Going Back to Where it All Started

December 7, 2012 by · 10 Comments

This weekend we will be running the race that started it all for us as Life is a Run…well, kinda.  We say kinda because they changed the name on us from White Rock Marathon to Dallas Marathon and the race course is very different.  Not to mention the starting line is no longer in Fair Park, but that’s been the case in years past since this race did start in 1971 and this wouldn’t be the first time the start is actually in downtown Dallas.

Excuse us while we steal a couple words from some of our frunners (stolen word #1 – credit to Mama C), but there’s one frunner in particular, Michelle, who just had her half-a-versary (stolen word #2) and we are about to have our’s!  Hearing that phrase from MK really puts this coming weekend into perspective.  Because really this weekend is kind of a big deal in our world or at least a reflection on where we started and just how far we have come since 2010.

47613_10100478927417494_8304354_69753456_6030092_n 2

2010 when we became half marathoners!

We both had been runners in different times of our lives, but 2010 was when Teal asked Beth if she wanted to run a half with her, a distance neither one of us had come close to running.  It’s cute to think now how we use to run for time not for distance, you know like, long run this weekend is running for an hour and a half – oh my!  It’s also cute to think how neither one of us ran with a phone or any device with GPS.  We ran on feel alone. Ohhhh how the times have changed!  And who would have thought in 2011 we’d come back to run White Rock Marathon as our first marathon!? By the time we come back this year to toe the line at the half marathon distance it will be our 15th half marathon upon it’s completion.

In 2010, we had pretty much the perfect weather and little did we know that we were actually going to be spoiled by that.  We would like to pat ourselves on the pack for actually starting our first ever half in very appropriate running gear.  Yes, in the above picture we have fleeces on but we had Michael, Brent & Kate holding onto all of that for us while we ran.  Then 2011, for this very week leading up to the marathon we were both panicked.  WHAT?! Rain on marathon day??  What will we wear? What do we need?  Well, we learned lessons from that one. You could read about them here.

Teal finish photo

Teal becoming a Marathoner!

634593774914707227

Beth becoming a Marathoner!

It’s race week once again for White Rock/Dallas Marathon and per usual we have no idea what we are going to wear because we are pretty sure the projected forecast for Sunday has changed in some form or fashion each day this week. We mentioned in our weekend post how we’d hit a record high last Sunday in the 80’s. Well, we’ve had chances of a cold front coming through Sunday and we’ve had highs of 77 or something like that, so we’ll just have to see how it all plays out. As long as there isn’t rain we should be good! 🙂

In pre-race posts of the past we’ve given you a goal and we are going to kind of do that for you here.  Our individual thoughts, expectations and what not going into Dallas Marathon this weekend –

Teal: I am actually for the first time in a while nervous about a race. I usually just go and run and that is that. I know for a fact that I can make 13.1, clearly!  I haven’t set goals for a while because they started to have the opposite effect on me and they weren’t motivating. I am nervous because I do really want/need this race to go well. It is the last one before the Marathon… dun dun dun. AND I seriously, as dumb as it sounds, am still stuck on how completely and totally crappy last year was for this race (i know it was the full), but still and that has carried over into my marathon training. Sooo really if I was goal setting, my goal is to have an awesome race and to gain some confidence going into the Marathon, confidence that I pretty much do not have right now. I don’t even need a PR, I just want my race to feel good. How to make that happen?? I don’t know. So there goal set. Wish me luck.

Beth: White Rock Half 2010 holds my half marathon PR.  The closest I’ve come to my 1:56:39 PR was at Big D this past April, but I was still 34 seconds away from my PR.  I want so bad to beat that and I want to say that I could do it this weekend, but I just don’t know if I can. I’d like to run a smart race where I definitely do not start out too fast and have enough left in me to speed across that finish line.  I’m afraid of making “get a new PR this weekend” a goal because I’m not fully sure I can do it.  All year I though I’d come back to this race and conquer it with a new PR, but when I heard about them changing up the course it kind of changed things for me a little bit. So just like Teal is nervous, this goal I so want is making me nervous for race day Sunday.

So there you have it some of our reflections as we run our Half-a-versary race this weekend and what we think going into it.  Bring on half marathon no. 15 for #LiAR!  May the speed be with us!

Filed Under: Training, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

We’re Running in the Rain, Just Running in the Rain

April 17, 2012 by · 17 Comments

Should we get out of the car now? Or wait a few more minutes?

Well, Saturday afternoon the winds started picking up here in Dallas.  It never really rained in our neck of the woods that day and even when we went to bed that night it was still dry.  By the time we both woke up think the rain hadn’t fully started until it was time to actually drive down to Fair Park. But enough about that let’s just cut to the chase. Here’s how Big D Half went for each of us…

Miles 1-3

Teal: Ugh! Where is a water station when you need it? These first few miles were HOT! I think I had more sweat in these 3 miles then I did during any other stretch of the race. It was hot and humid and the air was seriously thick! I kept coughing because it honestly felt like something was stuck in my throat. I start looking to the sky and thinking where is the rain we’ve been hearing about and if it doesn’t rain I am going to be pissed because I decided to forego buying new shoes because I felt like that would be a dumb idea to run in new shoes in the rain and then feel like they were ruined after one time.

Beth: I didn’t really have a goal in mind for this race because I knew I needed to see how the weather would play out so my goal would be determined out on the course. Somewhere in mile 1 a man asked where the water stops were and I told him I had heard they were few and far between out here. In these miles I saw a man who is a regular with me in spin class and talks to me about my running. He asked me why I wasn’t further up and I told him I was trying! Ha. Teal and I had decided we needed to take advantage of each water stop since we wouldn’t know how the weather would be throughout the race. At the second water station we had to stop and wait for water to be poured in a cup for us.

Miles 4-6

Teal: Not bad but I was worried about being too hot as there was still no sign of rain and I was like, I’m not in the mood to deal with this heat and decided to slow down. Not based on total need just based on me really only going to do what makes me happy right now and that is not run fast in the heat. Happy also meant eating all my gummi bears, which I did! At this point, I was thinking, just do what you feel like, just be happy, and who really cares about the rest. At mile 6.5 the air started to cool and you could see darkening clouds! I kept crossing my fingers!

Beth: I forget when exactly now, but somewhere around 3 or 4 miles I’d seen the 2 hour pacer pass and thought welp, there goes that, but if it’s going to end up being hot this whole time I can live with that. Still have yet to get many runs in while it’s just been HOT outside. At some point running along White Rock Lake a breeze was coming through periodically so I started to feel good and knew I could pick up my game some but that there where still hills to conquer! Even though I had my Runkeeper app going I wasn’t fully aware of where I stood to finish this thing at the pace I was at, but I knew if I wanted it I could possibly bust out another sub two half. Just as we were leaving the lake we had pretty much switched over into a new climate. It was cool! I let out a woohoo!! And the people around me said yes! This feels good! This next part I mention only because it gave me a laugh out there but shortly after this I’m coming up on this muscular guy running without his shirt on and then I see him raise one arm, flex and admire his bicep. Ha! Then I passed him. Ha!

Miles 7-10

Teal: Sweet RELIEF!! The rain hit at 7 and I could not have been happier. Had the crazy humidity kept up it would have been a different story. Everyone around me literally started to cheer! Most people put their hands in the air and you could just tell we all wanted that rain. This excitement died shortly after, and honestly I got a little worried. I didn’t want to deal with lightening or anything and decided to speed it back up and just get off the course. It pretty much rained consistently during these miles!

Beth: After the rain hit in the beginning of mile 7 I knew a sub two half was mine that day I just had work to do to in this last half! The rain was completely exhilarating to me and from there on out I was running happy! I thanked as many police officers and volunteers as I could. I also high fived as many little kids as I could! I just felt awesome so I picked up the pace! Go time!

Miles 11-13.1

Teal: Not bad at all. Not too tired, didn’t feel great but didn’t feel bad. Just wanted dry clothes. I usually count when I run but instead of counting as pace keeping I just decided to repeat the phrase “ dry clothes, dry clothes” as motivation to get this over with! I saw Beth at 13 and she ran a few steps with me and then it was over!

Beth: To me some of this last half truly runs together because I was happy. I was constantly thinking you got this! Let’s get it done! It was also somewhere in here I spotted the 2 hour pace and eventually passed him! YES! Running through numbers in my head and somewhere in here I thought, wait a second, could I get a new PR today?! So I kept pushing. When mile 12 came I knew I’d put in a ton of work and my body could only take so much more pushing. I knew if I did PR it would be a close one and I thought if I don’t I don’t care. I’ve run a strong race and I am so proud of myself!  It was kind of nice that Teal and I happened to walk by the 13 mile marker that morning as we made our way to the start and knew just where the finish was.

Teal: Not my best run and not my worst run. I can honestly say I am excited for the break. I have not expected a PR or anything in a while for the simple fact that I have not been training at all. I have done a couple hill work outs and nothing over 2-3 miles randomly besides the hills. I am ready to have time to train, change things up and use the second half of the year to work getting faster and stronger. Continually just running races and using them as “training” is no bueno and does not make you faster! I’m healed now and ready to go. Can’t wait until August when I feel better about doing actual training work and regaining the confidence that I have worked on speed! The break is needed because I really have not felt that huge desire to push!

Beth:  I didn’t stop my Runkeeper app right away, but I’d gotten across the start fast and when I crossed the finish line I knew I was in the 1:57 range.  I missed my half PR by 34 seconds meaning 34 seconds faster and I would have hit my same exact PR so 35 seconds faster and I’d have a new PR barely.  But I didn’t care! I had a good race! Overall, I finished 22 in my age group and 326th in the race. The past few months I had put in a lot of hill work and with just the two short stadium workouts my trainer Johnny has had me do in the last two weeks I had that push in me during the race.  Yes, we are taking a few months off from running halfs and I’m excited to take this opportunity to get stronger!  I know that I’ll come back in the Fall making sure I conquer my overall goal of having mostly sub two half marathon races.

Once the race was over we wanted to try and see a few people who were running the marathon.  After the marathoners hit the mile 26 marker they had to keep running up this road that takes them along the gate of Fair Park and we stationed ourselves where they’d make their last turn into the park.  We cheered for a good two hours out there!  Ultimately we ended up missing the people we knew, but we managed to see Army Amy as she was closing out her marathon!  We still haven’t met you in real life, but it was good to see you out there! You were looking strong, lady!  So there you have it our Big D race recap and if you’d asked us 4 months ago after White Rock Marathon if we would ever be grateful to run in the rain again we both would have probably yelled NO!! But the rain made this race bearable!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We Are Seeing Doubles Again!

April 13, 2012 by · 3 Comments

We liked our double race weekend in March so much that we decided we needed an April repeat….or something like that! 🙂

As you probably already know from previous blog posts tomorrow we are running the Dallas CASA Superhero 5K at Lindsley Park! This race will bring a bit of newness for both of us as neither one of us have ever run at that park AND it’ll be the first time that Beth gets to run a race with her future sister-in-law!

(source)

Then Sunday morning we are running the Big D Half the first half marathon to kick off the start of our Four Seasons Challenge we decided to participate in and you know, get extra bling for when we complete it! 🙂

(source)

So it’ll be a full weekend, but hopefully a good one!  Though we have already gotten a heads up email from Big D that they are closely watching the weather for Sunday since right now there is a 70% chance of rain and/or thunderstorms for the race!  If it does rain at least it won’t be in the 40’s like White Rock Marathon was in December! =)

We both do not have set goals for this race!  We are going to go out there do our best, race smart and hopefully have a lot of fun while running! 🙂

What are YOUR weekend running plans?  We want to know!

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

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! 🙂

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,