Ft. Worth Marathon But You Know Only the Half

November 13, 2012 by · 5 Comments

Perhaps it was the mix of activities for Beth’s wedding or the fact that both of our houses have been a complete disaster, or that we didn’t see each other for a week, or any number of other things but let’s just say this half definitely snuck up on us. We didn’t even do a pre-race post! Whoops?? Perhaps just another bit of proof of our not preparedness.

We double bagged our phones in case it really did rain during the race

Because we were driving to Ft. Worth we wanted to make sure we got to the race in time and especially since we had to get our packets that day!  Teal wasn’t even actually sure she had registered and the guy couldn’t find her name on the list… Oh, he was looking at the list for the marathon, but it was rather hilarious that we really couldn’t remember. So by the time we finished picking them up we had about an hour and a half to kill before our race started.  The different distances at this race are staggered by 30 minutes, so it was a 7:30 a.m. start for the marathon, 8:00 a.m. start for the 20 miler and a 8:30 a.m. start for the half.

Look at how long this race shirt is?!

Miles 1-5

Teal: We talked to Caron before the race and she had mentioned taking it 5 miles at a time. In my head that sounded like a good plan, I hadn’t fully registered that she was running the 20 mile when I decided that sounded great, and it sorta works for a ½ so I went with that. 1-5 seemed to take forever and I couldn’t really figure out why. I am usually done with a mile in about 3ish songs and by mile one I had heard 5. This was not registering with me. Apparently not being prepared also causes my brain to not work. The course was flat for the most part which made me happy! It was too windy to deal with hills too. The wind at points was rather ridiculous.

Beth:  I really didn’t have a game plan in my head AT ALL about this race.  I knew I needed to not start too fast considering the month of October I let my marathon training and mileage be all over the place. 🙁  Plus Thursday night I was hit with a 24 hour stomach bug. So I thought I’d just kind of play it by ear!  Soon after we started and I had turned on my runkeeper there was no music coming from it.  Then I remembered how I had turned the music option off in the app while I was in Hawaii, so I just tried to turn on some music.  When I did it was a slow song, so then I remembered how Thursday night I’d just put my music on shuffle during my stairmaster workout.  To make things even more fun I’d turn down the brightness on my iPhone to help save some battery life which means I couldn’t see through the two plastic bags I had my phone in to turn on a playlist.  My music during this race consisted of almost every slow song on my phone and Christmas music. Ha.

Miles 6-8

Teal: Still not bad but super freaking windy. I was ready to get to the turn around. Not to mentioned this women that had thrown her water on Beth was about to get my foot up her toosh! ( I mean I really would never do that) but she was that much on my nerves. She kept cutting me off for no reason, or running right next to me within like breathing distance. Sometimes Beth and I run like that next to each other but that is because we are LONG TIME RUNNING BUDDIES!! Back up off lady! At 8 I finally was annoyed at how long this seemed to be taking and the time not adding up so I asked Beth what we were really at. She said 7.96! Sweet! I had us at 7.41, so apparently my trusty little Garmin was also not prepared for the day! I actually felt a little energy

Beth: Um, yes to the freaking windy! Do you remember how at the Taco Run there was a guy that messed with my head for the last few miles of the race? Guess who was here at this race? Did you say the Mind Messer Man then you are correct!  I forget when but at one point we caught him and passed him a teeny tiny little bit, but don’t worry, y’all, he surged and he passed us! There was just this nice stretch of me being annoyed that he was there and with the lady who dumped the whole cup of water on me.  It’s one of those things where I get that you don’t want to STOP and walk with your water, but for the love, at least slow down a little.  Her technique of trying to grab a small cup of water at full speed was not affective.  At one water station where I didn’t even get water I was excited because she behind me so no water on me! Wrong, she spilled a cup on my feet. We should also mention that I for one ran more than 13.1 on this race course. Yes, I know tangents, we wrote a blog that included that in it.  There were a couple parts of the course where it split and was either a gravel/dirt path or a paved path and there were no markers to say stay this or what not. I just don’t like courses when it makes me wonder if I’m on the intended path or not?

Miles 9-13.1

Teal: My energy from that .6ish mile increase made me happy and until 10 I was happy. Then at like 10.1 I wanted to die. I had dropped a little behind Beth but just at the perfect timing she slowed to let me catch her! We stayed together until about 11 again and then it was just get home to the finish line. I could see the storm coming in and was just ready to be done mentally but my body just said, Nope you are staying at this pace. I managed to get in and done but was ready to die. My legs hurt and I was pretty shaky and actually a little dizzy. I think the fact that the running was off and 10 mile long runs missed made this difficult. Overall however, I am not disappointed! I finished with a clock time of 2:07 something and really wanted to find out the real time! I am not disappointed with that as it is still pretty quick for me!!

Beth: I was going back and forth on how I was doing and telling myself when you get to 10 it’s just going to be another 5k.  I kind of got pumped at one point and was like LET’S DO THIS!!!  Then at 10 I told myself to take a chill pill.  I was pushing myself too much too fast.  I was coming off inconsistent running and being stick with a stomach bug (a.k.a. not holding food down). So I stopped to find Teal because I was pretty sure if I didn’t chill out and run with her I was not going to make it. When we were about 2 miles out from the finish line I knew I could do this and pushed a little bit harder and at some point in here I passed Mind Messer Man when he stopped to get water. YES! All, I had to do was keep him behind me now! And I did! We actually talked briefly after he crossed the finish line. He was all – weren’t you at the Taco Run? Considering how the last month has been and being sick I am dang proud of this race, but now I got some work to do! We have another half coming up that if I don’t PR at it I better be dang near close!

 

Results:

Teal: 2:06:27, finished 17th in her age group

Beth: 2:05:15, finished 16th in her age group

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The Happiest Race on Earth Weekend [Part Two]

September 5, 2012 by · 7 Comments

Like we mentioned in our post yesterday, Disneyland Half started bright and early at 5:45 a.m., and we had about a twenty to twenty-five minute drive into Anaheim that morning. We made it out the door by 4:10 a.m. – if only we’d asked Chris to refresh our memories of the directions he gave us last year to get to Disneyland. We did not get there, parked and in the corral with that much time to spare, but thankfully we did make it into the corral before the race started. We were actually able to make a quick port-a-pottie trip and even able to snap a picture. Kind of laughing because this guy had just offered to take a picture of the lady taking our picture with us then he realized “ohh, you aren’t wearing a matching outfit like them!”

That guy and his two buddies with him all had on matching knee high yellow socks. They started being all chatting and the main thing that stuck with us was one of them saying “what’s your goal for today? 1:45? 1:30?” We responded with “we’ve kind of been slacking because we are starting marathon training soon so…..no, not a 1:45 or 1:30” Not to mention neither of us has ever run a half anywhere near that fast! We then overheard them talking out a plan for the race ” let’s start out at an 8:45 pace til mile….then at mile…we’ll go down to a 8:15” And next thing we know the announcers are sending us on our way!

(source)

We had really been hoping to see Lisa before the race since we were all in corral A, but we had just gotten there too late for that to happen! We would have held out hope to see her at the end, but we didn’t need to as she found us very quickly after the start! From here we give our race recap from our own perspectives –

Miles 1-3

Teal: I was overall very scared of what would happen during this race given that 2 weeks earlier I wanted to die after 4 miles and really had one of the worst races ever. I do not feel in shape right now so I worried big time. Running in California and the weather there proves to be the biggest God send in racing! It’s SOOOO much different than Texas madness and my body just does a complete 180 in terms of how it feels. Miles 1-3 felt awesome! The crowd is amazing; going through the park is so fun. We had a few changes this year at the beginning! The colored lights in the water and a run through cars world made it awesome. I think at one point I looked at Beth and said “yea this race is soo much better than Disneyworld” and really I mean so much better than most races period. It’s just so different in terms of the atmosphere, the Disney staff really comes out to support and there is never a dull moment.

Beth: I had not set any goals for this race and last year we had both run it at the 2:00-ish mark, so that and my want to run more sub 2:00 halfs than not in 2012 was all lingering in the back of my mind. BUT my performance at Hottest Half and just running this summer didn’t give me that faith in myself to pull through this race with a satisfying to me time. The first few miles of this race were really fun! We ran through California Adventures and got to see the cool water/light show at Paradise Pier (wish I could have snapped a not blurry picture there) and see the new Cars area of the park! I knew my nephew Wesley would LOVE it if I had taken a picture with Tow-Mater and/or Lightning McQueen and shown it to him, but no, I didn’t want to stop. 🙂 Sorry, Wesley! Plus, I didn’t want to lose Teal and Lisa so early on in the race!

photo by Michael Huey

(source)

Miles 4-8

Teal: I am still doing really well body wise here. I just keep giving myself a mile goal every time I hit the Disney sign. I knew my runkeeper was off because I started it too early. I just kept saying, one mile at a time and get there under X time frame. This worked well and I really felt good. I think I slowed down slightly from Beth and Lisa around 6.5 or 7 but I still felt ok, just not like I could keep that pace up for the entire race. I knew once I got to 8 it would be ok, but closer to mile 8 I really got that “ I’m not in shape chest pressure feel” if anyone knows what that really is, it was just hard to breathe for no other reason than I was tiring. I knew Angel’s stadium was around 9 miles from last year and really focused on getting there! I should also add that this stretch of the race was lame because the sun was literally right in your eyes and you could almost not even see all the things they had lining the streets! This section had tons of both vintage and modern cars that you just couldn’t see because of the glare.

Beth: We’ve just left Disneyland and are out running on the streets of Anaheim. This is the part where Disney does a fabulous job of not leaving us all our there alone. With all the cheer squads, bands and different dancers (Hawaiian and mariachi) you can’t help but stay pumped up. I was trying to take it mile by mile and see how I felt. The beginning of this section, I believe, was where there is the on big incline (bridge) to run over and I was excited when it didn’t take a whole lot out of me.  It was somewhere between mile 6 and 7 that I kind of evaluated how I felt as I had been waiting to reach the halfway-ish point for that.  I giggled a little when I heard to other runners discussing where the half way point was and that it would be at 6.55 miles.  I knew we’d kept our pace under 9:30/mile, so I decided to just go for it.  See what all I had to give.  It was also at this point the sun was in my eyes, so I just put my head down and went for it.  I knew that exciting times were ahead of me based on running this race last year and reaching the Honda Center in mile.  So I knew that Angels Stadium was up after that and I just kept thinking “did they change it this year? Do we still get to go through the stadium?! Please let us still go through the stadium!!”

Miles 9-13.1

Teal: Home stretch!! Thank god. I also love everyone’s reaction going into the stadium. This women next to me literally starting yelling “ This is so cool, this is amazing, are we really going in there!?” It’s just so freaking cool. I wish Dallas ( wink wink ) would do something like that! Hello, both Rangers and the Dallas Cowboys Stadium are right next to each other! The last 5 miles of this race were a test. I was very tired but I knew I wanted to just keep running and get it over with. After running through Angel’s stadium you really get a burst of energy. At about 10 miles my true test came. I don’t know if I was running very tight in my upper body or what, but my entire chest from like mid chest all the way to mid back felt strained, like muscle strained (it actually still hurts now, 4 days later) so something was up. That coupled with my “out of shape feeling” from before was extremely painful. I just kept taking deeper breathes and kept going. At around 12 I ended up passing one of our yellow sock boys from the beginning. He was too far away for me to get the energy to run over to, but he was completely stopped stretching his calf muscles! It might be evil but in my head that made me so happy to beat him, given their predictions at the beginning of the race! Shortly after, around 12.5 this kid running in front of me literally lost his breakfast! I had to jump over it as to not run in it. I still was pretty close to him at the finish and he threw up again. I keep laughing because you can even see him do it in the Disney video of the finish!! Gross! That is the first time I have come that close to someone throwing up ON me.

Beth: As I got closer I knew we were in fact going into Angels Stadium again and I was SO excited!  The energy in there is incredible!  It was also going into the stadium that there was a Clif Station where they were passing out gels.  I was so glad because I’d actually forgotten to get my Hammer gel out of my purse that morning. Anyway, back to the stadium, the energy just came upon you immediately!  I did my best to high five as many boy scouts, girl scouts and other little kids that were front row. What a high!  I had kind of forgotten that just shortly after leaving the stadium we would hit the 10 mile mark!  And shortly after that was when I saw one of the yellow socks guys.  Pretty positive a grin probably spread across my face seeing him stopped and stretching his calf out. Evil? Yes, I probably am, especially since I went and hit him on the arm and said “let’s go yellow socks!”  He ran with me for a minute and I told him “We just have a 5K left let’s do this” and I might have followed that up with “you can’t let me beat you across the finish line!”  He said he accepted the challenge and then a minute later was stopped again. Another little burst of energy from knowing that they had been talking a big game in the corral, but I’d finish ahead of him.  From here until the end all I was thinking was “can I make this in under two hours?? Can I really pull this off?! It is going to be so freakin’ close if I do!”  Just kept digging deep and I’d also like to say that I really felt the impact of my bleacher Tuesday workouts through this race.  I feel like that really did have a huge part of my performance at this race!  I got to mile 12 and knew I needed to play it safe.  If I push too hard here I won’t make it across that finish line without throwing up, but I also didn’t want to play it too safe and regret not pushing a little bit harder.  I heard someone say to me as I was leaving Angels Stadium, “you’re still running this with a smile on your face!”  Yah, it totally disappeared in mile 12. Ha!  I got closer to the finish line and again knew I was teetering the two hour mark, tried to push a little harder, and no, there’s the need to vomit.  I held it in until I got to the trash can just on the other side of the finish line (my video at the finish line you can actually see me throw up – ha!). Done! But did I make it in under 2 hours? I didn’t think so, I was pretty convinced I had run a 2:00:10 half.  The official race photographers actually captured a picture of me where I have the I am going to vomit look on my face ! Ha.

We also think it is cool to see what a difference even 2 weeks makes! Just look at these splits (even though they are slightly embarrassing) This is improvement and we totally feel like progress is being made from this slump in running lately! Yea!

Teal:

Beth:

Regardless, we DID IT!!  We completed our two Disney races and earned our Coast to Coast Challenge medal!  Teal actually overheard someone after receiving their Coast to Coast medal say “this cost me $2,000.”  Which is why we need to say a BIG thank you to Chris for allowing us to stay with him and drive his car this past weekend!  We canNOT thank you enough and we both look forward to seeing you next month at Beth’s wedding!! 🙂 It is such a pretty, shiny medal though!

If we did not express it enough earlier, we would like to take the opportunity to say this is a fabulous race!  The course is awesome for multiple reasons – the water stations are fabulous, wonderful volunteers, so much course entertainment and so many awesome course sights to see!  We highly, HIGHLY recommend you take the opportunity to plan a trip to Disneyland over Labor Day weekend and experience this awesome race!  This race might not see us again for awhile or at all, but it truly is a once in a lifetime experience (we were just lucky enough to experience it twice).  We hope to hear of more running friends going out to Anaheim and enjoying it!  We wanna read your recaps and live vicariously through you!! 🙂

Overall Results

Teal: 2:08:12, finished 2,720th out of 14,829 finishers, 1,053rd female and 198th in age group

Beth: 1:59:58, finished 1,779th out of 14,829 finishers, 585th female and 97th in age group

To see more pictures from our Disneyland Half race weekend please checkout the Life is a Run Facebook Page

What is your absolute favorite race you’ve run so far??

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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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