The 2014 Running of Tour des Fleurs 10K

The 2014 Running of Tour des Fleurs 10K

December 4, 2014 by · Leave a Comment

This was the first race we ran together post baby for both of us! If you’ll remember when we ran Liberty by the Lake on the 4th of July that was Teal’s first race back and Lane’s first race on the outside! 🙂

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Let’s stop for a second and admire how beautiful White Rock looks in the background of the above and below pictures.

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Neither one of us had really run as far as a 10K since having Lane and Miles so we knew that we weren’t reeeeally ready to run TDF, BUT we’ve run it the last 4 years so we didn’t want to miss it this year.  We love this race! In fact we probably say that every year. Plus you basically have free admission to the arboretum so we forced our husbands and babies to come along so that we could have photo time afterwards.

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Per usual we ran this race with Bitner because he’s part of the tradition of it too. 🙂  Not to mention it’s his birthday weekend so it’s an all around Bitner weekend and we are so glad he made the trip up here from Austin.  We are still in denial even now that he has left us for Austin.  And our girl, Catherine, came out to run it for a second year with us too. You’re welcome for that, TDF!

The plan for this race was stick together, know there will be some walk breaks and finish! It was a good hour plus of catching up on life, babies and everything in between.  We were even lucky enough to catch Mark out there on the lake getting in a 20 mile run for the day.

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We finished the race, got our finisher’s hats and made our way to the pumpkins for photos.

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hehehe #newmomfail

IMG_6706We will see you next year, Tour des Fleurs! 🙂

 

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Wounded Warrior 2014

Wounded Warrior 2014

October 9, 2014 by · Leave a Comment

Ok, so if you saw yesterday’s post you might be thinking, huh?! Well, we migrated over to our own self-hosted site quite awhile ago, but we still get so many inquires about Advocare over on our old site we thought we’d make it abundantly clear over there we are operating over HERE!

And now we shall take you back into time to four months ago! 🙂  Sorry for all life flashbacks, but we want to keep a record here of our races and what not so back to June when Beth was still pregnant……

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For the past three years I have run the Wounded Warrior 10K each June and really love this race even though usually it is super toasty outside.  We are talking about June in Texas here. But I didn’t want to miss out on running Wounded Warrior for my fourth year in a row although I’m pretty sure no one would have minded if I said I’m pregnant I’m out this year.

why yes I did take a pre race care selfie :D

why yes I did take a pre race care selfie 🙂

We actually had a WAY cooler summer this year so I was hoping for some great race day weather!  As it turns out it actually was raining that morning and the race was delayed due to lightning and so by the time we did all get out there to run it sure was humid.  I was going to take it easier out there and do lots of listening to my body.  About 1.5 miles in I had some round ligament pain and had to stop to walk.  Of course I had lots of people around me checking on me to make sure I was ok.  Such sweet people!

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Luckily, my friend, Cassie, out there let me tag-a-long with her on the course and we did a nice run/walk combo to get through the 10K.  I’m so glad that I did still commit to running this race.  The heat was my biggest fear about keeping up with running.  This is probably the least exciting race recap, but if you made it through this then THANKS!

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And I shall leave you with this picture because it’s funny! 🙂

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hashtag pregnant jokes

 

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The 2014 Running of Large Marg

The 2014 Running of Large Marg

May 8, 2014 by · 2 Comments

Ok. Not that race recaps are the most exciting thing in the world but they get even harder when you decide to wait for.ever. to post them but here goes! Hope you are still reading! 🙂

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We signed up to run the Levee Run in March because lets face it, who wouldn’t want to run over Large Marg? We love Large Marg and Teal was still holding on to her jealously from when Beth got to run it the first year without her. 🙁

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At this point Beth was about 17 weeks pregnant and Teal about 30 weeks, so we pretty much knew we wouldn’t stay together since our times were very different at this point. Teal was already having a hard time not having to stop often or pee and her pace was pretty slow at this point. Beth was still able to stay pretty close to her normal pace and way less peeing was going on. Hope you guys like knowing that information about us?

 

We couldn’t miss an opportunity for a picture so we made sure to stay together for the first .5 miles to at least get on the bridges together and take a pic, the rest we ran alone…. BLAHHHHH. And blah for sure with this race course.

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Now, while we do not bash this race by any means, the best part is literally the bridge and the rest is basically LAME. The race does an awesome job of stalking the bridge with so many cheering people. The trek across is loud and awesome because you get what seems like 10 schools of children cheering with signs, noise makers, instruments and anything else they can find! It’s awesome! The rest is dull, no cheering, no real on lookers at all, almost no water stops, and it runs you through the design district which is basically a bunch of buildings. It’s only a 10k so really it’s not that big of a deal or different from many 10ks with cheering or water or anything like that… just being whiney 🙂

 

The course had no bathrooms along the course. Teal had to stop and use a construction course bathroom and then another random one just sitting on the street at around mile 4.5. Pregnancy will make you lose any pickiness when it comes to needing to go. They were disgusting!

 

The race finishes over the bridge, which gives you something to look forward to.  The kids on the bridges actually made one of us cry while passing. They are just so positive with their cheers and really make you “in a super cheesy way” feel inspirational. One lady’s sign said, “ these kids are watching in awe of you.” Which is kind of cool to think about!

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Next year we totally plan to hang around. Perhaps one of the coolest things about this race is the after party. It’s located in one of the newest up and coming parts of Dallas and is located in the same area as many of the new local breweries and restaurants that are around after serving local beer and food. What’s not to love there, well, except when you can’t participate in the adult beverages?

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Tour des Fleurs 10K

September 26, 2013 by · 1 Comment

By now you’ve probably learned that with some of our weekends we really like to go big or go home and by that we mean fit ALL of the things into one weekend. 🙂  Our Wordless Wednesday post was a glimpse into everything we had going on this past weekend.

We kicked it off Saturday morning by running the Tour des Fleurs 10K at the Arboretum just like we’ve done every September for the last 5 and 6 years.  And per usual our friend Bitner also participated in the race with us, but this year we also made Catherine join in the fun as well!

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You can probably tell from the picture that Bitner was a little cold that morning – ha!  A “cold” front had come through and we woke up in Dallas to temperatures in the 60’s.  It was woooonderful and a big change from the heat!  By the time we catch a shuttle bus from the parking lot to the Arboretum and walk through the Arboretum to the race area we aren’t really there that early and it’s time to start the race.  Off we all go on our merry way.

Running along White Rock Lake as we have done every year at this race.  We make it to the one “major” hill on the course that’s almost at the halfway mark.  Beth encounters a runner that’s running a zig zag pattern up the hill with her fingers out dancing along to her music.  We turn the corner and the hill is over! There’s a 3 mile marker sign. Huh? Where was the 2 mile marker sign?  Oh, well surely someone just messed up. Running, running.  Hey 5 mile marker sign.  Ok, this is just messed up!  We are a little over a mile off from these mile markers.  Beth opted to go music-less for this race and no one else around her was commenting about the markers so she kind of assumed maybe she just took a wrong turn because it wouldn’t have been the first time (hello, Too Hot to Handle 2011!).  Teal right away knew something was wrong with the course and reaffirmed that with other runners around here.

It turned out that the lead officer took that right turn onto the “big” hill instead of going straight a little bit further and us coming back to the hill.   And then there really wasn’t a person out there to direct racers either, so we all ended up running a 5.15 mile race. PR’s for everyone! 🙂

When the race was over we each grabbed our finisher’s hats (THANKS for bringing those back, TDF!!) and made our way to the after party.  They do throw a darn good after party with beer, lots of different food options and some free schtuff.

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see the free schutff in our hands?

One of the best parts about this race is getting to walk around the Arboretum afterwards and see all the pumpkins and gourds out all over the place.  The majority of the time it doesn’t feel like Fall is even that close when we do this race, but we absolutely love getting to see the Arboretum all done up for Fall.

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There were a lot of racers whose family came with them and were taking their children out of strollers to have their pictures taken amongst the pumpkins.  As you know we don’t have kids so we opted to put Bitner in the pumpkins and take his picture. 🙂  He loves of us, clearly, because he puts up with us doing these things!

IMG_0031[1]It is sad that the race wasn’t a true 10K, but we love this race!  We can still remember the feelings of nervousness when we were running our first 10Ks. So far!  It’s a bit pricey, but considering the great after party, the finisher’s hat (though they were gone for two years) and the free entry into the Arboretum it’s a good deal! We’ll be back!

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Liberty by the Lake 5K

August 14, 2013 by · 2 Comments
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pre-race car pic!

Sooooo July 4th a bunch of our running friends were doing Liberty by the Lake 5K/10K and if they were doing it we had to do it too.  Right? That’s how it works?  The internets also had a special so we got this race for pretty cheap!

We didn’t have big hopes and dreams for this race because, come on, it’s July in Texas. Hot!  But being the weird summer that it is the temperature that morning wasn’t really as bad as it could have been, but don’t worry the humidity was still there. Blah!

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Frunners!
(pic stolen from Mama C)

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NTX Runners!
Look at Ninja representin’ w/his tank

We should also note how pumped we were to wear our latest purchase from Compete Every Day with our Texas Strong shirts!  We loooooove them!!  We did see a few other runners out there sporting different CED shirts as well.  If you haven’t checked them out you really should, especially if you are a Dallasite, as they are a local business!  And no we weren’t paid or rewarded with free things by that mention we just really love their stuff and awesome customer service!

Then at some point it was time to do what we we went to The Colony for and that is run a 5K.  So run a 5K we did.  Not a lot of shade out there and we hear the 10K-ers have it even worse.  We stuck together and ran the whole thing together.  This was also our first race back in the same age group since Beth fiiiinally turned 30.  We crossed that finish line together at 28 minutes flat!

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Several in our group that day won age group awards, but only a couple of them won the privilege of a LiAR photobomb.  Way to go Brian & Jesse!!

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Another thing we should point out which you can’t see from the above pic, but we totally love Jesse’s method of keeping cool in the Texas heat:

Step 1: wear a hat

Step 2: insert ice in hat

Step 3: put your ice hat on your head

Step 4: repeat as necessary (if you have a cooler full of ice w/you which he normally does somewhere close by)

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It ended up being a fun time, but the fun did not stop there! We made our way over to Team K’s house for some 4th of July waffles and mimosas!

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Fun times were had by all!  We are so blessed to have made such awesome friends in the running community! It really is incredible all the greatness that running can bring to ones life! 🙂

Again the fun did NOT end there because after this we went and met up with our husbands who were drinking some beers to get thaaat much closer to reaching their plates at Flying Saucer.

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So here we are – officially caught up on our race posts! 🙂  We don’t have any races scheduled for August though so unless something happens no more race recaps until September!

Also, shout out to all the people whose pictures we stole without telling them to make this post that much more fun (a.k.a. Mama C, MK, Jesse and Alison P.)!

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Wounded Warrior

July 24, 2013 by · 5 Comments

Something crazy has been going on in Texas this summer and more specifically in Dallas as I can’t really speak for the rest of the state. 🙂  It’s called rain.

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I was in top 500 or something like that so I also got a hat with my registration and every year they give you a pair of socks in addition to your race shirt.

I woke up race morning and this race really isn’t that far from my house though I was running behind and my fellow NTX Runners who were also running Wounded Warrior had planned a meet up for a pre-race picture.  Just a few minutes behind I was making my way over to packet pickup and juust made it under the awning of the building when all of the water from the sky began to pour down. All of it. Luckily, I’d found some of my NTX people so I wasn’t just standing their by myself since Teal wasn’t able to run this race with me due to high school graduation where she works.  We got a couple updates from a human being that the race was delayed 15 minutes and then another 15 minutes as there was just a massive crowd gathered together trying to stay dry.

For this race they have two distances, a half and a 10K, and per usual I was sticking with the 10K which started after the half did.  It’s too darn hot to be doing a half in June, amiright?  Except for this rainy race day.  I also began tweeting with some other local runners who were hearing the delay was even longer than what I had heard.  Eventually I knew I had 5-10 minutes before my race was to begin so I made my way to the start line in the rain.  I’d already made the executive decision that I was not going to even begin to mess with my phone and Runkeeper for this race.  The life of my phone was more important than music and having exact info on my race.

It rained for half if not more of my race.  They actually had to do a detour on one part of the race that runs on the Campion Trail because it wasn’t just kind of flooded over it was REEEEALLY flooded over.  As in if I ran through that I think the water would have been up to my hips, but I’m also short if you have noticed from all the pictures where I stand next to Teal. 🙂

Throughout the race I didn’t really know how I was doing and was just excited every time I passed a mile marker.  With less than a mile to go I spotted some friends on the course, Lisa & Lucy (who I still had not meet IRL until that moment).  That was  nice little boost at the end.  And then the race was over.  I was drenched and had no clue how I did, but was excited to have my 10K bling! 🙂

 

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I absolutely love this race!  It’s for an awesome cause, it’s close to home and I get a medal for running a 10K!  I didn’t get to stick around too long after the race as some friends of Brent’s were in town and I need to get to brunch. Priorities, people!  But I did get to see quite a few people at the end which was very fun!

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Julie and me

 

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Jesse & me – love his shirt!

I was pleasantly surprised to find out later that day that my naked run at Wounded Warrior was only 15 seconds behind my 10K PR!  I finished in 54:46 which was 9th in my age group.  Not too shabby!

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PR’ing All Over September

October 2, 2012 by · 7 Comments

Talk about a dreary weekend in Dallas! Lots of raining on Saturday and it just continued Sunday morning.  The race started at 7 a.m. which had this been a hot day like it very well could have been considering it is Texas the early start time would have been awesome!  We arrived at 6 a.m. since registering late made us need to do race day packet pickup.  We got our bibs and our shirts and headed back to the car for a few minutes so Beth could finish her breakfast, put her shoes on and we could drop our race shirts off.  Then we found a covered building entrance riiight next to the start line to hangout under so we wouldn’t get wet from the mist while we waited for the race to start.

 

Teal: We had waited around the start line forever so we actually ended up starting with the “fast group” and this seriously made a difference in the way this race went.  I was very surprised at the pace after mile one and it actually didn’t feel bad at all. I have really been deciding lately how my race will go after mile 1 or 2. I just can’t tell anymore before I start running. By mile 3 we were right around 27 minutes which is fast for me, really fast for me.  My only complaint about miles 1-3 is that I don’t think they could have taken us through an uglier part of Dallas. We were basically running alley ways of only buildings in the crappier part of the design district.

Waiting for the race to start

Beth: We had seen the Luebs right after getting our bibs then found Brian at the start line, and 3 of us chatted about our running lately and what our paces might be for today’s race.  Brian mentioned wanted to run 9 minute miles and I thought Ohh, that sounds good I want to do that! I can do that right?! I just had in my mind the last time I ran a 10 mile race I held about a 9:30 pace, but that was in May meaning hotter weather.  So the race starts and all 3 of us take off. Brian kind of really took off and at the 5 minute mark my Runkeeper tells me we were already over halfway through the first mile and I swear it said we were running at about a 7:50 something pace. That freaked me out. Then I just thought 9 minute pace my ass Brian! 🙂 [Sorry Mom, I said ass, oops did it again]

Miles 3-6

Teal: My goal here was to make sure I stayed under an hour and to make sure I maintained a pace I was happier with. The first 3 were very fast and I was slightly scared I would die. I kept running how tired I was at the end of Tour des Fleurs in my head and worried about what 6-10 would be like. I slowed a little but not much and just kept counting in my head. I lost Beth around 4 but really kept her in my sight for the next mile-ish. I crossed the 10K mark just a tad faster than the 10K PR the week before and was super excited/scared. How long could I maintain this? I kept thinking, you have never run under a 2 hour half and you are on a pace that would let that happen. It was very a weird mix of emotions in terms of “you are going to die” to “just see what you can do and go.”

Beth: The middle of this race I don’t remember all that well.  Probably because I was mainly wondering if I was actually going to end up having a horrible race and slow completely down towards the end or be fine?  So I just kept going.

Miles 6-10

Teal: It was around the 6.5-7ish mark that I moved to running closer to the middle of the road. The race did an out and back and I knew I would start to see Brian or Beth or whoever else and they would give me motivation.  This part of the race seemed so long. The stretch between 5.5 and like 7.5 is up hill, it’s a mild incline, but you can feel it, and it just became annoying. I knew as soon as I saw them that the turnaround would be close and the downhill could begin. I saw Brian pass and then saw Beth not too far behind. I was very confused as to the time and how much was left and I yelled at Beth to pick it up. I for some reason thought we were pretty far off of her 10 mile PR.  (PS.. we completely were not at all, but in my head it was bad, which then confused me because my miles were so close to 9min) I have no clue why I couldn’t sort that out. It was around 7 that my butt muscles were super tight! Like I really just wanted to stop and stretch but I wasn’t about to stop. I just started pushing on my butt hoping it would loosen up. I am sure people around me were like “What the hell is she doing?” I knew that this was not as bad as the women I had passed at mile 7 with her entire butt hanging out. I mean EVERYTHING! It was nasty!

After hitting mile 9 I said to myself, just go. It’s just a mile, just go. I had kind of figured out at this point that I would finish between 1:30 and 1:32 and got really excited! I crossed the finish line and just wanted to die. I kicked it in the last .25 and it was painful. I crossed the finish line, saw Beth and Brian and really just wanted to die. My tail bone was killing me. It really kind of freaked me out.  Every step I took around the Runner’s Village, to the car, and in and out of the car where so painful. My leg was shooting pain and I wasn’t so much convinced my butt wasn’t about to split in half.

Beth: These last miles I do remember. Ha, I remember seeing the turn around for the 10K races and the guy at that turn around saying “10 milers your turn around is just a bit further” LIES! In my world more than 2 miles away is not “a bit further.”  Feel free to call me an idiot, but I actually didn’t realize we were running up a slow incline. Ha.  And I just kept wanting to be at the turnaround! I kept watching for Brian because I knew that would mean I was close and when I finally saw him I was excited! Then past the turn around for the rest of the race this guy was annoying the crap out of me! OK, I used more not nice words than that, but I don’t want to have to apologize to my mom again. 🙂  He was 100% messing with my mind.  I think he caught up to me then he’d slow down and I’d get a little ahead of him, he’d speed up to catch me again and then slow down again and so on and so forth. FOR TWO MILES.  When we finally got off the Katy Trail to finish out the last mile of the race I got ahead of him for a little while then he caught back up and I was just like whatever dude, and let him stay ahead of me. I knew I would be crossing the finish line with a new PR!  Turns out I took 5:14 off of my only other 10 mile race.  I also told that guy he was messing with my mind afterwards (again, not the words I used) 🙂 and he said no, no, you were pacing me. I wanted to make it in under 1:30.  I told him good job and patted him on the back. OK, fine I guess that’s ok that you messed with my mind so much then??

Pretty much when we finished the misting rain turned into, well, rain.  We headed over to the Runner’s Village and grabbed ourselves a small beer. We both wanted to try a taco from Velvet Taco, so we went straight there to wait in the long line for one of their tacos. DEE-LISH!  Then it started raining harder, we may or may not have had flashbacks to White Rock Marathon and promptly decided to get out of there.  A bummer for the whole try all the tacos and vote on them part of the day.

Just a little soaked from the rain 🙂

Teal: I went home and had the same pain, tried to just shake it off, stretch it to go away and nothing. I ended up not really even sleeping Sunday night and was in and out of tears thinking there was no way I could run a marathon and then proceeded to freak out about what I could say to Beth.

I made a dr’s appointment for first thing Monday when I got to work and had it looked at. It turns out I strained my groin muscle, not a full pull, but she said a deep strain. Apparently when you run faster (which I really haven’t done for that far EVER) your body uses that inner thigh so much more. Whoops??

So needless to say, I knew I was in pain and I wasn’t crazy, and I had just run an awesome race so I am still pumped. I am basically out for a week and have some PT, but I should be fine! Hopefully a week is all it will take! Fingers SUPER crossed!

 

Results:

Teal: 1:31:11, finished 14th in her age group

Beth: 1:27:02, finished 18th in her age group

Overall, we are pleased with how this race went, well, really we are pleased with the month of September it brought us some great PR’s.  It also just goes to show how hard work in those hot summer months really can pay off if you just keep on going and don’t give up on your training even if the hot weather has slowed it down.  These HOT Texas summers are making us tough runners!

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September Recap & October Goals

October 1, 2012 by · 5 Comments

Ahh yah! Look at us, we are posting our goals ON October 1st!  We aren’t complete slackers……well, read on and decide for yourselves! 🙂

Teal:

1. Make Bridesmaid dress fit!

F-: I have no clue, I haven’t tried it on again. Maybe I should do that??

2. Read my book club book before September 23rd without having to cram, but hopefully Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult will hold my interest (I am not a big fiction book person and the club turned down my 100 Year Lie suggestion).

B: I finished and technically the night before so that is better than the last time where I was 15 minutes late and couldn’t shower because I was finishing it on the way out the door!

3. Log food within 100 calories of goal.

B+: I logged 21 days straight and for the most part those days were fairly close to this goal. That was for sure the best month I have had lately in logging food!

4. Not cry on my 30th Birthday!

A+++: I didn’t and now I am 30 and the world has not ended and no one has called me old. And PS: Thank you so everyone for all of the awesome birthday wishes, you made it so much easier to handle!

Beth:

1. Run 20 miles a week.

F: Only one week out of the whole month I actually made 20 miles and that was this last week. :-/ At least I did it once instead of not at all??

Daily Mile monthly log

2. Not kill anyone….haha, not trying to be morbid, but wedding planning is HARD!

A+: I didn’t! Everyone is still alive! I did cry a couple times, but again, everyone is still alive!

Joint:

1. Figure out and finalize our marathon training plan!

A+: We did and we even signed up for a few races to go along with it! Check out our Race Schedule page if you want to join us for some races.

2. Run a good, strong race at Tour des Fleurs since we will be basing our training times off of this 10k!

A+: We both PR’d at TDF, so we definitely count that as a good, strong race!!

***

This month since things will reeeeally be crazy since Beth & Brent’s wedding is only 26 days away we are joining forces and only having joint goals! They are:

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

2. Start marathon training!

3. Get Beth married!

photo courtesy of Jeffrey Lynch

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Tour des Fleurs 10K

September 19, 2012 by · 9 Comments

Well, as we said in our pre-race post this was Beth’s 5th time and Teal’s 3rd time to run TDF.  It’s just a fun race!  You park off site of the Dallas Arboretum (or we do because we don’t want to pay the ridiculous parking package to park on premise) and get shuttled there.  Once there you get to walk through the grounds a little bit to see some of the arboretum which is usually already full of pumpkins in preparation for Fall, however, this year some of the Chihuly exhibit is taking over so the pumpkins had to share their space.

Who is Dale Chihuly? He is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur. Have you ever been in the Bellagio in Vegas? Well then chances are you’ve seen the amazing glass ceiling Chihuly did in their lobby.  Here is an additional picture of one of his installations we took on Saturday.  There will be another one later on too. 🙂

And now we give you our races from each of our perspectives –

Teal: Friday was an insane day and I was home super late, then after my cake ball disaster I managed to get like 4 hours of sleep and I really as not feeling this race! As a matter of fact, I had really had it with life by 5:30 am Saturday. I was really just ready to go back to bed. I kept saying to myself, Thank GOD we did not sign up for the 20k, because I would have probably broken down and cried.   I was somewhat nervous because I wanted to run a good race because we had decided to really use this as our base time for marathon training. We are going to use the Run Less Run Faster theory and it is based around your 10k time. In my head I wondered, do I just run a good steady race or just race it for real?! I decided I would make that call within a mile. Our friend Veronica asked our pace before the race and I responded “Oh somewhere between 9 and 11 minutes.” Ha, I really had no clue and really have had no clue about pace lately anyway.

Veronice, Teal, Beth & Bitner

Beth: Before we started the race we were hanging out down by the stage where bands play and where we had told people we would be if they wanted to come say hi since we had to live right after the race.  We got see our fellow NTX Runner, Brian and finally meet @runreadrant a.k.a. Caron before they started their 20K race 30 minutes before us.  Brian had told us we were going to do our 10K in 55 minutes.  I’m not sure how Teal felt about that, but in my mind I was going, yah, right! Or could I pull that time out?? I have to run this smart! Oh gooooooddd!

Teal: We started the race and I really felt fine! I had committed to racing for sure by 3 miles.  All miles were well under 9 minutes so I knew it was going well. We all hung in with each other which was an awesome way to keep pace!

Beth: I always forget it can be kind of a cluster at the start of this race. I know, I know, what race isn’t? Well this path is even more narrow to start so it can be hard to get around some people.  I wasn’t really sure what this meant in terms of Teal and I staying together for the race, but before I knew it we were reunited on the course.  Even Friday night I’d been thinking about Brian’s comment to us about running it in 55 minutes since he mentioned that to us somewhere on the internet that day.  I didn’t want to start out too fast and not be able to make it the last few miles. So my thoughts started with – ok, if I run the first mile in 9:30 then start to speed up from there. Plus 8:30 is 18 minutes. Another 8:30 is 26:30…..At some point in the 3 miles Teal and I had joined up with Bitner and we were running together which was really fun!  I was kind of paying attention to my runkeeper but not totally and wouldn’t allow myself to think much about a PR until I got to the last couple of miles.

We are going to probably buy this pic so for now we don’t feel bad for putting it up here like this. Photo courtesy of Your Sporting Image

Teal: At around mile 4, I started to feel it and ran a tad bit slower. I moved back from Beth around here and had actually threw up a little bit, which is totally disgusting, but I was really kind of tired. I really didn’t know where I was in terms of race time and PRing but I just said, you need to pick it up, there are only 2 miles left! I increased my pace by about 20 seconds and just said, keep moving. Beth was out of my site by the 5 mile mark but I could still see Bitner. My goal was to keep him in sight. I ended up losing him in all the turns around 5.5.

Beth: All, I remember from the past 10K’s of TDF that we’ve run is there is one hill that I hate.  Well, I got to it, ran it and it didn’t feel so bad.  I thought we were all set from there and it would be flat from here on out. Uhh, wrong. There were some added little hills in there and not to mention concrete that was cracked, had crevices and holes.  I was kind of nervous about twisting an ankle or something. When we hit mile 4 I knew I had some more in me and I wanted to dig deep and get ‘er done. Early on I’d wanted to slow down some and save some reserve for later in the race, but since I was running with Teal and Bit I just kept going.  It was in mile 4 that I thought, yah, I am running this race and doing the work, but I’m not sure I’d have made it where I was then if it wasn’t for Teal and Bit’s pacing.

Teal: It was a little past this point that I was literally clipped in the elbow by a biker! (not bad but I felt her) I had to throw my arm up to make sure she didn’t hit the rest of me. I looked over and a spectator was shaking his head at her. I can’t believe how close she came. And yes maybe at that point my elbows were wide, but she was way too close!! Most of the time, if you are in a bikers way they tell you,  I had my headphones on but low enough to where I could hear around me because there were so many bikers out, I wanted to make sure it was fine.

Beth: During my last two miles I remember thinking in years past – when is this ever going to end??  I had a good laugh at myself as the amount of halfs I have run have dramatically increased even from last year.  When I ran TDF 2010 I ran it as a race in my training and TDF 2011 we did the 20K for training for our first marathon (plus some additional miles after the race).  This was the first time I’d really run TDF with all the long miles I’ve put in to running. Somewhere in the 5 mile range I was passing a fellow lady runner who turned to me and said “you got this!”  At that point I had no words and wanted to try and find her after the race to tell her thank you.

(source)

Teal: I crossed the finish line and knew it was a PR but I didn’t know by how much. I just had to keep walking because I was spent!  I was super happy because I needed  that after the rough night and really crappy races/running lately! I walked by the announcer and ended up talking to him because he was lecturing the bike riders on his microphone! I went over and told him what had happened and how close she had been to me at the end. I can’t believe how fast the Saturday bikers went by us. This was not the first time we have run around White Rock and had bikers be a tad crazy. We know, and we for sure believe that the road should be shared! It was just so crazy that they still wanted to speed past people on FOOT! That was really too close for comfort!

Beth: There wasn’t much left for my body to give at the end.  I was running with every ounce of my body working the last few miles.  My abs were working and it was here that I was thinking about how important a strong core can be for a runner.  My last few races where I have dug deep, or every time I run hills and every time I run bleachers my core strength has been working with me.  So don’t forget about working on that in your training too! When I crossed the finish line the clock said 55:and change, but based on my runkeeper I thought I had made it in 54:and change.  I didn’t get my runkeeper turned off right away so I would have to wait for the officially results to know exactly what I had done.

Isn’t this Chihuly installation cool??

Needless to say we  love TDF and look forward to running it again in the future! Oh and we totally wouldn’t mind if you guys brought the hat back at the end of the race 😉 Hint, hint, Race Director!!!  See the hat Bitner has on in the above picture? Yah, Beth has 3 of those and then bam! Last year they quit doing them. 🙁  We also should note that this race had some awesome food after too! Wish we could have stuck around longer to eat more of it! We did manage to snag a couple of breakfast tacos before we got shuttled back to our cars. We might need to fill out a survey to let them know what all we liked and what we’d like to see come back!

Results:

Teal: 55:43; 303rd person to finish and finished 26th out of 169 in her AG.

Beth: 54:31; 262nd person to finish and finished 15th out 139 in her AG.

 So we both took home PR’s that day! We have completed our first race in different Age Groups – crazy! Some more to come in the next 8 months.

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Tour des Fleurs Pre-Race Thoughts

September 14, 2012 by · 5 Comments

Like we mentioned in our latest goal post, we plan to race the hell out of this 10k! 🙂  It is our intention to follow the Run Less Run Faster marathon training plan this time around and we will use the Tour des Fleurs 10K to set our training paces.

This will be Teal’s 3rd time and Beth’s 5th time to run this race. We really like it, ok? Although, Race Director, we really liked it when you gave us hats at the end of the race and you disappointed last year when you quit that. Hint. Hint.Anyway, last year we took a break from the 10K distance and tried for the 20K as it fit in with some extra miles into our 2011 marathon training plan.  This year we are back for the 10K distance.  Our PRs for this distance currently stand at:

Teal: 56:41

Beth: 56:46

So we’ll see what we can do out there this weekend! Right now there is a 30% chance of rain for race day and looks like we’ll have temperatures in the mid to high 60s!  Have a great weekend!

Are you racing this weekend? Or what does your training schedule call for? We want to know!

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