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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New Year’s Double Eve & Day

New Year’s Double Eve & Day

February 3, 2014 by · 3 Comments

We have decided to blame #Icepocalypse on a lot of things we have found annoying lately. We also approve of any Dallasites doing the same! Prior to #Icepocalypse, we signed up to run the Day part of the New Year’s Double race to support and keep our friend Catherine entertained. She was going to use the double races as training for her 50 mile race in February. 50, yes,  50 miles, we think she is nuts too! BUT
 the stupid weather gods had other plans that basically changed the makeup of the two days. Catherine trained super hard for Dallas and wanted to race for a PR and instead decided to race the Eve portion of the the New Years Double and drop the Day race all together. That left Beth running the Day marathon solo (she would have run with Catherine the entire race) and Teal running the day half solo.

We whined
. a lot and then just decided we would make the best of it.

We woke up New Year’s Eve day and headed to Celebration Park to cheer on Catherine and Paul as they worked towards a sub 4 marathon.

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Jesse found us!

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Race spectating is hard work! …..especially when you’re preggo 🙂
photo cred: Jesse Puentes

 It totally looked like Beth was drinking a mimosa or some sort of adult bev in that giant cup until you actually learned she was pregnant, huh?

Catherine is flying!

Catherine is flying!

 We also gotta to help out another runner fan club/cheer squad and jump there car for them. 🙂  Thankfully, Teal comes prepared for such a situation!

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@mcgaritydotme having fun out on the course

@mcgaritydotme having fun out on the course

Beth and Brent stayed the night at Teal and Michael’s house and basically had a chill evening of Aggie football watching. We say “chill” but did anyone watch that game? Madness! Beth, in true Beth fashion left her Garmin at home and trekked home at midnight to get it putting us both in bed after midnight, we made it to see the ball drop! Which we really didn’t expect to happen but are glad it did. Brilliant plan for marathon and half marathon running, right?!

Luckily the race had a late start and we strolled up, went to the bathroom, chatted with Ninja and began the race. Super laid back with a small race, we even missed our wave starts, whoops.  From here there is really not much else to say except we ran the entire half together, again in true preggo running fashion, we took it super slow and cautious. 🙂 Thank god for patient running buddies who don’t kill you when you have to go to the bathroom during the race!

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After the first lap of the race we were greeted by basically the BEST bicycle cheering squad one could hope for. All of our frunners were in the area knocking out a New Year’s Day bike ride together and they decided to bike over and cheer us on! We LOVED it and it gave us a boost to run around that dang course again!!

photo cred: @thatpinkgirl

photo cred: @thatpinkgirl

We also LOVED the Frisco Running Clubs water station. They sure know what they are doing. Our crazy friend Mark was at the station and we swear you could hear is voice all over the park. He kept us motivated and ran alongside us in a few spots, but don’t worry, never more than .25 of a mile. 🙂 We might also add this station had it all, oreos, m&m’s, skittle, coffee station, and black eye peas! That’s a first for us.

photo cred: Nancy Howard

photo cred: Nancy Howard

 

Running by Frisco Running Club's water station! photo cred: Nancy Howard

Running by Frisco Running Club’s water station!
photo cred: Nancy Howard

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We are both proud to say we finished our races and love starting out the new year with a healthy activity. Next year however, we think we are sleeping in!!

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The Life & Times of LiAR

March 15, 2013 by · 3 Comments

Howdy, y’all! 🙂  We have a lot of stuff we have yet to share with you on our little bloggy blog and need to get on top of that!  But since it’s Friday (HAPPY FRIDAY!!) we figured we would give you a more picture and less words post.  If you follow us on instagram though chances are you’ve seen some of these pictures before.

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We’ve still been running!

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more running just this time in Houston!

Reading all kinds of iiinteresting things about food and learning more about what we put into our bodies!

Reading all kinds of iiinteresting things about food and learning more about what we put into our bodies!

 

Sunday Fundays!

Sunday Fundays!

 

Bulletproof coffee!

Bulletproof coffee!

Spring Break!

Spring Break!

 

Getting ready for the annual St. Paddy's Day parade on Greenville here in Dallas!

Getting ready for the annual St. Paddy’s Day parade on Greenville Avenue here in Dallas! You can find us on this float!

We hope everyone has a safe and fun St. Paddy’s Day weekend! Good luck to all of you racing! 🙂

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Happy Half-a-versary to LiAR

December 11, 2012 by · 12 Comments

Let’s just start by saying good Lord this was an early and long morning. Ok, fine, we’ve gotten up earlier for Disney races, but still. Everything said you should NOT be in downtown Dallas later than 6 a.m. Fiiine, cue alarm clocks going off in the 4 o’clock hour. Beth picked up Teal at 5 a.m. and we were in a parking spot by 5:30 a.m. So there we were with 2.5 hours to kill before the start of the race. Our early arrival insured us an awesome parking spot and first use of port-a-potties!

The corrals and port-a-potties all to ourselves!

The corrals and port-a-potties all to ourselves!

Portapotty

It’s normal to be this excited about a port-a-potty, right?!

Thankfully we realized the Luebs were down there just as early as us. More people to entertain ourselves! Then of course it was time to head to our corral where we found even more frunners to hang with before the official start.

LiAR before the race!

LiAR before the race!

Frunners in Corral A!!

Frunners in Corral A!! Photo courtesy of Heidi

Teal: I, for the first time in a while, prepared for this race in terms of, eating right the few days before, getting enough sleep before, laid out my clothes, painted my finger nails, downloaded a new playlist
etc. I reallllly wanted this race to go well. I said I didn’t need to PR and I still say that, but I did want it to feel good. You know like, those runs that almost feel effortless. I haven’t had a single one since the marathon. I wanted one just as a boost of confidence. NOPE. Fail, giant zero. This didn’t feel good. It felt like work, and I did work.

I really had debated this week’s training runs. We were scheduled for 10 at Marathon pace on Thursday. I decided to still do the run, thinking more long term to the marathon, and decided to run it a day earlier, and then rest my legs until Sunday. I figured it would be ok, but I didn’t know. Running a half marathon with 28 miles on your legs that week was probably not the best idea. I really didn’t think much of it, apparently I have more faith in my legs than they have in themselves, I thought they would recover. I don’t think they did.

Beth: So it was kind of important to me to do all that I could to make a potential PR happen at this race. This means I skipped my 10 mile run at marathon pace on Thursday. A big oops there since it goes against one of my December goals. Brent and I actually had two Birthday parties we wanted to go to the night before which had me eating a sushi dinner – not my norm, but at this point with food I don’t really have tons of issues. *knock on wood* Something I don’t take for granted, trust me! When I didn’t get full from sushi I ate goldfish on the way to the next Birthday party.  I made Brent take the bag of goldfish away so I wouldn’t eat them all, but I was still hungry. Which resulted in me stealing part of someone’s spinach quesadilla. Haha. Not my typical night before a race! Oh and not to mention we hit traffic going home, so I definitely got to bed later than I had anticipated.

Miles 1-4

Teal: These actually felt good, my pace was good, I felt like I could keep it, my legs didn’t feel bad. It was super super humid 90% and even on some accounts I saw 100% humidity and close to 70 degrees. And huge eye roll to those who say perfect running conditions. Nope. They are not; try 50 degrees, no humidity. I’ll take that. I was drenched by mile 4 and my hair was sticking to me. LOVED running over Large Marge (also known as the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge). Love that bridge and it’s a great addition to Dallas. Brian L. was at 4 to cheer us on with Mama C, Fiona and Dat! Boost of energy!!

photo courtesy of Mama C which means she's not in it :( Dat, Fiona & Brian L.

photo courtesy of Mama C which means she’s not in it 🙁 Dat, Fiona & Brian L.

photo courtesy of Mama C

photo courtesy of Mama C

Beth: Back to my goals again, I said I wanted to run a strong race and I knew that had to start from the beginning. I told myself this wasn’t the Turkey Trot and I’m not about to start being a crazy people dodger. I did the bare minimum to go by people slower than me. I kept making a conscious effort to see how I felt and slow down if necessary. My mind was also all, look! Old Red where I got married. Look! Belmont Hotel where your Bachelorette Party was and the Shepard Fairey mural you took some engagement pictures in front of that! I knew after I crossed Large Marge I’d see my first set of familiar faces and was ready to see them too!  And I looooved hearing Mama C call me Beeper at this point! Pumped me up!

photo courtesy of Mama C

photo courtesy of Mama C

Miles 5-8

Teal: Love, loved, loved running passed Scottish Rite. I love that hospital and spent a ton of time there in High school. I volunteered in Child Life my senior year, and in other areas of the hospital my Junior year. Patients and parents were outside cheering us all on. This was new and a totally good addition.

I start to feel more pain in my legs at this point. I feel labored and pretty stiff. My calf muscles were really tight and my quads ached. I just wanted to stay steady. I saw my husband and Brent around 6 and high 5’ed them. Wasn’t expected to actually see them so that was super awesome! I ended up getting super tied up at the water station around 7. I actually just stopped. It was a cluster. I think I probably spent 2 minutes here dealing with the madness. My music stopped playing and it was in my skirt zip pouch in the back. I couldn’t get it out or then back in. I asked a spectator to help me get it fixed. I think she was like “what in the world do you want me to do?” I was annoyed here and the stop made me stiffer. BONUS!!

Beth: Parts of this section of the course were similar to the past two years. Um, so I kind of just blew by Scottish Rite without paying attention.  Oops? I think I was just really determined and focused that I really kept to myself a lot this race and I might not have survived had I not done so.  I only really expended extra energy 3 times and it was each of the 3 times I saw familiar faces. Well, I guess, I expended energy in trying to see my husband which I never did. :-/ But gah, that looking for him in the crowds was tiring me out.  That’s probably just the weather factor right there. I kept thinking in this stretch, why didn’t I ask him w hat he’d be wearing? Why didn’t we figure out a mile for him to be in? I did know that Rebekah would be right around the split of the half and the full, so I kept looking for her father-in-law since he’s much taller than her. 🙂  Loved getting that high five from her at that point it totally pumped me up. Also, the wind that was occurring in random bouts during this part pumped me up as well!

Miles 8-10

Teal: I was looking everywhere for people. I thought Rebekah would be here and she was but I missed her. It really does kind of make you dizzy to find people while you are running. Which leads me to another weird thing about this race, it NEVER thinned out. It was seriously thick with people the entire time. This surprised me and it almost felt like maybe the streets were skinnier this year. I’m feeling very labored at this point and I really just wanted to stop. My legs are tight, super tight, and this is affecting the way my knee works. It always has affected it, and I have had some issues recently with the longer runs. Post runs it will hurt to even touch. This is what is happening now around 9ish. I really just want to get done and it was somewhere around this point I see the 2:10 pacer on the loop around and just said, stay in front of him and I’ll be happy.

Beth: I had known where the mile 8 sign was because we had already run by it and the split was really us running down the other side of part of the street we had just run up.  In my mind I was just trying to get to the last 5K get there and you go this.  I was going back and forth between you could PR!! It’s not happening today! Either way I knew I just need to keep going. Then I saw Brian E. in here, yelled at him but you know just to get his attention not in angry way and was glad to see a familiar face right then and there! Thanks for being out there Brian!

Miles 11-13

Teal: Just really wanted to be done. I really had no desire to keep going except I just wanted to be done. I think my shoes are too big too
 I’m running this stretch just thinking of stupid things like “ I want to eat at El Fenix, can I actually ride the escalator at Ross Perot, can I have a mimosa when I’m done, how close are we, if I was a snake my feet wouldn’t hurt, why am I not Harry Potter or Meb, or a super speedy runner, what am I going to eat for lunch next week.” I just kept thinking of the dumbest stuff to make the time go. Also, while I do *think* I like this course, it has a lot of uphill, I clearly was on another planet for the down hills because I don’t remember them. Dallas is a big city, I hated the little loopy out and back thing we did between 12 and 13, there is plenty of room to not do that, it was such a tease too, because you could see the finish line and you still had to run up and around for about .70 of a mile. Lame.

photo courtesy of Brian L.

photo courtesy of Brian L.

Beth: It should also be noted that my thought process was kind of similar to Teal’s here – what is this new restaurant next to El Fenix? I wonder if it’s good?? We should try it sometime! Anyway, and then here’s where we make our back into downtown.  Here’s where I start thinking, man, I didn’t actually give the course map a good lookin’ at, did I? Surely they wouldn’t give us a hill right here before the mile 12 marker? But we are coming into downtown from this side it’s pretty much inevitable there WILL be a hill right here. And I’m kind of glad I figured that out so I could back off my pace a little and make it to the top of that hill alive. The out and back thing was miserable and I kept wondering if people would just cut it? Haha. It was also in this stretch I saw a runner laying on the ground and being worked on by EMTs.  I have no idea what the outcome of that was but in that moment it made my heart heavy for sure!

13.1

Teal: Done and I stayed under 2:10. Not bad and really in retrospect pretty good for my week’s work itself. Not disappointed in time because that is about average for me. I am more disappointed in the feel of it, how labored it was, and the fact that my knee proceeded to be in throbbing pain for well over an hour after and then just dull pain even as I type this a day later. Damn knee
. Anyone want to trade??

Beth: Somehow, someway I had a last little kick to give at the end. You better believe I crossed that finish line with my arms up in the air.  I knew I was teetering the line because I’d heard my Runkeeper tell me I’d hit the 1:55 mark however many yards back.  So I immediately got out my phone, got on twitter to look up Brent’s twitter (I’d set his to tweet my time) and saw that I had PR’d by 11 seconds!!!! Holy crap!  Later that day I looked online at the official results which put my time at a 12 second PR. WHOOP! I had opted to wear my Aggie ring to this race and try and take some of good juju that was out there from Johnny Football winning the Heisman! 🙂

We did it! Half marathon no. 15 for the two of us and two years of racing under out belts!

with MK! We are so awesome that we are standing in number and height order!

with MK! We are so awesome that we are standing in number and height order!

Us with Melvin! We can't even tell you how much his encouragement and support means to su!

Us with Melvin! We can’t even tell you how much his encouragement and support means to us!

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The Good, the Messy & the Hilarious {Wedding Weekend Take 1}

November 8, 2012 by · 3 Comments

For the two of us ladies the whole wedding weekend kind of kicked off Thursday afternoon! Teal rocks and took not only Friday off, but also Thursday to help me with last minute things.  Priorities first though we went that afternoon with my mom and sister, Kate, to get manicures & pedicures for the weekend.  The nail salon loved Kate, Teal and me because we all wanted the exact same colors on our fingers and toes, but it gave us more time to drink our wine since they only had one bottle of the green polish!

Green and gray to match the wedding colors!

Then the four of us were off to run a few errands.  Teal and I stopped by Target for wine and goldfish. 🙂 Y’all, these are essentials in our lives – haha! And then Teal very graciously continued to stick around and helped me do a mock of the cupcake table, pack up all those supplies in bins, get the place cards ready to go and really just get organized for the weekend.  Also, a big shout out to my sister too for all her input and helping me load up our cars that night to head to downtown Dallas Friday afternoon!

This is from Wednesday when my SIL, Tiffany, and littlest nephew, Easton, were over helping me with stuff. My sister & I’s house has been a wedding mess forever. Thanks for putting up with me and the wedding mess!

Friday my dad’s sisters and my one and only girl cousin threw me an awesome bridal luncheon! I’m sad because I don’t think I snapped a picture with just them at the luncheon. 🙁  But should you read this Aunt Cindy, Aunt Leslie and Erin I am truly blessed by the 3 of you and lucky to have such wonderful women in my life I get to call family! It was so fun to just get to hangout with the ladies in my family and  my wedding party!

Mother of the Bride & Bride

Sisters!

LiAR!

 

My House Party dude! 🙂

I was fiiinally able to give my Bridesmaids their presents for being in my wedding.  One of the things I gave them in particular I was trying really hard to either keep it all or aspects of it a secret, but one of them ended up having to teach my mom and me how to make so she knew ALL about it.  My mom sewed clutch purses for all of my Bridesmaids (well and me, my MIL and herself – a lot of purses!) and I don’t really sew so the only contribution I was really able to make was being the fabric cutter.  Lots of hours went into these bad boys but thankfully we started pretty early on them and they were done well in advance of the wedding! I think they’re sooo cuute!  Thank you to my mom for generously giving up all of that time to work on these for me amongst other things!

One of the other things I got them and was really excited about was that OPI in the spring, I think, came out with a Holland collection (my future last name), so I was able to find a good deal on a set of the Holland collection nail polishes. Perfect timing, OPI!

Anyway, after that we all kind of went in separate directions until the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner that night. Brent and I both grew up in Dallas, but didn’t know each other so pretty much the whole weekend of events was in Dallas proper which seemed appropriate with both of us being born (same hospital just a couple years apart) and raised here.  The wedding venue had some fabulous views of the Dallas skyline, and my in-laws also picked out a wonderful rehearsal dinner venue with just as awesome views!

Bride & Father of the Bride ready to rehearse!

with my in-laws to be (the next day)

The rehearsal dinner was full of good food, lots of laughs and just fun time with family and close friends.  Brent & I are truly blessed by the not only amazing family we have but the true friends in our lives!  After dinner a lot of us headed to the hotel bar to have more time to just hangout before we called it a night.  Eventually Brent left to head to his house for the night  and most of the wedding party was staying at the hotel so when we were ready to call it a night we just went upstairs.  And let’s end this Friday night on a funny note – when Kate, Teal and I got to our floor and off the elevator we look to our left and what do we see?  Two men in their boxer briefs wrestling. Haha.

**Disclaimer: There are SO many people that graciously gave of their time and helped me out throughout the last year of my life if you weren’t specifically mentioned in this post please know that doesn’t mean I forgot about you or by any means am not completely indebted to you for your time you shared with me.**

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October Report & November Goals

November 6, 2012 by · 9 Comments

There are just really not many clever ways to make the title of these blog posts more exciting….anyway!

The Report:

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

F: We bailed on this race because we decided it was the best life choice at the time in terms of getting to goal number 3 in one piece. Not to mention the fact that it was Beth’s dad’s birthday and it would have been madness to run the race in Tyler and get back to Dallas. We decided that Texas doesn’t really have 4 seasons anyways. 🙂

2. Start marathon training!

C: Sorta? We have done some of our running and have for sure missed 2 long runs so we shall see how the rest of this month goes. We hope it won’t kill us too much as they were “shorter long runs”

3. Get Beth married!

A++: Done! She is now a Holland! Recap of the wedding coming shortly!

This picture cracks me up!

It really was an an incredible night! Oh, and check out that ring – he’s really my husband now! 🙂

 

 

The Goals:

Teal –

1. Get my house in order without losing it! I am too routine and orderly for this mess. See this madness…

 

2. Get my butt/mind in gear for marathon training. I feel so blah about it right now. It doesn’t feel right or like it is supposed to happen and I need to figure out how to get excited about it!

3.  Send out Christmas cards by the end of the month! We have only done this once and I want to make it a tradition.

4. Successfully host Thanksgiving at my house for the first time (ties to number 1 big time). Pressure is on for number 1 for sure!

Beth –

Please be shocked and amazed that I find myself in sync with Teal and have almost all the same goals for this month! 🙂

1. Get my house in order!  I didn’t get ALL of my stuff moved out of my sister’s house before the wedding and with wedding presents there are A LOT of boxes over at my new house with my husband. 🙂 🙂 We both don’t like messes so this is hard to look at right now until we get it all organized and into place.

2. Get in the game with marathon training!

3. Have all Christmas cards addressed and ready to be sent out by December 1st!  I’m so excited to send out Christmas cards this year! 🙂  I have them already to order, so this goal shouldn’t be too hard to tackle!

4. I’m bringing back my yoga goals, and in baby steps. Yoga once a week!  If I don’t start doing this I’m going to need to either cancel my membership or freeze it to save some moolah.

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Texas Doesn’t Really Have Four Seasons Anyway!

October 8, 2012 by · 6 Comments

Happy Monday, friends!  Thank you to everyone who is bearing with us as we are in the last couple of weeks before THE wedding and trying to get everything accomplished!  Speaking of the wedding…this weekend we kicked off our Saturday with a wedding shower for Beth thrown by her mom’s close friends.

photo courtesy of Kate O. Lynch

We don’t actually have a picture of us there together. Sad day! But there were mimosas there – yum!

In our Taco Run recap Teal mentioned that she’d strained her groin muscle and the reality of that strain was the potential need to take an entire week off from running.  BUT race 3 out of 4 in our four season challenge was scheduled for this Sunday!?  We discussed how this was possibly sign #2 that we weren’t meant to do this challenge right now.  The day before the Hottest Half in August Teal had a calf injury due to some fun tubing on the lake.  We both said that no matter what training for our marathon was more important than running Tyler Rose and to worsen the muscle strain on Teal was not an option for us.  Turns out she was getting back to normal by the end of the week, so we could run Tyler Rose!

BUT that didn’t mean we ready to spend the four hours in the car for the round trip out to Tyler.  We might have been a little ambitious back in March when we thought doing a race 21 days before Beth’s wedding would be a good idea.  Well, not just a race, but a race where we would be getting up at 4:00 a.m., driving two hours to the race, running two-ish hours and then driving back to Dallas for two hours.

Beth’s sister, Kate, made the executive decision for us (because neither one of us wanted to actually make it) that we would stay put in Dallas. Thank you,Kate! So Sunday morning we met up for our first long run of marathon training – 13.1 miles. We’re coming for you Louisiana Marathon!

We had a cold front come through Friday night so the chilly weather was still there Sunday morning.  For the first time in a long time we went outside to 48 degree weather!  Of course you know it’s always hard to remember what exactly you want to wear in that type of weather, but we were both content with our choices and neither one of us got overly hot out on the run.  Details you really wanted to know about, right??

Teal’s fancy new garmin!

Of course at this stage in the game a half is something we have done a lot of, so we both felt good out there.  This weekend does mark a first for us – DNS.  We’ve run a lot of races and had yet to DNS, but we did and we don’t regret it. We needed to for our own sanity.  We will still race the 4th half in our four seasons challenge come February, but we won’t actually receive that four seasons medal. 🙁

 

A couple of the other benefits of us staying tight in Dallas instead of going to Tyler was Beth got to be on time to Birthday brunch for her dad, and we both had the opportunity to grocery shop and prepare for our 10 day cleanse.  That’s right – we are advocare cleansing again! 🙂  When we’ve done this in the past we have had quite a few questions about it which also includes Beth asking Teal eleventy billion questions each time, so we’ve decided to share more details of our cleanse throughout this week and maybe a little of next week with you too. 🙂  Hope at least one or two of you out there are interested in knowing more.

What was your first race DNS? Do you regret?

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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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When You’re Too Busy to Run Just Run for the Tacos

September 28, 2012 by · 7 Comments

Ummmm how is it September 28th?  We know it has flown by and it is officially less than a month until Beth’s wedding! And yes we know we say that every month…maybe when the wedding is over we’ll stop saying it. 🙂 Maybe. Crunch time for everything and we are having a super hard time getting all of our running in soooooo we have therefore signed up for a last minute race just to make sure we get it in! On Wednesday we both signed up to run The Great Taco Run 10 miler! This ends up being perfect because right after we signed up a few things came up to get done over the weekend and now we at least have a paid excuse as to why we have to run first! You do what you gotta do, right?? This is a perfect distance for us this weekend given its only 1 week until the Tyler Rose half marathon, the 3rd of our four seasons challenge!  Neither one of us have gotten in a good long run in a while (raise your hand if you are not shocked by this trend!)

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Apparently tacos are becoming the new post race eating trend and this Dallas race has decided to jump on that bandwagon. We totally don’t mind, and in fact we are pretty sure this will make Beth’s fiancĂ© jealous! 13 different taco shops in Dallas will be at the after race portion to hand out tacos to the runners! The runners will get to try each taco and vote on the best! HELLO, we aren’t sure why we didn’t think of this first. The winner is apparently announced on October 4th, which just so happens to be National Taco Day, in case you didn’t know!

Bonus- this race supports Friends of the Katy Trail, one of the most popular running trails in North Texas, as well as the Trinity Strand Trail who is working super hard to organize a new 7.8 mile trail along the Trinity River waterway! So we totally don’t feel bad for “last minute signing up” for this race just to get in a long run.

Beth has actually run a 10 miler sans Teal at the White Rock ‘n’ Roll race in May. She finished with a time of 1:32:16 and Teal has never actually run a 10 miler before! Either way we should both be in for a good long run!

Will we see anyone there?  If so let us know because we, as usual, would totally love to meet/see/hang out with you!

How do you guys balance life’s madness with running? We like tips for sure. We are literally about to start training for our second marathon! This race will actually kick it off! Let us know how you keep on track!

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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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