Twenty Miles: Check

October 31, 2011 by · 3 Comments

As you can see we’ve had an interesting few days here with Beth’s engagement 🙂 and the event of the rangers in the World Series! 🙁 Seems like a whirlwind around here really. Originally we both were supposed to be in College Station this weekend but a bunch of stuff came up with Teal at work at her Dad’s and teaching so she stayed in Dallas. Beth went to College Station with her new fiancé and we decided to do our long run on Sunday night. This is the first long night run I think we have ever done. Because we ran at night we had all day to think about it and believe me we did! I was back and forth in my head about if my legs were going to be tired and refused to stand up just about everywhere I went. My husband, Michael and I had to get laundry done so I just sat around in the cart at the laundromat to not wear myself out. Beth had many errands to run as people wanted to see her and her ring so we didn’t start until about 5:15 p.m. Both of us where nervous and we prepped Beth’s sister, Kate on where she would be just in case we needed a rescue…

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No rescue was needed! We headed out on our usual route and ran at a pretty good training pace for the rest of the time! Its seemed, honestly if as if the traffic world was on our side. We hit the right lights basically every time and did not have to deal with moving around traffic much which is seriously awesome! People were very happy it seemed like- for example no one half stopped on right turns, they waited at stops signs for us, moved over to the middle lane- It was awesome. At one point this kid leaned out of his car and screamed “I love your camelbaks” at us and gave us a thumbs up. That boost of friendliness always helps!! I think at around mile 8 we both felt really good. In our heads I’m sure we were both like 12 more- that’s nothing! Beth even looked over at one point and was like, “See we can totally do this.” Neither of us felt really winded or tired at that point. We had both fueled with GU and Swedish Fish and we both kept our Camelbaks this time ( I learned my lesson- don’t leave home without it).

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We both ended at the same time, walked into the house and just laid down and stretched. I am not sure how we ever actually got up. Our legs actually felt much better than other long run days, but for me the pain of sitting sets in. We talked about sleeping in our Tommie Cooper calf sleeves and worried about waking up starving in the middle of the night. Both of which happened on my end. I also kept waking up with weird pains that felt like growing pains all night but it has been much better than expected.

We both ended up with some weird chaffing again- dang running and Beth has moved onto a second runners toe! Battle scars galore but we love it!

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All and all this was an awesome run together. This is some insane mileage and it’s hard to honestly believe we can do it. We are a little over a month away from our goal this year and couldn’t be more excited.

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Lazy Solo Running Weekend

October 24, 2011 by · 7 Comments

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 that ‘What’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?

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Thirteen Miles & Feet Problems

October 18, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Because we ran/walked Susan G. Komen 5k on Saturday, we both set out for our long training run Sunday morning. Not sure that either one of us was really in the mood to run. Our plan was to start at around 7:00 a.m., but Beth sent a tweet about 7 that said –
“I am trying to use mind control to tell @Likethecolor she should come over at 8am and we’ll run our 13 miles. Haha.” 
It worked and we really didn’t set out until after 8:15.  Luckily the weather is much better now so starting later isn’t as big of a deal. Thank God!

Teal decided to try running without her camelbak for this long run. She has this thing where once she feels tired she doesn’t want anything to touch her and starts to blame being tired on crap touching her. Lately it has been getting worse, all though about half way in the run, Teal wished she had it based on thirst alone. We started out fairly fast given our prior training runs, but really we both still feel kind of slow. Beth felt pretty good body wise but just lacking in speed for this run. Teal was actually hoping to feel the same, but that didn’t happen.

We both had a rather scattered training week all together. According to our marathon training plan, we were supposed to run 5 on Tuesday, 8 Wednesday, and 5 Thursday and basically that didn’t happen. Beth ended up with 4.71 on the treadmill which is not bad considering it was the treadmill without music. Teal made it 4.47 but literally stopped twice to walk. Then the 8 was interesting too, Beth made it 3 of 8, she said her mind was just checked out from her crazy week, and Teal made it 7.72 but it was not pretty, it took her 1:22 minutes and she walked, her mind was all over the place too. Neither one of us made the 5 and then really we walked the 5k so we lacked some miles this week. You would have figured our legs were pretty rested, but thus they were not. Beth was sore from Johnny’s and as soon as Teal started running her knee kept popping out of place. She figured it would go away but it literally never really did. We are worried about this knee. Teal ended up stopping at about 10 miles, (shoe issues) then had to run/walk that last 3. Beth ran some circles around to stay close and asked Teal if she wanted to stop but really was like- you keep going- I’ll eventually keep moving.  Teal decided to walk up the hills (really there was one left) because that hurts the most. Teal made it 12.54, Beth made it 13.1. Slow but done, we guess that’s what counts- or at least we hope??!!

We both went to brunch after the run with a bunch of friends and both of our significant others joined for the first time. We were both surprised they came! They usually avoid the social brunch thing, typically make fun of us in their loving way but they came! We actually think they ended up enjoying brunch more than either of us expected.

Teal’s foot was bothering her so much she could barely touch it and her hubby had to carry her to the car. Teal also b-lined it back to Luke’s Locker who graciously helped her change shoes as well. They are so much better than buying shoes at like Academy or other places – very helpful.

 

 We both decided we needed some stretching and went to Yoga that night as well to stretch out and de-stress! Yoga actually felt really good on our sore muscles.  Teal had been contemplating the yoga thing again due to price, but decided it might actually be much better for my body then what she was currently doing — maybe save her from muscle issues. We shall see! Beth goes a lot and it seems like she has way less issues- she has some feet and knee problems, but is usually able to recover quickly.

We are hoping that this week brings a better training week altogether. I am sure you saw Beth’s post a couple weeks ago about what was happening with her work outs and Teal’s has been fairly similar. We need out of the funk!! This week we are supposed to run 5, 8, and 5 again and we had to change our long run around because Teal is leaving for San Fran Thursday and Beth to Austin so the plan is to run 12 miles alone and then 19 miles the next week Sunday night (10/30). We are actually going to make our planned 19, a 20 miler possibly inspired by fear and also reading one of our Twitter Friend’s blogs— Courtney actually ran two 20 milers, a 22 and a 24 before her first marathon. We are slightly worried about the fact that training to 20 miles is all we have; there are still 6 more miles to cover!  Surely some of that is newbie worries – right??

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Susan G. Komen 5k

October 14, 2011 by · 4 Comments

 

So this Saturday brings our only true October race even though it feels like this has been one of the hardest running months thus far. We are in the midst of true marathon training as you know but we really wanted to take this chance to participate in a race that really means something to us! We will be participating in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure tomorrow at North Park Mall. We are especially excited about this chance to participate in another Komen race, because as you know, this cause has become near and dear to our hearts given our efforts to raise money in honor of Team Cindy and others like her.

 

We will set out in the morning and will actually be participating on the Creekview Cheer Team this year. As you might know Teal works for Carrollton Farmers Branch and her friend Cynthia, who you have probably read about before is a cheer coach at Creekview. They are a service squad, as opposed to competitive squad, and they were able to raise money for breastcancer awareness so we are glad to be able to support them in their efforts to do just what we hope to do too!

 

We are very excited to run this race and have heard much about the amazing atmosphere! If you haven’t already you should really check out the website for this race and the cause. We understand now the importance of early detection and awareness and the website is a catch all for anything and everything you would ever want to know about breast cancer.  In Cindy’s case when she finally went to see a doctor her breast cancer was at Stage 4.  No matter how scary a feeling something abnormal in your body may be – simply ignoring it won’t make it go away!

 

 

 

Cindy & her daughters, Julie & Cynthia in March 2009

We will be running this race with a picture of Cindy and for the first time we do not have true goals. We want to run and take in everything that we see. Teal ran this race about 10 years ago and just remembers being in awe of what is present at the race so it is really something to take in. We will also be doing our long training run on Sunday morning which this week should feel like an easy peasy 13 miles, right?? 🙂 

 

 

 

Goals:

Enjoy the race and take in the atmosphere

 

Weather:

Morning – 65*

Rain- 0%

Wind- 10mph

 

 

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Mileage Milestone!

October 4, 2011 by · 4 Comments

This past Saturday we ran the FARTHEST either one of us has ever run before! Mileage milestone!

It was kind of shocking because for the first time in a long time we stepped outside and were kind of chilly!  Nonetheless, we had our camelbaks, our fuel and the tunes to entertain us!

The previous Saturday we started out on our 15 mile run [ultimately we only ran 11 miles of it] and I know both of us walked away from it feeling defeated and how we’d really make it a whole marathon!  After running the 17 miles on Saturday we realized that the previous Saturday it was 1. a hot day again and 2. we hadn’t paced ourselves accordingly for all of the hills in our course.  So in an effort to complete the 17 miles we knew we needed to give ourselves a flatter course this week.

Ok – back to the 17 mile run! We had our flatter course and positive attitudes that we would put in the exact mileage we were scheduled to run this week [Marathon Training week 9]!  Rarely do either of us walk when we ran, we just lack the ability to get going and for a long time after walking.  However, on this run we may have had to take a short potty break after only going about 2 miles, but we were barely in the run so starting up again was no big deal!  When we were in mile 4 of our run we were running towards a group of about 8 women, as we got closer they all parted and moved off the sidewalk so the two of us could just keep on going.  When we were close to them we realized they were out training for the 3-Day for the Cure and they started cheering & encouraging us on in our running!  It was so neat since it happened to be October 1st and they were training and sporting breast cancer awareness shirts and what not.

We actually saw quite a few people out walking or running that morning and when we were in our 8th mile we ran into [not literally] the same ladies again.  We got more cheers and encouragement from them!  They really were great and it was such an unexpected awesome thing added to our training run.  It was just extra inspiring since we are doing our #TeamCindy fundraising and they are walking for the same cause!

It was somewhere around this point that one of us said – I wonder if people think we actually talk to each other while we are running, you know, since we don’t. Which then led to us being the chattiest we have ever been on a run before besides the occasional “we’re half way finished!,” or “do you want to go this way?”  We talked about running New Years Double, and wanting to do the Coast to Coast challenge in 2012.  It was also around this point that we busted out our fuel for the day – swedish fish!

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After hearing multiple times swedish fish are a great source of fuel for your long runs, which I think this can mostly be credited to Katie.  Just in case we did not care for them while running we each took a GU gel out with us, but the swedish fish were good!  Definitely refueled us and since we put them in individual baggies they were easy to grab from our camelbaks and continue running while eating.  We’ve got quite a few more long runs so if you have any other fuel suggestions we’d love to hear them!!

We finished up our 17 miles exactly where we started and were immediately ready to lay down.  In the last mile or so Teal started to feel some man in her achilles which kind of altered her running stride to make it through the pain and mile 17.  This is what we look like after running 17 miles –

After our run Teal had to get to work at MowerMedic, and Beth opted to try out an ice bath.  Thanks to Heidi, for all her tips & tricks to not feeling completely tortured during an ice bath!  It completely worked and made a huge difference in the ol’ legs that day and the next day.  Definitely did not feel like I’d done 17 miles!  We are pretty proud of ourselves! Next week we are on to our next mileage milestone of 18 miles!

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September Race No. 2

September 19, 2011 by · 4 Comments

As we were thinking back over the Tour des Fleurs race this weekend we realized that this was literally the race that kicked off our first half marathon training last year. We only ran the 10k last year and actually ended up running the longest distance of our life only 1 short year later. We were up early as usual and rode out to the Arboretum together and met our friend Steven (a.k.a. Bitner) for the race. I am not sure either of us was really worried about the race itself, but rather the extra 3.6 miles at the end to make the 16 mile run.  Before the race we ran into our friend Katie and then as we lined up for the race we saw fellow North Texas Runner, Michelle!

 

We decided to stay together for this race as well because we both really knew that we were going to need each other at the end. We decided to not dodge anyone and stay at a constant pace for the entire race, get the miles in and don’t die! We started out  pretty strong, running faster than we had recently trained and really maintained that for most of the race. The last section was seriously crazy. It seemed like every time we turned a corner we had a huge up hill leg to run. Around us you could seriously hear the collective sighs of people as we approached the hills. At one point a college friend of Beth’s was next to us and was like ‘it is way to close to the end of the race for this.” It seriously seemed like they lasted for about 3 miles, and really as annoying as it is to admit we wanted to stop—they were nuts. We didn’t, we just kept talking to each other, giving reminders of distance and just saying keep going. Here are the hills from our runkeeper:

 

We powered through really not dealing with much else and just concentrated on maintaining our pace and not stopping. As we approached the finish line we started to look for Steven to catch him to run the lat 3.6. We weren’t 100% sure what we would do at the finish because this was the first time we actually had to keep running past the finish line. We saw him and literally neither of us stopped. We jumped down to the actual trail part of White Rock Lake and just kept going. We finished the 16 miles right around the same time. 2:47 min. The longest run of our life! With that said- 16 was hard but better than we thought, we both ended tired, sore, and with random cuts from god knows what article of clothing but we finished and are able to walk today!

First chaffing from the ol' camelbak

Results:

Teal: 2:05:04

Beth:  2:05:04

And that’s all the result information you get – maybe there is something wrong with us but we do not totally get the break down and what all the different numbers mean on the result page for this race! 🙂After the race we headed up and grabbed a beer and frozen yogurt from the vendors and actually got to meet another runner we have talked to on twitter, Heidi and her husband. We hope to meet up with them sometime and run the hills around our usual area in Plano! Hopefully that will help make those crazy hills we ran today seem like nothing.

 Since the Tour des Fleurs is always at the Dallas Arboretum we had to take advantage of our surroundings and take some cheesy pictures! 🙂 Enjoy!

pumpkin house

Cinderella's carriage

And in true Beth and Teal fashion we didn’t rest and kept up the day, Beth attended a 1 year old’s birthday party, Teal to work, and then we both went to Steven’s for drinks and dinner to celebrate his 29th birthday!

 

Mustaches & margs at 1 year old's Birthday party

Happy Birthday, Bitner!
Happy Birthday, Bitner!

Overall another great Tour des Fleurs race for us, but we would be lying if we didn’t say we were definitely disappointed we didn’t get hats at the end of the race like in the last 3 years at least! They’ve always been great hats to run in, oh, well!

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Tour des Fleurs

September 16, 2011 by · 1 Comment

Wheee! Another race weekend is in front of us. Tomorrow we will be running the Tour des Fleurs (TDF) benefiting the Dallas Arboretum.  This race is either a 10k or 20k distance – pick your poison.  We have run this race before and only as a 10k.  If you look at our PR page you’ll notice this is our very FIRST time running a 20k race, so yah!! No matter what we’ll both PR this weekend. 🙂

If you checked out our marathon training schedule you’ll notice we put 20k race + 4 miles…well, we decided we are going to attempt a total of 16 miles tomorrow.  Our plan is to run the 20k and keep in mind we have a little bit more than a 5k to do afterwards.  So if you see two crazy girls grab their TDF hats at the finish line and keeping going that’s why!  We’ll actually be out there with our friend Bitner (whom we’ve run with before) and I believe he plans on doing the same thing as he is also in marathon training for White Rock.

Here is what our course looks like:

We have run around White Rock Lake a handful of times so the only surprise for us will be the NOT around the lake part.  We are confident we will do fine tomorrow.  Maybe we still have a Disneyland Half high mixed with oh my gosh the weather is starting to be awesome again in Dallas high!

Weather:

Precip: 10%

Wind: 7mph

High: 89*

Low: 70*

Goals:

We share the same goals this week – do our best with the 20k and have our minds mentally prepared for the additional mileage we’ll put in after the race!  Which will also mean that this is the first time we’ve EVER run more than 13.1 miles! We got this!

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Marathon Training

September 9, 2011 by · 2 Comments

Technically our marathon training started a month before the Disneyland Half, but we just kept on track with the half training plan we’d been using.  But now here is what we are looking at for the months leading up to White Rock Marathon December 4, 2011:

With our half training we actually looked to Beth’s trainer Johnny (@JohnnyHFitness) for his suggestions and with the above plan we thought about what Johnny had previously laid out for us, Teal found a program online and we may or may not have looked at an organized running club’s current marathon training to come up with our plan.  Plus we had to move some long runs around and/or add mileage on certain race days to make up the miles we wouldn’t get in our race. What do you think?  Do you have any suggestions?

We are complete marathon training newbies so feel free to leave your friendly advice in our comments section!

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