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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Beth’s Bachelorette Bash

July 23, 2012 by · 14 Comments

As you might remember in our Throwback Thursday post a couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that Beth’s bachelorette party was that weekend! It has taken Teal this long to recover and recoup so I figured now was the time to let you all in on the excitement of the weekend.

Beth’s sister Kate was pretty much the mastermind of this event. We started the weekend by checking in at the Belmont Hotel in the in the Bishops Arts district. This is an awesome newly renovated 1940’s boutique hotel! We highly recommend checking it out.

That night we decided to keep it low key, as to go all out Saturday. We headed to Tillman’s Roadhouse for dinner and drinks. Even though it was low key we weren’t letting Beth out without her super classy bachelorette garb made by our friend Rebekah!

Dinner was awesome and even included table side smores!

Mmmmmm!!

In case you haven’t met us, we EAT! We headed to brunch at Smoke (which is conveniently located next to the Belmont Hotel!) Saturday morning, it is conveniently attached to the hotel! After Smoke we hit the pool to burn a few hours before heading out to Dry Bar! This pool has an amazing view of the Dallas skyline.

If you have never seen straight haired Beth, prepare to be amazed! All of us had our hair blown out at Dry Bar- if you have never been GO! They are awesome, include an adult beverage or two, and completely do your hair for you! We like!

We hadn’t totally planned this out, but we wanted to try the drinks at the hotel bar a.k.a. Bar Belmont and made a quick stop there before dinner! So many mixings on the beverages! Eeek!!  What to choose?

Every bride needs lingerie so we turned dinner into a lingerie party as well! We won’t mention the creepy waiter who lingered around for that part, oh wait.. we did, yuck!!

After dinner we headed across the street to Prime Bar where we put Beth to work! She too had a “scavenger hunt” and succeeded like a champ! Just to give you a little idea here are a few pics of her efforts!

 

Get 5 guys take a picture with you of their belly buttons. These guys were awesome!

We promise there were actually 5 of them!

Show us your muscles! She even got his first shirt off!

Get the advice of 5 male strangers on marriage!

Definitely some interesting advice out there!

Call the last person on a cell phone!

Pic with a guy named Brent- we at least we think that was his name! 🙂

We made one last stop at Dee Lincoln’s Bubble Bar for her last three tasks and headed to the hotel! Great ending to a perfect night!

Beth is such a trooper and we are now just a few days away from the 3 month mark until the wedding! Where has the time gone?

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Throwback Thursday: Bachelorette Style

July 12, 2012 by · 10 Comments

Since Beth’s bachelorette party is this weekend we thought in today’s post we would take you back to when we had this similar weekend for Teal in 2008! 🙂

Remember Hurricane Ike? Well, we do because as a result of that hurricane the weather was baaaad the majority of Teal’s bachelorette party weekend! It even kept our friend, Rebekah, from flying in to Dallas from New Hampshire. 🙁 But per usual, when one of our friend’s isn’t able to be somewhere with us, we brought along Rebekah-on-a-stick.
But have no fear – we are fun and thus kept the whole weekend fun! The above picture of Teal is from the nice restaurant we ate at on Friday night which actually burned down sooooo we couldn’t even tell you the name of it.
Saturday night we went out to one of both of our favorite restaurants in DFW for dinner, Cuba Libre! Mmmmm, queso and plantain chips! Which ironically is also no longer! But only because the owner decided to try a new concept by remodeling, changing names and switching up the menu….needless, to say new concept didn’t last. A lot of restaurants from this weekend are no more. 🙁

finishing Teal’s mojitos so we can go out to the bars!

In typical bachelorette party fashion Teal had a set of challenges she had to complete throughout the night and let me tell you – Teal is one good sport!

Teal and her challenge cards!

Call the last person a complete stranger called on their cell phone –

Check!

Sing I’m a Little Teapot to complete strangers –

Check!

On a side note Teal ended up singing to a group of guys next to us at dinner who were out for a bachelor party!

Get a sock from a random stranger –

Check!

Get a pair of underwear from a random man –

Check!

I’m not sure Teal was challenged to put on the pair of underwear from a random man, but she did accept that challenge anyway –

Overall, it was a FABULOUS weekend! And here is to this weekend! Now we will leave you with one more awesome dance picture –

Have a great bachelorette party: check!

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Do You Compete Every Day?

April 27, 2012 by · 2 Comments

As a follow up to our random Wordless Wednesday post the other day we thought we’d give those of you who do not know who or what Compete Every Day is some more background!

We found out about Compete Every Day first at Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas expo and while standing in their booth Teal went “wait a minute! I know that model in the picture! She’s engaged to one of my co-workers!” Turns out one of her co-workers is also a model in some of the pictures! But really that’s besides the point. The point is Compete Every Day is a cool company based here in Dallas.

Ok, what are we competing for every day? might be what you are thinking right now! That’s what is cool about Compete Every Day….they don’t just mean compete for your fitness or to win race (even though that might be just what you are doing), but instead look at your life as a whole. What are the things you value most in your life? Family? Friends? Faith?

Or what is going on in life today that you are competing for?

And as a reminder to yourself you can purchase one of their comfy shirts, tanks, hoodies, shorts or even a wristband to remind you to Compete Every Day.

All the CED products we proudly own!

So why do we like Compete Every Day so much?

Well, you know now that we love what Compete Every Day means. We love local businesses with products that are worthwhile and unique. The connection was just a bonus. We have since then learned on our own that they have great customer service and super comfortable workout gear with a great message. We hope you’ll at the very least checkout Compete Every Day, but let us know if you do make a purchase!

Happy Friday!

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Wordless Wednesday No. 22

April 25, 2012 by · 3 Comments

Compete Every Day

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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!

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The Day We Got to Be Superheroes

April 15, 2012 by · 5 Comments

If you’re not from the Dallas area then you probably have no idea that the forecast called for rain on Saturday and Sunday this past weekend. Well, at least in the beginning of the week! The weather gods must have smiled upon Dallas CASA as they put on their first ever Superhero 5K because the rain did not make an appearance!

If you read our pre-race post then you know that neither one of us really  had a goal for this race, weeelll, we aren’t fully capable of just making a race an easy/laid back/casual race.  There is very much a competitive edge that lives on in each of us.  Plus as the temperatures are staring to go up and bring us the hot weather goals for a race can change in our minds in an instance.

Lindsay, Teal a.k.a. The Green Lantern and Beth a.k.a. Ms. Marvel

Lindsay, Brent and Beth

The race start was counted down and we were off!  We got going running side by side with each other and the course started out with a couple of hills right around Lindsley Park (where the 5K was held).  We powered through them though and from there the course took us onto the Santa Fe Trail which neither one of us had ever run on before.  About the last half mile we got off the Santa Fe Trail and pushed on towards the finish line.  It was probably about here were as a result of how hard we were running Teal first felt the need to throw up.  As we got to about the 3 mile mark Beth was starting to need to throw up. Ha!  Both of us successfully made it across that finish line without any throwing up.  Although Beth can’t say that for after crossing the finish line. 🙂  But that’s a sign of knowing you gave it your all in a 5K right???

Teal had paid more attention to how many females may or may not have been in front of us finishing the 5K.  We thought that at the very least Teal might have placed in our age group, so Beth & Brent stuck around in the end to find out since Teal had to get to work.  Before they announced any results they gave a big shout out to a little girl named Teal for being a Superhero that day by bringing all of her allowance to the race to donate to CASA.  How sweet is that?  And kind of fun that her name is Teal!  Unfortunately, the awards part of the race only mentioned who won the race and from there who won in each age division.  In our age group it was a man so he was the only person announced.  So Beth left there still not knowing exactly how we did.  It wasn’t until results were put up online that we found out we finished 1st and 2nd in our age group and 18th and 19th overall!

If only they had done an award for the male and female in each age group Teal would have gotten an award!!  This race brings a new PR for Beth!  We are both so proud of how we did especially considering Beth’s previous PR and Teal’s PR was from an all out flat course.  We definitely gave it our all and owned those hills instead of letting them own us!  You should definitely consider signing up for this race next year! Just a fun atmosphere with everyone dressed up in their Superhero costumes!  They had everything from Quail Man (who remembers him??) to generic superheroes to Wonder Woman.  Lots of great costumes out there!

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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!

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What’s a CASA??

April 10, 2012 by · 2 Comments

If you follow us on twitter or have connected with us on Facebook then you might already know that this Saturday we are running in the first ever Dallas CASA Superhero 5K and Family Fun Run.  Beth’s future mother-in-law works for CASA and is really the main reason we know about their 5K this coming weekend.  Yes, we are also doing Big D half on Sunday – we like to do double race weekends! We’re crazy like that! 🙂

Both of us have been familiar with CASA for quite some time, but realized that not everyone might not know as much as we do! So we’ll let you in on that –

CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) is a nonprofit organization of community volunteers who serve as voices in court for abused and neglected children.  CASA volunteers are trained and supervised to advocate for the best interests of children in protective care and to make recommendations that help judges decide what is best for each child. For many children, a CASA volunteer is the one constant during a frightening, uncertain time. A CASA volunteer can have an immediate and critical impact on the life of a child. Less than half of the children in protective care in Dallas County have CASA voices in court. 

Fun fact for you – the sole reason that each of us know about CASA is because in college we each had a friend who was a Kappa Alpha Theta and well CASA is Theta’s philanthropy.

The superhero theme behind the race is because – Like the superheroes of childhood, CASA volunteers know that in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for abused children, they must never give up. They also know that they are more powerful when working together. The Superhero 5K brings our community together as superheroes for abused children to help Dallas CASA provide volunteer advocates for every child who needs one.

Did you know that there are more than 2,000 children in Dallas County who have been removed from their homes and are waiting for the courts to decide where they can live safely and permanently?  

As of now only two out of five abused children have CASA volunteers to advocate for their best interests and help them find safe, permanent homes.

So we would love for you to come join us, come help support Dallas CASA and help spread the word about  who CASA is and what they are doing for local Dallas County children!

Children are very near and dear to both of our hearts as Teal is a middle school teacher and Beth majored in elementary education in college, and it is our privilege to help support a great cause through our running! Registration is still open at runontexas.com

Dallas CASA superheroes to race for a better future
for abused and neglected children

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ZOOMA Zoom Zoom & a Boom Boom!

April 4, 2012 by · 9 Comments

Perhaps if we believed in signs we would have seen this weekend’s madness coming but alas we did not…..

As you may know  we had a race this weekend in Austin, the ZOOMA’s [women geared yet men are welcome!] race series half marathon. Because we live in North Dallas we were not able to make the expo so we had to have our bibs mailed, and due to uncontrolled matters Beth did not receive her bib. We were a little worried/stressed but we were able to get that solved [thanks to Tricia for helping us out!].  Teal, worried about chaffing as usual and really wanted to stop at Lululemon for a running skirt. So much so she was willing to try anything (and yes, body glide is not totally working). We stopped, shopped, and then sat down and ate dinner.  We actually didn’t leave North Texas until after 8. Whoops?? We arrived in Austin to literally crawl in bed to wake up in less than 6 hours.

We got up, realized we hadn’t prepared food wise for the race and basically were like – Whelp, what can we do? Not a good sign here for us. We had PB sandwiches and shared some Swedish fish left over from our Rock ‘n’ Roll race weekend. Haha.

The race started right on time and it is clear that neither of were really paying all that much attention because as soon as we crossed the start line we had to run up our first of MANY hills.

This one was not too bad, but we kind of looked at each other in a “oh lord, is this a sign of things to come?” way.  We knew the race was a “challenging course” per the website, but we really had NO CLUE what we were about to get into, we hadn’t seen or maybe missed an elevation map. So we were completely clueless!!

As you know we both had just come off of pretty successful half’s the week before at RnR Dallas, and it was clear within a mile that our legs were not feeling it. Teal looked at Beth and was said “I feel like a brick” Beth agreed. Crap! We kept running along, Beth decided for fun to keep track of the hills we ran because it was that crazy. After mile two, we had counted 9 hills. We are not talking little ant hills, these things were insane. We started walking up the 9th hill at mile 2. NINTH! Oh crap. We have 11.1 miles left.  13.1 had never seemed so long before to us.

We continued this,  “run down, walk up,”  business that we are both very sad to admit happened.  Because for us, it’s just personal preference for the two of us, but we aren’t run/walkers.  There was just no way! We can honestly say that we checked out mentally and our bodies were not there physically, which made matters worse.  Oh and maybe we can pour a little salt on the wound with this screen shot of our weather.

Stinking spring humidity in Texas is no joke. There was a breeze but yuck, thick air.

We decided that we would basically not let the 2:20 pacer pass up. 2:20! Good lord! What was happening?? The hills literally just kept coming. Some were so steep that EVERYONE around us walked. We honestly think crawling them would have worked just as well.  After the race our trust Runkeeper app informed us that this was our highest elevation EVER.  We have used Runkeeper for going on almost a year and a half now.

We had no clue where the course went but luckily we ran (haha!) into this lady in front of us who was running this course for the 4th time. We give her uber props! She said we had about 2 miles out and back then around the golf course on the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines resort. Ok! How bad could that be? Yah, bad. We made it down the 2 miles out and still just felt blah, we walked a little, ran a little, ran up a few hills, but then we were just both so mentally checked out that pushing anything was just terrible.

Beth had miscounted (yep, did we mention mentally checked out??) and thought we had 3 left just as we hit 9. She looks at Teal and was like 5k left. Right?  Nope 4. We walked. That is deflating!

We hit the golf course at around 11. This is a mental issue too.  We had to do a little “trail” running. We had to run on this mulch stuff that takes every ounce of bounce out of your legs. Teal looked at Beth and said “ I do NOT want to finish.” Luckily, Beth in her logic was like, “you don’t have to, but you’ll still have to go back that way.” UGH. Might as well finish at this point.

We did some more walking. Grrr!! and managed to run it in right around 2:20ish. This marks our worst half marathon to date for each of us. It was bound to happen, we know, but we were still a little blah about the entire thing. This marked our 10th half marathon but really you wouldn’t know it by how it went for us.

We hung out after and were luckily able to grab a glass of wine from the Barefoot Wine garden and met some nice ladies out there! Fun hearing other ladies’ running stories, but ultimately we decided to just get home to Dallas!

Oh, but wait, we consulted the twitterverse as to where in Austin we should get lunch so with the recommendation of a twitter friend we stopped off at Moonshine for lunch.  If you are ever in need of a place to eat when you are visiting Austin then store Moonshine in your memory bank!  And uhhh, we HAD to stop by an Austin Lululemon and uhhh, we were in Austin we HAD to stop by The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf!  Y’all, have we told you we love that place??

We pretty much passed the time in the car singing along to and every CD that Beth had in her car.  There might have been some dancing too….

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