 9 miles at home. We figured that we would be ok if we ran the rest on tired legs the same day given that we did already complete the longest run on our schedule.

 

New bling ....and checkout that Go Sport ID on the wrist!

After leaving we went home, charged our phones, ate a little more and then headed back out for 9 more miles. Sure enough it felt as if we hadn’t actually stopped. It got hotter outside which was annoying, we were both still in pants, tired and really our minds were kind of done with racing for the day. We had looked at wedding stuff and talked with Beth’s sister, Kate for a while and really we weren’t in the best run moods, but we knew we wanted to get this in! We set out at about the same pace and ran 4.5 out and then back around our normal training route. We managed to get in the full 22 and really after we started it wasn’t that bad. Our legs felt the extra miles but overall not too bad. Teal went home and soaked in the tub and had to switch off legs with her Tommie Cooper calf sleeves- it appears as if her dog, Wilson, has run off with one of them and Beth of course did the same but with both sleeves!  We feel prepared for White Rock and have a little more confidence that 26.2 is doable! It’s just 4 more? Right!!??

 

We set out this coming weekend for Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio and are super excited about that trip. More to come about that race this week!! We seriously are super excited!!

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October’s Race

October 17, 2011 by · 3 Comments


Another race is done for us this year and that makes 13 races for us total! Saturday we participated in the Susan G. Komen 5k here in Dallas.  Before we even got to race day Beth realized she had thrown her race bib away since Susan G. Komen mails you your race packet. Which is very convenient but not the norm amongst races, so that was a bit confusing. Thankfully it had been a couple weeks since the trash had been taken out and barely any digging through the trash had to take place since it was pretty much on top!

20111017-075251.jpg

We made great time getting down to the race and were able to park with no problem whatsoever. We walked over to Northpark Center (mall, for you non Dallasites) to look for the Creekview Cheer Squad and Teal’s friend Cynthia from school and the gym. We found the cheer squad but no Cynthia, so we made our way to the name plate table and fastened pictures of Cindy on our backs.  Since we planned on pinning pictures of Cindy to our back we’d brought extra safety pins with us which are not actually something that come in your race packet with the bib.  Those little safety pins were hot commodities and so many people tried to steal them from us. Ha.

20111017-075821.jpg

Can you spy the Go Sport ID in this pic? 🙂

Snapped a picture real quick in between taking a potty break and lining up for the start of the race!

It took us twelve minutes to get from where we lined up to the start line….then a few seconds after that we remembered to start our Runkeeper apps.  We started out walking because there were SO many people out there!  Glad we both had decided our goal was going to be to enjoy the race and take it all in otherwise if we were really trying to race it I think we would have been so frustrated.  All of the walkers out there were all over the place – of course in the street but also up on the sidewalks and in the grass.  We were able to get some running in during that first mile but it was saaaaaa-low and full of dodging around or having to stop and walk or being cut off. 🙂

By the time we got to the first mile marker we’d been out on the course for about 14 minutes and at this point we had resolved to just walking the rest of the way, but walking as fast as we could!

During our 2nd mile we noticed a woman on someone’s front porch with a bunch of people surrounding her.  Not sure what happened there if she fell and got trampled or what, but so nice of the people in that house to take care of her!  One of the best parts of the race was that you could just tell a lot of the people out there do not normally get out and exercise like that.  We talked about how neat it was that t his cause encouraged so many people who aren’t regulars to working out to get out there and walk for a cause!  Hope some of them were inspired to keep up the walking!  We also laughed at the little girl we heard on the course tell another person in her group “if you wanna be skinny you gotta run!”

Somewhere past this sign Teal’s friend Cynthia texted her to say she had finished and wanted to know where we were.  We were so surprised she was finished AND she had gotten to run the whole thing.  Apparently, if we do this race next year we need to sign up as “Elite Runners” to be able to actually run it.  We didn’t do that originally because Elite Runners? – do we really fall into that category?  Beth was annoyed she hadn’t signed up to be chip timed, but who knew it wouldn’t end up not mattering anyways?  As we mentioned in our pre-race post, Teal actually did this run about 10 years ago and back then it had less people and the majority of them were runners. Ohh, how times change! 🙂

As we neared the finish line we found Cynthia and the Creekview Cheer Squad!  They had all finished the race and were motivating and inspiring everyone as they passed by and made their way to the finish line.  They were awesome!  We took the opportunity to get some pictures before crossing the finish line!

our junk in the trunk 🙂

I’m pretty sure I was suppose to crop that last picture, but it kind of makes me laugh so I didn’t. 🙂

Neither of us had expected to be out there as long as we were so we grabbed some free coffee and walked back to our car.  We probably walked faster to the car than we did the whole race, but we don’t care! We got to get out there and walk in honor of Cindy and #TeamCindy and that’s ALL that matters.  When we run Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio I think the emotions of running in honor of Cindy will be multiplied as we have been raising money for a few months now and have invested our own hearts into her story and her family!  And then, of course, we wouldn’t be Teal and Beth if we weren’t race walking to our car because Teal had to get to work and Beth was headed to a make up weights session at Johnny’s!

And because who doesn’t love a picture of a baby? – 

Post workout at Johnny’s, Beth was off to her nephew’s 5th Birthday Party (costume party)! That’s the youngest nephew trying to get in the spirit of the costume party, but not sold on it!

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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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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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September Race No. 1

September 7, 2011 by · 7 Comments

What a fun (and entirely TOO quick) weekend in California!  Due to a small flight delay and then a suspicious bag scare at LAX we didn’t make it to where we’d be staying for the weekend until about 12:00 a.m. PT and then by the time we actually went to sleep we’d both been up for 24 hours.  Little did we know that’d work out to our advantage….

Saturday can’t say we actually did anything THAT exciting (but that doesn’t mean we didn’t still have fun :)) with the exception of visiting the Health & Fitness Expo at the Disneyland Hotel which we didn’t get to until the very end of it.  (The picture below was our first attempt at lunch for the day which didn’t work, but we are proudly sporting our cool Go Sport ID shirts!) We managed to finally fit lunch in around 4:30PM and Beth’s high school friend Chris showed us around Laguna Beach and Dana Point before calling it a night.  We ate a very healthy pre-race meal of Dorritos and were in bed by 9PM.  That was the advantage of our late night the night before…we were exhausted.

That dang 3:30AM alarm came WAY too fast!  We made it to Disneyland a little after 4:00AM.  There were SO many people at the race!  The females actually made up 62% of the participants! Yah, ladies! 🙂 We were assigned to corrals and of course we were not put in one together, so Teal joined Corral D with Beth.

We started the race and per usual we were separated.  We both saw each other at different points in our dodging around people and about a half mile into it we were reunited!  This was our first race to pretty much run the whole thing together! It would be my guess that this was the worst race we’ve had in terms of dodging people and being cut off. The first four miles of the course we ran through Disney California Adventure and Disneyland Park.  So many Disney characters were out to take pictures and were a huge part of being cut off or having someone just stop right in front of you.  We had a really good pace going so neither one of us wanted to add time by picture taking with the characters.  Maybe next time?

There was a lot to see out on the course and amongst all the spectators.  For Teal the girl running with underwear outside of her pants that said on the butt “only 13.1 miles because I am only half crazy,” and for Beth it was the sign someone was holding that said “Running is a mental sport, so you are all crazy!”  There were a lot of people dressed up in costumes and we have to give props to the ones who were in legit costumes that probably added some weight like the man dressed as Mr. Incredible or the girl with Rapunzel hair who was literally carry the hair in one hand it was so long!

Our absolute favorite part of the race came when we were somewhere in mile 9 and we got to run through Angels Stadium!  The energy in there from all the people that were cheering everyone on was incredible.  We both almost started crying that’s how awesome it was for us!

making our way into the the stadium

After Angel Stadium we were almost to the home stretch portion of the race – the last 5k!  We both knew we were on track for a good time and kept plugging away.  When we saw the mile 11 marker our pace picked up.   We basically were at a point where it was going to be a matter of sheer will to get until 2 hours. Teal mentioned that she really at this point thought it was possible and our pace picked up big time. The very end of the course was one where you keep curving around and never really see the finish line until you are right there upon it.  But we finished and we now have new bling to add to our collection!  We both kept walking after the race and immediately found a place to sit down, stretch and gather our thoughts. We both gave each other a look and a very big, “great job.” This race seriously felt awesome in terms of weather and speed. Once we sat down the pain kind of hit Teal. She literally sat down and basically wanted to crawl out of her own legs. She had apparently run through a major shorts malfunction and was actually bleeding due to chaffing. It is seriously interesting the pain you don’t feel or shut off while running that doesn’t hit you until the end. Insane for sure and we can remember times in the past actually questioning how and why runners keep going. It really just seems to turn in to “it’s just what you do.” We sat for a while and then ended up talking to a man who had received an awesome Coast to Coast medal!  In order to earn this medal you basically run at both Disney locations within one calendar year.  The fact that this idea has even been introduced to us of course makes us seriously contemplate the idea of working towards one of those ourselves. They are awesome!

Results:

Teal: 2:01:36 and a new PR!!!  Finished 108th in age group and 1,668 overall.

Beth: 2:01:35, getting closer to the White Rock Half Marathon time!  Finished 107th in age group and 1,663 overall.

Remember how we gave up alcohol for the week leading up to the race?  Well, we finally broke that streak once the race was over! 🙂  We headed out to meet our friend Monica for a late lunch and some cocktails.  Spent the rest of the day enjoying time with friends over some wine and awesome views of Laguna Beach.

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August’s Race

August 8, 2011 by · 6 Comments

Just like our last two races this summer – Melon Dash was HOT!  But we’ve now lived through yet another scorcher and got some more miles in for the week!

 

We arrived in downtown McKinney with about 40 minutes to spare and neither of us had really looked at the details of the race.  Once we parked we didn’t even know where to go.  Good thing there were some fellow racers making there way to the starting line.  When heard the warning of only five minutes left until the race would begin we made our way to line up.  Then all of a sudden Beth feels someone grab her booty.  Such friendly people at this race! Or really a couple of friends who are also runners had spotted us  – Carrie and Katie!  So fun to see them out there and we both loved their cheers for us when we were all out on the course.

 

The course for the 5k was pretty flat the whole way and was an out and back route.  Overall it was a good race put on by Run On!, but if we had one complaint it was a lack of cold water at the finish.  Grateful for the water at the end just would have been awesome if it had been cold!  Unfortunately we did not get to stay for the seed spitting contest after the race maybe next year’s race we can!

Our Results:

Teal: 26:16, finished 4th in her age group and 159th overall.

Beth: 28:02, finished 8th in her age group and 211th overall.

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July’s Race

July 12, 2011 by · 6 Comments


We made it!! We survived Run On’s Too Hot to Handle!!  Apparently we CAN handle the heat although it isn’t necessarily our favorite thing to do. 🙂  This post we are going to break it up again and let you get a recap from both of us and our different perspectives –

Teal:

Ok so that was definitely rough. The race started out fine, had to weave my way in and out of people until the 5k/15k split, but not as bad as some other races we have been through.  Beth and I ran together for the first part, but I really never saw her again. I was seriously fine until about the 6th mile when I could feel a full blister forming on the bottom of my big toe, I knew it was happening the entire time but it was starting to become fairly unbearable. Then to make matters worse at about mile 7.5 the damn thing burst after stepping very weird on a large crack in the ground while I was running! I was like, awesome, I am dying from the heat, and my foot feels like a tiny needle is poking it. Oh and I decided that another piece of important running etiquette is to seriously watch were you SPIT! This dude in front of me kept spitting, twice he spit backwards and his gross wad of a spit landed close to me. I decided to get the heck away from him! I managed to finish the race about 5 or so minutes longer than I ran the course in January but I was relatively fine with my results. I had to walk through a couple of water stations and definitely took advantage of the sprinklers at the last few stations. I knew I was getting almost too hot because I started to get the chills, which is never a good think when it is crazy hot outside.  We were greeted at the finish line with ice cold towels which was amazing. I immediately sat down and took off my shoes to see how bad my feet were. GROSS for sure! I felt a little dizzy and seriously hot and just laid down for a while, my favorite thing to do after running! I don’t care how bad that actually is to do. I had last seen Beth at right about the 6th mile marker, but I started to get a little nervous waiting for her at the finish line as time kept passing. At one point the announcer came on and asked everyone to stop talking because someone needed to go to an ambulance. Right about that time I decided I would get up and start to look for Beth. She crossed the finish line just as I was getting too nervous to sit and wait any longer! I was very impressed with her and our ability to push through even though we hate the heat.

And just in case you wanted to see just how bad my blisters were, here you go:


Beth:
Once we got to Norbuck Park, Teal and I immediately get in the bathroom line and then by the time we get to the starting line there are only 5 minutes to spare!  Race starts, we are separated, then I find Teal again and when she darts off to pass someone I think, “nah, I don’t want to tire myself out in the beginning, I’ll stay here.”  So we are running and I get to a turn around and don’t see Teal who should be in front of me.  It’s not until I see a 3 mile marker that it dawns on me – I took the wrong split!  So I asked one of the volunteers on a bike where I went wrong and she graciously rode next to me as I jogged and showed me where I should have gone!  She also commented, “so you’re going to come very close to running a half today.”  Awesome! In my mind I just went that’s it – I WILL run this!  I’d started the 15k thinking I’d walk a couple times, but now it was game on!  It wasn’t until I was almost at the 4 mile mark for the 15k race that  I finally caught up to the back of the pack of walkers.  It was a very humbling experience seeing the faces of other runs as I was the last runner for a majority of the 15k course.   Some runners even cheered me on.  The whole time I was running I was thinking “if Teal ever worries about being last in a race again, I will remind her that I pretty much was at this race.”  There really was a lot of shade in the Too Hot to Handle 15k and it wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be in my head.  By the time I had been running for an 1:50 I decided I’d run over a 15k I could walk for 2 minutes, so I did. And eventually I made it across the finish line.  When all was said and done my runkeeper app said I ran 12.4 miles.  Oh, and thankfully I’d seen Teal at one point and was able to tell her I ran the 5k first before doing the 15k so she at least knew what was up with me a little bit even if she had no clue if I would go ahead and do the whole 15k course too, which I did.
The temperature not that long after I was done running:

And then we brunched at Campisi’s. Buffet…nom nom nom! 🙂

Results
Teal: 1:36:14, finished 33rd in age group and 524 overall
Beth: 2:08:46, finished 75th in age group and 884th out of 936 (I think) people, but can’t we just say I won my division of 5k & 15k race combined? haha
Thanks for a great race Run On!  And thank you to all the wonderful volunteers out there!  Hopefully in the next month or two we will be out at a race volunteering!
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