Wounded Warrior 10K

June 11, 2012 by · 8 Comments

This weekend was another solo race weekend….well, kind of!  Teal was off at a friend’s wedding in the Dominican Republic and I was still here in Tejas! 🙂  I might have driven to the Wounded Warrior race alone, but managed to see some friends out there!  Before I could even get out of my car I saw my friends Ashley & Jason walk by.  Somehow I always miss them at races so I jumped out of my car as fast as I could to catch up with them.  I’d also planned on meeting up with a few other twitter ladies, but sadly we didn’t all see each other! :-/  We’ll have to work on that again for another race, Caron & Kyra!!  But it was SO good to meet Shannon as well as your mom and Cory!

Totally stole this picture from Shannon! 🙂

The half marathon started 15 minutes before the 10k, so we all parted ways.  I walked up to see the half marathoners take off and chatted with a mom and her daughter who were also doing the 10K.  Loved hearing about how her other daughter was running the half and she had gotten them into doing races.  They’d driven up from Katy (Houston area) to participate in the Wounded Warrior race.  The mom told me she would probably be the last person finished.  I quickly told her I doubted it and with her run walk method she had she would be ahead of others.  I was proud of her when I saw her on the back part of my race and there were plenty of people behind her.  I quickly gave her a high five and told her good job and to keep it up!

Anyways, back to the start of this race, I had run this same race last year and kind of knew what I was getting into.  I just kept thinking let’s get this done and over with before it’s reeeally hot out there.  Off we were!  Within the first half of a mile I realized they had made the course different this year which was nice because it created less direct sunlight as a lot of it was on the Campion Trail in Irving.  I ran without any sort of water on me, but grabbed some at each water stop.

Thanks to my Runkeeper app I knew I was coming up on the 3.1 mark and therefore the turnaround because I might have missed it.  I didn’t need to make this a longer race than it was suppose to be like I did Too Hot to Handle last year! Ha, but there was only a small sign that said turn around.  Not a human being there to reassure you that you do in fact need to turn around.  Turn around here? Or like this is my warning sign that it’s coming up??  A barefoot man in front of me yelled TURN AROUND and I then said this is really the turn around??  But I followed his lead and figured if I needed to I could just admit to all of you I accidentally cut my run short.  That is probably my one and only complaint about the race, but I think the Race Director does such a good job with this one that I can let it slide. 🙂

Once I turned around I kind of had a need to vomit feeling hanging around me for the last three miles.  I just wanted to be finished with the heat.  I drank water, dumped water on myself, took cold towels from the awesome volunteers and kept chugging along.  When I got off the Campion Trail I was in the home stretch for the finish line.  I kept telling myself to push but not so hard that you do in fact vomit.  Well, guess I did push too hard bc in the last .1 of a mile I had to pull over to the side and you know…vomit not once, not twice, but three times. Ha.  See I knew my pace had a potential for a new PR, so I was having an inner struggle of get that PR yet don’t kill yourself.

I didn’t get a PR yesterday and I’m completely OK with that.  I crossed the finished line running with 2 minutes and some change until the hour mark and I’m proud of that.  If you look at my results online I finished 10th in my age group and 170th overall and I’m proud of that!  If you look at the ladies who finished 8th and 9th in my age group even if I hadn’t have had to make my little stop before the finish line I wouldn’t have gotten there faster than them and would have still been 10th in my age group.

(source)

Thanks to April who got to see my fun incident right before the finish for checking on me!  I got some water, powerade and pop ice in me and was feeling MUCH better!  I absolutely love that they provide pop ice at the end of this race!  Love it so much I ate three of them!

After that I hung around to see if I might see anyone else that I know plus I knew Ashley was around somewhere with their cute dog, Atlas, since she’s sidelined from running right now. 🙁  Hoping your recovery time heals you up all the way, lady!  Overall, it was fun just sitting and watching people finish and the soliders that were out there.  Love this race! It is for such a good cause that even though it’s freakin’ hot in Texas in June it still draws a crowd!  This was the Wounded Warrior Half Marathon & 10K’s third year and drew in over 3,000 runners and doubled their fundraising this year from last to over $50,000 raised for the Semper Fi fund.

I ran into Jason, Ashley & Atlas again after Jason completed his half.  Congrats to you on a new PR and completing a half in that heat!  So impressed with everyone that goes out there and runs the half in that toasty weather!

If you are in the Dallas area you should really consider adding this race to your schedule for next year!  Like I said it’s for a great cause, but it is also a race that is put on really well!

Do you have a race that you go back to every year that despite everything else the cause gets you signed up again and again?

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

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

April 17, 2012 by · 17 Comments

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

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

Miles 1-3

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

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

Miles 4-6

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

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

Miles 7-10

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

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

Miles 11-13.1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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