November Race No. 2

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

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Happy Monday, y’all!! We made it back safely from our Rock ‘n’ Roll Half in San Antonio last night!  We just want to once again thank everyone who donated to us over the past five months!  Words cannot express how much we appreciate you and are thankful for your generosity!  And we thought of y’all every step of our race on Sunday!  We got ribbon and wrote everyone’s name that donated on the ribbon and wore them in our hair during the race –

 

So thank you for not only donating but also being a source of inspiration for us as we ran in memory of Cindy on Sunday!

THANK YOU!!!!

 

Now the moment you have been waiting for – who will be the winners of the following prizes??? —

First Prize

– a $30 gift certificate to Go Sport ID

– a pair of Tommie Copper Compression Sleeves

– a six pack of GU Energy Gels that we are throwing in to the mix

Second Prize

– a $30 gift certificate to Go Sport ID

– your choice of a Tommie Copper Hat or Beanie

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JRoBeJMZI]

CONGRATS to our WINNERS!! 🙂  We will be in contact with you soon so we can get your prizes to you!

 

 

Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio

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It’s here!! The race we signed up for and started fundraising for in June is FINALLY HERE!!

After work today we are headed out to Austin to spend the night with our friend, Mary Alice, who is also running the half with us on Sunday!  We’ll get up early Saturday morning and hit a yoga class before making our way down to San Antonio!  If you didn’t see our blog yesterday – we’ve thrown together a last minute lunch at noon at The Cove.  If you are going to be down in San Antonio for the race or just down there please come join us and RSVP here so we’ll know how many are coming!  We’ll be wearing our Go Sport ID shirts, so if you don’t feel like you’ll recognize us then here we are in them from our Disneyland Half earlier this year –

Maybe we’ll take a new picture in our Go Sport ID shirts that has less of the wind blown hair look!

Y’all!! We can’t tell you how excited we are for this weekend!! As of November 9th we hit our $1,200 fundraising for Team Cindy and breast cancer goal!! Thanks so much to every single one of you that have donated even those of you who have continued to donate past hitting our goal! We’ll just go ahead and say it again – it is SUCH an honor to be running in memory of Cindy Marshall-Death and each and everyone of you who have donated will be running in spirit with us if you are not actually running the race! We are so grateful to the generosity of real life friends, friends we’ve made on twitter, friends we’ve made on twitter and then met in real life! 🙂  With that said – we do still have our Pink Donation Raffle going for a chance to win wonderful products from the fabulous Tommie Copper and Go Sport ID companies! We will be announcing our winners on Monday! So don’t miss our Monday morning post!

This weekend while we are in San Antonio, Cindy’s youngest daughter, Cynthia who is pregnant with Baby Cindy is having a baby shower!  Beth is sad to missing out on that event, but if she has to miss it what better reason is there than to be running for Baby Cindy’s Mammy!

As far as the race goes here is what we are looking in elevation-

We are SO elevation spoiled in Texas!

Goals:

We are both very scared to even put down the true goals in our head for this weekend!  What if we can’t do it??  We both are looking for a sub 2 hour half this weekend!  There we said it!  Beth got on with her very first half and hasn’t seen one since.  Teal’s half PR sits SO close at a 2:01:36.  If all goes right with the start and our corrals hopefully we can achieve this goal.  I’m pretty sure you will all still be our friends even if we don’t go sub 2 hours, but we WANT IT!  This race means so much to us that it would just be the icing on the cake!

Weather:

Low:  61*

High: 76*

Wind:  6MPH

Precip.: 0%

Wordless Wednesday No. 11


 

 

 

 

A Pink Donation Raffle

We are NINE days away from running Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio!! Nine, people, NINE!!  This is the race we are running and raising money for breast cancer in honor of Team Cindy a.k.a. Cindy Marshall-Death!!  Sadly we have NOT yet met our fundraising goal for the race of $1,200.00 🙁

Cindy & Jimmy on her 50th Birthday in 2007

We need YOUR help and as an added bonus to donating you will be entered in our raffle to win one of two prizes —

 

First Prize

– a $30 gift certificate to Go Sport ID

– a pair of Tommie Copper Compression Sleeves

– a six pack of GU Energy Gels that we are throwing in to the mix

Second Prize

– a $30 gift certificate to Go Sport ID

– your choice of a Tommie Copper Hat or Beanie


How to Win

For every $5 you donate to Team Cindy your name will be entered into our raffle!

If you go and LIKE Go Sport ID and Tommie Copper on Facebook that will give you an additional entry into the raffle when you have donated.  So if you donate $20 and like Go Sport ID & Tommie Copper then your name will be entered five times to win these awesome prizes!

 

We could not be more excited for the generosity of Tommie Copper and Go Sport ID in helping us with this raffle! Not only is it great to have two companies help us, but two companies that we absolutely LOVE means so much to us!   Multiple times a week you could find either of us at home wearing our Tommie Copper calf sleeves after a long run or even the day after at work under a pair of jeans!  They have been a great product to have in terms of recovery from long runs and being preventive in running injuries!  Each and every day you can find the two of us wearing our Go Sport ID bracelets!  We love them so much we never take them off!  So these are all items that if you don’t already have them, you need to get on that and what better way to do so than by entering our raffle and winning them!

To donate please go to our Team Cindy/Life is a Run page here — DONATE

[Not So] Wordless Wednesday No. 10


Cindy on her wedding day

Jimmy & Cindy in 1982, pregnant with their first daughter Julie

Cindy & Jimmy on family vacation in 2006

This photo the girls use a lot for posters at races where they are walking in memory of their mom. This was taken in March 2007

Cindy & Jimmy on her 50th Birthday in 2007

Cindy with her girls on her 50th Birthay. They all look like they should be sisters in this photograph!

Julie's Wedding Day - November 15, 2008

The day Cynthia got engaged - October 2009

Cindy & Jimmy on their last family vacation with Cindy in January 2010

Cynthia's wedding day at Cindy's hospital in February 2010

Jimmy & Cindy on Cynthia' s wedding day

If you would like to donate to our fundraising efforts in memory of Cindy please go here

Wordless Wednesday No. 9 – One Week Old

[Added 10/13] Jack officially turned 1 week old on Tuesday! His mommy posted this picture on her facebook page.  While we were busy posting this blog yesterday – Mr. Jack was busy getting his first set of professional pictures taken!  If you’ve been keeping up to date with all of our #TeamCindy posts, Jack was having his pictures taken by Love, Me Photography.  This is the same DFW photographer who shot Cynthia’s wedding at Cindy’s hospital.  And as a bonus I added a picture of Jack looking like an pilot –


Baby Jack

He’s here!! We are celebrating with Cindy’s family on the arrival of a new family member and as we’ve said before Cindy’s first grandbaby. Cindy has to be smiling down on them from heaven!

Julie at 38 weeks

Jack’s mom, Julie went in Tuesday for her 38 week appointment after two weeks of bed rest due to high blood pressure, and her blood pressure had gotten a little worse. Her doctor admitted her into the hospital and said we’ll either induce Wednesday or Thursday.

After regularly checking Julie’s Facebook page and Cynthia’s Facebook page there was finally an update at 2:30ish Tuesday afternoon that she was moving along. Then 30 minutes later a text message from Jeff, the dad to be, that in an hour the pushing would probably start. And then radio silence for hours! Haha Sometime in the 7:00 o’clock hour Aunt Cyn posted Jack’s first picture on Facebook.

Jack Scott was born at 7:12pm weighing 7 pounds 5 ounces and 21 inches long! Mom, even though she had some complications, and baby are both healthy, and they should all be going home today!

Jack & his JimmyPa (Julie's dad)

 

Aunt Cynthia & Jack (Cynthia is pregnant with Baby Cindy due January 7th)

 

Last night Beth got the opportunity to go meet Jack and see how Julie & Jeff were holding up!  He’s such a teeny tiny guy!  Made all kinds of sweet noises and cute faces!  Don’t worry Beth isn’t scared of holding Jack just trying talk to Julie and hear about everything!

 

We are still in fundraising time, so if you’d like to donate money to Team Cindy, Jack’s heavenly grandmom please go here.  We cannot tell you how much we appreciate everyone’s support and the honor to raise money in the name of Cindy Marshall-Death!  We will be proudly wearing our Team Cindy shirts while we run the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio half on November 13, 2011.

Wordless Wednesday No. 8

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The Month of Pink

A new month! And a month that finds us even closer to our two ultimate goals for 2011 – run a race every month and complete White Rock Marathon.

While October is a month that the majority of people associate with Halloween , I am sure more and more people are remembering that October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  This year I am confident in saying that this month is more near and dear to our hearts than ever before.  If you’ve been reading our blog then you know we are fundraising for Team Cindy through our Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio half we will be running, which means we are raising money for breast cancer.  We have pledged to raise $1,200 – that boils down to $100 per month of our 2011 race year.  We are currently at 56% of our goal –

Donate you can find our fundraising page here

Yes, Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio is NOT officially until November so yes, we will be running the Komen 5k in Dallas on October 15th and proudly wearing Team Cindy on our shirts!

So if you follow us on twitter don’t be surprised if the #TeamCindy hashtag is more a part of our timeline than ever before.

One of the exciting parts of the month of October is that it will bring the arrival of Cindy’s first grandchild!  So get ready for some cute pics of a sweet little Jack!

Cancer in general is a hard thing to deal with and there are so many people affected by it and in so many different ways!  This year we have chosen to mainly raise awareness and money for breast cancer, and also childhood cancer with our volunteering and running for the Heroes for Children 5k.

Are you doing anything this month for Breast Cancer Awareness?

We’ll leave you with a picture of Julie and Mr. Death with their Team Cindy sign waiting for Cynthia to finish the 3-Day walk in 2010