Wordless Wednesday No. 14

December 28, 2011 by · 9 Comments

Our 2011 Race Medals!

 

Our favorite medals for 2011!

Oops…we are putting words in this post!!!…..We each picked our favorite medal for 2011 as you can see above. Teal picked the medal from our Disneyland Half in September because it was her fastest half and most memorable run in terms of the crowd and scenes.  Beth actually had a hard time choosing between three (Disney – SO memorable like Teal said and Rock ‘n’ Roll SA – went sub 2 hours on a half again!) but ultimately picked the Dallas White Rock Marathon medal!  What you probably can’t really tell is Teal has one more medal than Beth – remember back in September at the Heroes for Children 5k where she hit a major PR AND won her age group?  Yah, she’s got a medal to prove that!

Top left to bottom left: Rock 'n' Roll Dallas, Wounded Warrior, White Rock Centennial Half Marathon and Disneyland Half

 

DRC Half, White Rock Marathon and Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio

 

These are our 2011 medals!  All of these medals represent our original goal for this year, BUT we still have half of a medal to earn December 31, 2011 and complete the other half on January 1, 2012 at New Year’s Double!

Do you have a medal you are most proud of this year?

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18 Miles: Check

October 10, 2011 by · 7 Comments

We set out Saturday morning with the goal of 18 miles. The weather was not bad although when we started running it turned out to be extremely windy. We started about 6 o’clock this time with our friend Mary Alice, who was in town this weekend for the baby shower (her sister is Rebekah who we were throwing a shower for Saturday afternoon, more about that later) and also to visit friends. Mary Alice actually ran White Rock half last year with us! Anyways, back to Saturday, we decided to keep with as close to the same route as we ran last week, knowing it was relatively flat and we are comfortable with the area since we trained there for most of White Rock half 2010. We had talked about adding a small portion to our course so we would run all the way up to the Shops at Legacy (where the Heroes for Children 5k was) because last time we were literally running laps around a mall to make sure we got all of the mileage in!

We seemed back to normal running routine, we mentioned last time that we talked a lot, this time I am not sure we said much to each other except for portions where we turned around. Also we didn’t have any restroom breaks this time. Mary Alice ran with us but for most of the time we didn’t see her, we kept turning around to make sure none of us lost each other but despite our best efforts it still seemed to happen anyways. At one point in our route we running down a winding road with no sidewalks, we know—safe right? We both saw Mary Alice (and hoped she saw us) and figured she would run the same way but when we got to the end we didn’t see her so we both decided to run back. If anything was ever going to happen to anyone surely it would happen there. Drivers really don’t see you and sometimes if they do they don’t move over even though there are 3 full lanes and hardly ever traffic…MOVE OVER people… it’s just nice. We would do it for you! Nevertheless we ran up and down that three times, finally deciding to just run up to the Shops at Legacy where we both heard “Teal-Beth!” Luckily we found Mary Alice and talked about where to go from there.

A lot of the turns and runs through the parking lot stuff kind of threw us a little off, and about the 13 mile mark Teal had mentioned to Beth that if she lost her she wasn’t going to make it. Unfortunately an annoying Achilles problem that started last week came back and Teal had to slow down, and Beth thankfully would run ahead and then turn around to stay close. It really is a million times better when your running partner is close! Teal had to stop and walk for about .25 of a mile and managed to start again.

We ran back into each other about 3 miles away from finishing. When we had about 2 miles left Beth said- “I am going to run until I hit 18 and I am going to Starbucks and going to have someone pick us up.” SWEET!! If we had kept running the normal way home we would have had to walk quite a bit. Beth finished up and Teal had to run a few more laps around the Target parking lot. Luckily Beth’s mom, Nancy a.k.a. Fancy Nancy, came to our rescue [Hi, Beth’s mom! Thanks for rescuing us!]! I am pretty sure both of us were in pain. Eighteen miles was rough. I know for me [Teal] this was much harder overall than even the 17. We ran faster last week. Beth said she felt pretty good the entire time so that is a plus.

Of course keeping with our madness- Teal went to work.  Beth got an ice bath, went to yoga before last minute prep for the baby shower.

We met up again around 2:00 p.m. and set up for the baby shower at Teal’s house. The shower went off wonderfully and was a lot of fun. We are super excited and cannot wait to meet baby Elliott!

Teal, Mandy, Rebekah & Beth

Us with MA a.k.a. Mary Alice

We all kind of stayed around after and watched the A&M game [Whoop!] and the Rangers game. Beth even managed to make it all the way out to Dallas for a joint Birthday party for some friends born in September & October!

out celebrating birthdays!

I was able to get some recovery in on Sunday. My knees were throbbing so here is my version of an “ice bath.”

This week brings more training of course. Below is our plan. Luckily our run this week is not as far and we are excited to run in another Susan G. Komen race on Saturday. We will for sure catch you up on that.



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The Month of Pink
 

October 3, 2011  by  · 2 Comments 
A new month! And a month that finds us even closer to our two ultimate goals for 2011 – run a race every month and complete White Rock Marathon.


While October is a month that the majority of people associate with Halloween , I am sure more and more people are remembering that October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  This year I am confident in saying that this month is more near and dear to our hearts than ever before.  If you’ve been reading our blog then you know we are fundraising for Team Cindy through our Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio half we will be running, which means we are raising money for breast cancer.  We have pledged to raise $1,200 – that boils down to $100 per month of our 2011 race year.  We are currently at 56% of our goal –




Donate you can find our fundraising page here


Yes, Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio is NOT officially until November so yes, we will be running the Komen 5k in Dallas on October 15th and proudly wearing Team Cindy on our shirts!


So if you follow us on twitter don’t be surprised if the #TeamCindy hashtag is more a part of our timeline than ever before.


One of the exciting parts of the month of October is that it will bring the arrival of Cindy’s first grandchild!  So get ready for some cute pics of a sweet little Jack!


Cancer in general is a hard thing to deal with and there are so many people affected by it and in so many different ways!  This year we have chosen to mainly raise awareness and money for breast cancer, and also childhood cancer with our volunteering and running for the Heroes for Children 5k.


Are you doing anything this month for Breast Cancer Awareness?


We’ll leave you with a picture of Julie and Mr. Death with their Team Cindy sign waiting for Cynthia to finish the 3-Day walk in 2010




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September Race No. 3
 

September 27, 2011  by  · 2 Comments 
Since we both did different things on this race day here is a race post that’s a little back and forth from both of us! Enjoy! 🙂 


Beth – Going into race morning I had NO idea what I was going to be doing exactly, but nonetheless I was excited to be behind the scenes of a race!  I got to the Shops at Legacy at 5:00 a.m. and shortly thereafter I was given a golf cart.  I’d actually never driven a golf cart before, so it was exciting for me.  At this point the majority of our vendors were setting everything up.  Only problem we had was the barricades hadn’t exactly been put up so off I went (on the golf cart) with my boss lady for the morning to keep people out of our 5k course.  I am not even sure how the time passed so quickly from 5:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m. when opening ceremony began, and I can’t even remember everything I did but I basically was a gopher.  I’d already determined I was not going to run the 5k as I’d have no clue what I’d be doing the moment it started not to mention where I’d keep my bib, armband for my iphone, headphones and anything else I might want to run with while we were getting ready for the race.




Teal – I was excited about the race this weekend because I knew how much Beth had been involved in the process and also because I was going to get to run with a few friends from teaching. My friend Chris from work joined the team- he is also training to run the White Rock Marathon in December and we talk basically every day about our running. The last time we actually got to run together was back in March for Kacie’s Run for our school district. My fellow work-out buddy, morning motivator, and friend Cynthia also joined the team and ran with us this morning. She has recently come off a long, nagging foot injury and is currently building and training to run the Rock n Roll Dallas half in March, so they are awesome fellow runners! Cynthia and I also ran into our personal trainer friend, Nemo from 24 hour fitness and one we both see at least twice a week when we are training with Will. While he’s super in shape he is not a distance runner so it was fun to pick on him at the end!


Beth- As the runners began to arrive I was pretty much just hanging out in the golf cart after eating my Chickfila chicken biscuit and waiting for my next job.  Thanks, Chickfila for providing the 5k Committee and volunteers with breakfast! Haha  But I got to see my mom and sister who I’d signed up for the race. 🙂 As well as a bunch of other friends that had started to arrive to support this great cause!




Teal – I met Chris early and we were able to catch Beth in full volunteer mode and chat with her a while. Somebody at Heroes for Children gave her a golf-cart to drive around—she seriously looked official. I was sad she wasn’t running with me but just overall impressed by her volunteer spirit! The race did a very cool balloon release thing at the beginning. The yellow balloons were released to represent each child battling cancer & their family that had been helped in the past year by Heroes for Children.  Then they also released 2 red heart balloons to represent the two little girls of the mothers who started Heroes for Children in their honor!


 




Beth- I do not think I’ve mentioned much about the co-founders of HFC, so let me take this opportunity to do so.  I met Jenny Scott (co-founder) through yoga at the end of January this year, and learned her story and her daughter, Allie.  She was Jenny’s first born child and at 8 months and 27 days passed away from Acute Myeloid Leukemia in September of 2004.  Larissa Linton’s (co-founder) 4 year old daughter, Taylor passed away in Novemeber 2001 of Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  It was after the death of Taylor that Larissa formed Taylor’s Angels, a non-profit that provided financial assistance to families who had a child battling cancer.  Larissa and Jenny meet in October of 2004 and realized the need for Heroes for Children.  On race day I actually saw a runner wearing a Taylor’s Angels race shirt which was very neat. If you’d like to see a picture of Taylor and Allie or read a little bit more about them then please visit the HFC website here.


Teal – Chris and I had discussed prior in the week how fast we wanted to run. He mentioned 24 mins and in my head I was like- no way. I’ll try but I highly doubt I can do that, my goal was 25:19. We both lined up together at the start line and we were not paying attention and had to wait a while to start after the gun went off, because none of my technology was ready… Runkeeper wasn’t up and my music hadn’t start- priorities!!! One day I may learn to do with out but for now this is a requirement! We took off and dodged and ran on the outside until about the end of the first mile, we passed the clock at about 7:14—what?? Really? I knew we were a little behind the clock but not more than like 30 secs. In my head I was like 1 down 2 to go, which mentally at this point is NOTHING, we are used to saying 1 down- 13 to go or whatever the crazy distance is for that week. I was able to maintain this pace fairly well; I lost Chris at about the 2 mile mark, but only by a few seconds. I managed to run the rest of the race right on the tail of what looked to be a 7 year old, this kid was hauling! Keep in mind I am 5’10” and I could not pass this kid who was like 4 feet tall! My goal at that point was to beat him, or at least attempt to keep up with him since he was the closest person around. I crossed the finish line at what I thought was about 25 minutes. Slightly wondering what my official time was. Chris was able to stay for the entire awards ceremony which was awesome because I can never stay. I managed to set a new PR by over a minute! I was seriously surprised and super excited because Chris even stayed long enough to pick up my medal! I was second in my age group! I have not won an individual medal for running before!!  Overall the race was awesome! Flat, spread out, not a lot of issues with walkers, dogs, strollers, all those random things you get at a lot of races! Cynthia and I also discussed at the end how awesome it was to see the pictures of the kids along the way that HFC has helped and how it was hard to not get choked up by the pictures. Very inspiring race and atmosphere!






Beth – Just as the 1 mile race began I got to drive Hannah & Hannah to the pace car a.k.a. a Ferrari provided by Boardwalk.  Hannah & Hannah were selected to ride in the pace car by the nurses at Medical City Children’s Hospital.  I loved it – they were getting driven over along with one of their little brother’s and a HFC staff member and I heard one of them say “I wanna ride on the one with the girl!”  So I happily drove them over on the golf cart and told them to have fun! Then I quickly took off to get some trash cans out to the awesome volunteers at the water stations and made it back to the start line just as the 5k was beginning.  Here’s a picture right after the gun went off – 




I kept looking for Teal and Chris and never saw them.  Maybe it was because of their technology mishap – I just figured since they are both so tall there would be no way I missed them, but I was wrong!  Then I met up with my mom and sister at the finish line a few minutes before Hannah & Hannah were on their way in on the pace car bringing in the first runner who finished in 17:38.  Then I got to see Teal coming up on the finish –




And just a minute or so behind Teal there was Chris (on the right) coming up on the finish line-




All three of us got to watch Cynthia cross the finish line! [So sorry Cynthia I didn’t snap a picture! :(]


Chris & Teal


Teal & Cynthia


Nemo & Teal


Since we did not take any pictures with Disney characters while we were in California for Disneyland Half we took advantage of all of the Disney characters that came out Saturday for the 5k.  Here we are with Tiana from The Princess and the Frog –







This is such a great race to bring your little kids to since there were the Disney characters and there were also firemen out there with their fire truck – SO many fun kid things!  It was such an honor to be a part of this race.  If you live in the Dallas area we’d definitely encourage you to put it on your calendar/racing schedule for 2012.


Results:


Teal: 23:58; 2nd in age group, 13th female to finish and 39th finisher overall 


And one last picture for the road…we ended up having the same workout shorts on that day AND the same yellow band to go with our Go Sport IDs




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7th Annual Heroes for Children 5k
 

September 22, 2011  by  · Leave a Comment 
We have reached our FINAL race weekend for the month of September!  Wow, this month sure has flown by!  Back in March Beth got involved with Heroes for Children and immediately knew she wanted to be apart of their 5k committee.  Well, we’ve finally arrived to the week leading up to the big 5k race!


This 5k specifically benefits Heroes for Children and enables them to continue to help families who have a child battling cancer.  The average gift HFC is able to give a family is $750 which often goes towards paying their mortgage, utilities bill, car payments or even for their child’s funeral.  Each month more than $45,000 is given to families who have a child with cancer.  One of the great details that goes along with who HFC gives money to is the age range for children they’ll help, 18-22 years old, so even college age kids and their families are able to receive financial assistance.


Laptops for Love is another way HFC helps by donating a new laptop to a teenager battling cancer so that they are still connected to the outside world while undergoing treatment and even keeping up with their school work while they are unable to attend school. “Between January 2005 and December 2010, Laptops for Love has provided 384 teenagers with a laptop!”  So as you can see this organization does SO much to help out these families and we are so excited to be apart of the 5k this year!


The race is taking place at the Shops at Legacy in Plano, an area we are VERY familiar with as we started pretty much all of our training runs for White Rock Half 2010 at the Shops.  Teal has recruited a few teachers from her school to participate with us and Beth has recruited a couple of her family members to participate as well!


Weather:


Precip: 10%


Wind: 5-10 mph


High: 85


Low: 62


Goals:


Teal: To run it in 25:19 which would beat her Kacie’s Run 5k time in March!


Beth: I haven’t even thought much about a goal since I’m volunteering and not sure if I’ll actually get to run or not…


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Goals??
 

September 1, 2011  by  · 2 Comments 
We are suppose to have monthly goals?  Are the two of us slackers because we have only set goals for the year of 2011?  As we have made the switch from August to September I have seen quite a few of our fellow runners posting about how they did with their August goals and what their new goals for September will be.  Do the two of us have blatant goals set forth for this brand new month? – No, not exactly….


Our goals for this year in my eyes are as follows:


1. Run a race every month


2. Run a marathon


3. Raise money in honor of Cindy Marshall-Death (Team Cindy)


So far we have succeeded in completing 8 out of 12 months of races and after this weekend 9 months!  September we actually have 3 different race weekends. We’ll be posting our pre-race blog for tthis weekend so let’s just go ahead and skip over the Disneyland Half for now.  Next up this month we will be running one of our favorite races – Tour des Fluers and the weekend after that for the first time we will be participating in the Heroes for Children 5k at the Shops at Legacy.  This race is for such a GREAT cause!  The HFC 5k committee is just barely behind their goals for the 7th annual run – we are still short a few teams and behind a little with our fundraising goal – if you can help please visit the site here.


The new and, to steal a word from Courtney (@CisforCourtney), nerve-citing thing for this month for us is going further than we ever have mileage-wise!  Essentially the last few weeks of our half marathon training has also been the start over our marathon training.  This month we’ll find ourselves running 15 and 17 miles.  So yah, a nerve-citing time for us!


Our last goal is the one we are falling behind in – we are not even quite half way to our fundraising goal and we have LESS than 2 months to get the rest of our $1,200 (a $100 for each month) raised.  We’ll be running the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio half proudly wearing Team Cindy shirts in honor of a great women who passed away in March of 2010.  Please read her story and if you feel compelled to donate we would be forever grateful to you for the support of Team Cindy and the two of us as Life is a Run!  Donations can be made here.


And to completely change subjects we’ll leave you with a music video of one of the songs currently on one of our running playlists! 🙂


[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEdvXM45nIY&ob=av2e]


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Heroes for Children 5k
 

May 21, 2011  by  · 1 Comment 


I, Beth, recently have gotten back into volunteering and specifically with Heroes for Children.  One day at the end of January I decided to try out yoga at an actual studio and ended up meeting one of the co-founders of Heroes for Children that same day.  Talk about perfect timing as I’d been looking for one charity or organization to get involved with!  Both co-founders of HFC lost a daughter to cancer and throughout their daughters’ battles with cancer each family was blessed by friends, neighbors and family and through these people in their lives were able to overcome many of the obstacles their family faced.  They saw many other families, as I am sure some of you reading this blog have seen, struggle financially amongst other things while their children battled cancer.  In December 2004, Heroes for Children was formed and since have provided over 2 million dollars in program services!


You might be wondering,  How exactly does HFC provide for families? – “[we] provide direct financial assistance to families with children battling cancer.  The average gift is $750 to assist towards such necessary expenses as mortgage/rent, utilities, car payments, or even funerals for children who have lost their battle to cancer.  This is the largest program and main focus of Heroes for Children.  More than $45,000 is spent each month on direct financial assistance.”


There is also the Laptops for Love program which “donates new laptops to teenagers battling cancer.  This unique program provides teens with a link to the outside world while undergoing cancer treatment and allows them to keep up with their school work while away from the classroom.”


This is just one of a number of other events throughout the year to raise money and not only here in Dallas, but also in Houston. Please take a look at the HFC site to learn even more!


Finding an outlet to volunteer got me very pumped up and when I learned that Heroes for Children holds a 5k annually I got even MORE excited and knew that I needed to be apart of the 5k committee.  Each year the Heroes for Children 5k is held in September at the Shops at Legacy in Plano, Texas.  I am excited to see the behind the scenes part and all the details that go into organizing a race!  I am glad to finally be able to see just how much time, dedication and hard work goes into planning such an event.  Our first meeting as a committee was in April and we are all deep into the organizing process!  You are probably wondering – if it’s in September why are you already talking to me about this now??  Well, that’s a GREAT question!  We are starting team recruitment already and are looking for team captains!  The first chance to learn about being a team captain is Wednesday, May 25th at 11:00 a.m. at Ringo’s Pub at the Shops at Legacy.  Lunch will be provided for you and if you’d like to attend please feel free to leave a comment on this post or you can email me at ealynch12@gmail.com. There will be other opportunities to attend a team captain informational and I will be sure to keep you guys updated (like a happy hour next month in Dallas)!  If you live in the DFW area, we would love your support in the 7th Annual HFC 5k even if it’s just you signing up to run and not bringing a full team!  If you have any further questions feel free to contact me!




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Didn’t You Run a Race This Weekend?
 

April 12, 2011  by  · 5 Comments 
So inititally I was scared I was going to wake up thinking it was Sunday and miss the 5k, as I thought Friday was Saturday.  I didn’t, but unfortunately I kind of wish I had.  This post is one I feel bad about writing, and I figured I would start out by saying that I do give the organizers a big A+ for starting a 5k race that promotes awareness of Diabetes.  Racing is a great way to raise money, we know, we pay regularly do to run them!  I felt like the effort was there, but when it came to actually pulling it off and the sheer organization, I unfortunately have to give them an F.  Maybe this is another sign I should not run without Beth?


For starters, the race time was changed AFTER registration; originally it was supposed to start at 8:00 a.m.  I work every Saturday so if I am going to race that day it has to be early enough so that I can get to work by 9:00 a.m.-ish.  A week before the race they updated the page to say the race would now be at 9:00 a.m.  Great!  I went anyways, I work for my dad so he is lenient but I don’t like to push it too much.  My husband and I arrived at UTD and the directions said to go to the Southside of the basketball courts, no one was there from the race.  There were about 20 of us waiting around, we wait, wait, nothing.  I decided to walk around this building and I found a guy with an event shirt.  He says it starts at the student services building which was not mentioned.  Sure enough I find them and it’s now 8:20 a.m.  At 8:30 a.m. guest speakers are supposed to start and their website indicated there would be a total of 2 speakers.  It’s now 8:50 a.m., no speakers, no idea when the race will actually start.  A few minutes later the guest speakers finally start, the first was a little girl who was AMAZING and totally worth the wait!  But then we get 3 more about nothing except thanks for coming out.  I think one of them was even a guy running for office.  IT’s now 9:15 a.m., no race yet, and all the organizers are standing around saying “the race will start in 5 minutes.”  I would have said fine and not been so annoyed, but they did this for about 15+ minutes.  I finally looked at my husband and said, “they have 5 minutes or I have to leave, I have to get to work!”  At this point it is 9:30 a.m. and no one has even lined up to race.  As a matter of fact, I am  convinced that they didn’t even know the race route as two of the organizers were debating where the turns were supposed to be!  I was done!  So in total I went to a race, had to pick up everything, i.e. race packet, there and literally stood around for an hour and a half to run a race that takes me less than 30 minutes to run.  So unfortunately I left.  I left out of sheer frustion and time.  By the time I left at 9:35 a.m. the race had not started and still no one had lined up in preparation for the race to begin.  I feel terrible for even mentioning the race and not running, but sometimes that’s just the way it goes!


The AMAZING guest speaker!


At the same time, I do recognize that I have a bit of a different situation with my Saturday’s and my part time job where a race that starts on time and starts early enough I can fit in before I have to be at work.  There are a lot of people who get up for a Saturday race and do not have any sort of time constraint like I do.  I also recognize that A LOT of work goes into the scheduling and organizing of a race!  Perhaps these guys have not actually run many to know a lot of the details, but I do hope they learned a lot from this race and will improve their race for next year!  Beth is actually a volunteer for Heroes for Children  and apart of their 5k race committee, which I believe she’ll talk about in a later post, and I have no doubt she will learn A TON about organizing a race. 


Also, here is a picture of me from before the race and sorry that’s all you get!




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