Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas 2014

Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas 2014

So at this point it’s July and it’s about dang time I put up a recap of my last half marathon in MARCH, right?! Right! Here goes – when we ran New Years Double on January 1st Teal did the half and I did the the full so we found ourselves yet again at not the same half marathon number.  Don’t you love how we try and keep that the same?? It just makes it easier to keep count!

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I had signed up for Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas as the last half I would run during this pregnancy.  The weather has been pretty good for this race minus 2012 when it was hot!  I didn’t then and still don’t now really know how pregnancy and hot weather mix, but it completely scares me! 🙂  Anyway, I thought this would be a great last half to do plus it was great motivation to keep me going with running.  And my cousin/friend, Chase, would be coming up from Houston to run this race as well!

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It was hard to have goals for this race other than finish it!  At 20 weeks pregnant and still not really noticeable that I am pregnant I just didn’t know what my body would want to do that day.  While you couldn’t totally tell I was pregnant my pace had definitely slowed down some so I knew I was not going to be busting out a new PR or anything that day.  Of course, as race day got closer I did have this idea in my head that maybe I could achieve a 2:10 half, but again this would take a lot of listening to my body.

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I got in my corral just minutes before the first corral was signaled to take off.  I was getting nervous, but was also thankful that it was kind of chilly out there instead of really, really hot!  When it was our turn Chase and I took off together although we didn’t stay together long because of a potty break. 🙂  In our family we joke about how some of us have the world’s smallest bladders and lucky for both Chase and me we inherited it!  I knew I would see some friendly faces out on the course so I just tried to start off conservatively and keep an eye out for people to say “hi” to!

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photo cred to Amy Stubblefield

My first sighting was Amy from NTX Runners who snapped the above picture of me. Since I waited until the beginning of July to write this recap (minus the few notes I put in my phone) I can’t remember now when I expected to see Teal & Catherine out there cheering, but it was juuuust shortly after this and I was soooo happy to see their smiling faces!

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My happiness of seeing them is evidenced below. 🙂IMG_2814

 

A little blurry, but I was surviving which is good to do somewhere around the 3.5 mile mark of a half marathon. 🙂  So I kept on going and the next big thing I remember from the course was that I was running through a neighborhood, saw this group of people outside of a house and thought that little kid looks familiar! Ohhhh, it’s Cason!  As in the son of J-Si from KISS FM and sure enough his wife, Kinsey, holding their daughter and their son, Cason, playing.  Though I didn’t actually see J-Si out there anywhere. Bummer! But I thought that was fun since I’m a Kidd Kraddick in the Morning fan!

Shortly after this I saw the most awesome cheering squad comprised of FRUNNERS!!  Right around mile 8 which made me oh so happy!  I mean, look at those happy faces and look at that hot dog! 🙂

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photo cred to Mama C

This left me with a goofy grin on my face and not even a mile down the road from that sighting did I hear the sounds of a police officer being an awesome cheerleader for all of the runners!  This was the first time I’d really heard an officer be THAT encouraging and vocal towards runners on a race course.  I loved it! So pretty much the goofy grinned stayed on my face that much longer thanks to him.  Before you know it I was telling myself you only have a 5K left!  And then it was you only have a mile left!  Somewhere I was able to tap into a bit of a reserve for a final kick right before the finish line.

I don't know who exactly gets the photo cred here, but Lisa texted me the picture :)

I don’t know who exactly gets the photo cred here, but Lisa texted me the picture 🙂

Oh, did you wanna know if I actually came in around 2:10 or not like I had put in my head?! Well, I made it across the finish line in 2:09:19! I was pretty darn proud of myself and felt like I ran a really conservative race considering I was in fact running for two. 🙂

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With that I was caught up to Teal with half marathon no. 21 in the books! We will see you half marathons again on the other side of our pregnancies! 🙂

 

Lazy Solo Running Weekend

Beth here with my running recap for the weekend! 🙂  My weekend turned out to be NOT what I was expecting, but exactly what I needed! After my long run Saturday morning I was suppose to be hitting the road to Austin with my sister for a wedding, but life happened and sister felt she needed to stay in town to be with a friend.  I took full advantage of this and slept in on Saturday morning!  And by slept in I mean until 7:30 a.m. Woohoo!  My favorite spin instructor at my L.A. Fitness had been out of town last Monday on my usual spin day, so I skipped it.  I decided spin class on Saturday morning [since favorite instructor would be back] made more sense than Sunday morning and then back to spin class Monday after work.  So I did spin, I did a 30 minute yoga class and then I spent hours with my littlest nephew!  It was a fabulous Saturday! Here’s what my sister and I did to our nephew on Saturday –

This was inspired by what Jack’s Mom did to him last week.  Jack being the first grandbaby of Cindy[#TeamCindy] who we are running Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio half in memory of and raising money for breast cancer.  And here’s me getting some good cuddle time in with Easton!

Sunday I slept in until 8 a.m.  That was some glorious sleep! I wrote thatWhat’s the Deal? post a few weeks ago and to be honest I still hadn’t fully snapped out of it! I’m pretty positive I was wearing myself out during the week and then just going, going and going on the weekends.  Pretty much since the weekend of August 20th I had been going on long runs then drinking tons of coffee in an effort to stay up and go out to celebrate things like: my sister’s birthday, my boyfriend’s birthday, being in California and running a half, celebrating one of my best friend’s birthdays, celebrating a 1 year old’s birthday, celebrating a 2 year old’s birthday, hosting a baby shower, celebrating my oldest nephew’s birthday and my sister in law’s birthday – see what I was doing to myself??

Anyways, I laid in bed Sunday morning catching up on my DVR until I had to get up and meet a friend at yoga at 1:00 p.m.  I ate a late lunch and decided to lay in bed longer while my food digested before I could go out for my long run.  And something happened that NEVER happens – I took  nap!  I am in no way a napper!  I just lack the ability to take a nap and wake up refreshed, so the only times I do it are if I’m sick or I’m apparently wearing myself out THAT much.

Shortly before 5:00 p.m. I was off on my long run for the weekend!  This run I decided to take with me a Clif gel I’d received while I was out on the Tour des Fleurs 20k race course in September.  Like I do every long run I stuck it in the hidden pocket inside my Nike shorts only problem was that the Clif gel packaging is wider than the GU gel packaging I usually take on my run.  I ran through the gel pack poking me for 4 miles then I had it, took it out and ran holding it for 4 more miles until I opened it.  Now I am a HUGE chocolate lover, but I am now not a fan of chocolate flavored gels which is what I had!   But don’t worry Clif! I have not given up on you just your chocolate flavored gel. 🙂

And there is my cut/chaffed area/what have you on the right in the picture above.  I’m not going to tell you where that is exactly, but if I put the pack in an inside pocket of my shorts I think you can use your imagination. 😉 [Sorry Mom if you are reading this and are shaking your head at me! Love you!]  Ok, back to long run – I didn’t know how this would go since I have never run more than 8 miles by myself and Teal had left me to go on an awesome trip to San Francisco!  SO jealous! But it went great! I was so proud of myself for keeping my pace under 10 minutes the WHOLE entire time!  I had a couple times where I wanted to stop more because I needed to use the facilities than being tired. 🙂  I guess that’s the downfall of running not at my usual time.   I explored a little bit and ran a slightly different area than Teal and I have ever run before and overall I felt great during this long running!

I ended my Sunday night with some #runchat, Chipotle, Rangers, wine and my Tommie Copper calf sleeves [if you don’t own any – what are you waiting for?? Seriously!]

Check back with us tomorrow for Teal’s San Francisco Running Weekend recap!

Are you a fan of Clif gels? What is YOUR favorite flavor?