New Year’s Double Eve & Day

New Year’s Double Eve & Day

February 3, 2014 by · 3 Comments

We have decided to blame #Icepocalypse on a lot of things we have found annoying lately. We also approve of any Dallasites doing the same! Prior to #Icepocalypse, we signed up to run the Day part of the New Year’s Double race to support and keep our friend Catherine entertained. She was going to use the double races as training for her 50 mile race in February. 50, yes,  50 miles, we think she is nuts too! BUT… the stupid weather gods had other plans that basically changed the makeup of the two days. Catherine trained super hard for Dallas and wanted to race for a PR and instead decided to race the Eve portion of the the New Years Double and drop the Day race all together. That left Beth running the Day marathon solo (she would have run with Catherine the entire race) and Teal running the day half solo.

We whined…. a lot and then just decided we would make the best of it.

We woke up New Year’s Eve day and headed to Celebration Park to cheer on Catherine and Paul as they worked towards a sub 4 marathon.

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Jesse found us!

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Race spectating is hard work! …..especially when you’re preggo 🙂
photo cred: Jesse Puentes

 It totally looked like Beth was drinking a mimosa or some sort of adult bev in that giant cup until you actually learned she was pregnant, huh?

Catherine is flying!

Catherine is flying!

 We also gotta to help out another runner fan club/cheer squad and jump there car for them. 🙂  Thankfully, Teal comes prepared for such a situation!

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@mcgaritydotme having fun out on the course

@mcgaritydotme having fun out on the course

Beth and Brent stayed the night at Teal and Michael’s house and basically had a chill evening of Aggie football watching. We say “chill” but did anyone watch that game? Madness! Beth, in true Beth fashion left her Garmin at home and trekked home at midnight to get it putting us both in bed after midnight, we made it to see the ball drop! Which we really didn’t expect to happen but are glad it did. Brilliant plan for marathon and half marathon running, right?!

Luckily the race had a late start and we strolled up, went to the bathroom, chatted with Ninja and began the race. Super laid back with a small race, we even missed our wave starts, whoops.  From here there is really not much else to say except we ran the entire half together, again in true preggo running fashion, we took it super slow and cautious. 🙂 Thank god for patient running buddies who don’t kill you when you have to go to the bathroom during the race!

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After the first lap of the race we were greeted by basically the BEST bicycle cheering squad one could hope for. All of our frunners were in the area knocking out a New Year’s Day bike ride together and they decided to bike over and cheer us on! We LOVED it and it gave us a boost to run around that dang course again!!

photo cred: @thatpinkgirl

photo cred: @thatpinkgirl

We also LOVED the Frisco Running Clubs water station. They sure know what they are doing. Our crazy friend Mark was at the station and we swear you could hear is voice all over the park. He kept us motivated and ran alongside us in a few spots, but don’t worry, never more than .25 of a mile. 🙂 We might also add this station had it all, oreos, m&m’s, skittle, coffee station, and black eye peas! That’s a first for us.

photo cred: Nancy Howard

photo cred: Nancy Howard

 

Running by Frisco Running Club's water station! photo cred: Nancy Howard

Running by Frisco Running Club’s water station!
photo cred: Nancy Howard

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We are both proud to say we finished our races and love starting out the new year with a healthy activity. Next year however, we think we are sleeping in!!

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Fairview Half Marathon

July 1, 2013 by · 4 Comments

fairview half

 

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This year has been a little scattered with our running as you might have noticed. We are seriously behind on recapping races and really surprisingly enough we are currently only registered for a 5K and one half marathon that seems like forever away. When we get asked what we have done this year we seriously have to think about it. We both keep forgetting the fact that we have run 2 half marathons this year. We told you about Sugarland already so here is our “this is what we remember” recap from the Fairview Half. Get excited!

As you may know The Fairview Half is put on by the awesome Libby Jones who runs The Active Joe, and she is also the creator of our running group NTX Runners!  She is responsible for the New Year’s Double, Showdown Half, and her newest race, The Fairview Half. She gives awesome perks to repeat runners of her races and also those that volunteer. We were able to get in super early and for super cheap because we have both run and volunteered for one of her races!

This race is actually a very pretty race. It runs through some very fancy neighborhoods in Fairview, through what feels like the middle of the country, and it starts and ends at the Fairview Town hall. Our only disclaimer for this race is it is HILLY. Not as hilly as the ZOOMA race we ran last year (we don’t think anything is that bad hill-wise) but this one is a somewhat distant second. Really that is about all we remember! Great scenery, hills, and the BEST PART is tons of our fellow running friends were at this race. So we will just go ahead and skip to the fun part…Post race pics of all the fun people we got to see and some awesome race bling photography!

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We might add, we don’t have a picture of The Unlikely Runners but we saw them out there volunteering the crap out of this race! And also big props to Ninja for making it out to one of the steepest hills to cheer us on to the top! You were a great site on that hill around the mile 9-ish marker!

As soon as the race was over we booked it out of there to pick up Beth’s sister and then make a 4+ hour drive to San Antonio to see our friend Rebekah and hang out for the weekend! We clearly like to jam pack as much as possible into a race weekend.

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Hello? Are you there?

January 7, 2013 by · 8 Comments

Hi, there! Do you remember us?! We kind of went a little MIA for the holidays, well, as far as blogging goes. Ok, we were also kind of MIA on our twitter account too. Oopsies?

Sometimes you just need a break to recharge though right?!

Pretty much since our last couple of blog posts we have done A LOT of things. We kicked off the holidays that next week with a frunners party at the Luebs!

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It’s a joke…just know we are fun people! Promise!

 

Heidi, the Hostess with the Mostest!

Heidi, the Hostess with the Mostest!

Ninja hijacked the LiAR instagram

Ninja hijacked the LiAR instagram

Then we were able to celebrate this cutie patooties 1st Birthday at her Grandparent’s house.  We take any and every opportunity we can to see her mom & dad….and, obviously, Miss Eliza as well.  Isn’t she just SO cute?

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We of course celebrated Christmas with our families, and we each have little kids in our family so there are never dull moments!

Beth & her nephew Christmas Eve

Beth & her nephew Christmas Eve

 

And you thought Teal was tall? Check out how much taller her bros are than her!

And you thought Teal was tall? Check out how much taller her bros are than her!

For those of you reading this blog that are NOT from Dallas and/or did not spend your Christmas in Dallas – we got SNOW! ON Christmas Day!  It was pretty!

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The day after Christmas Teal and her family participated in the 4th Annual Wynnwood Haven Memorial Walk.  Forty-five people came out despite the 20 degree temperature to participate in the walk that honors her Grandpa. How cool is that?

Wilson is ready to walk!

Wilson is ready to walk!

 

On the 30th we got in our last run of 2012 together at White Rock Lake.  And thankfully Teal & White Rock are starting to be friends again!  What are we talking about? Read this.

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The two of us volunteered at New Years Double on day 1 of the race.  We put on as many layers as possible and hung out in the cold & rain. We actually ran this race last year (check that out here & here), and let us just tell you right now this race does NOT disappoint when it comes to bling!  You should definitely add it to your list of races if you are in DFW or if you are looking to race in the DFW area!

That's one impressive race medal!

That’s one impressive race medal!

You do have to run the race on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day to get each of those medals that fits into the challenge plate! Such an awesome way to end your year and start a new year!

Our only picture together includes the awesome DK! Who PR'd her 5K!!

Our only picture together includes the awesome DK! Who PR’d her 5K!!

 

And then of course we did partake in the whole celebrating New Year’s Eve thing. Thanks to Bitner & Chaz for having us all over to your house!  It was a night of good friends, good food and some good ol’ card games.

Bitner, Su & Teal

Bitner, Su & Teal

 

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Our dudes :)

Our dudes 🙂

So there you have it the end of our 2012. We have kept the fun alive so far in 2013 the proof is in this last Saturday’s activities which pretty much include day drinking and bowling.

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The start of our 2013, and just where we’ve been since before Christmas. We hope that you all had a great holiday season with your family and that your new year has started off great!  And with this we are back to our regularly scheduled selves once again!  See you again soon. 🙂

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Braving the Cold: Texas Style

February 13, 2012 by · 2 Comments

We woke up yesterday morning and it was 28 degrees in Dallas. Brrrr!! Just a week and a half ago we were both getting in a run separately in what seemed like spring time weather – 70ish degrees.  Texas you are so fickle with your weather! Then last night there were snow flurries in different parts of the metroplex – snow flurries!

Ever since we spent four plus hours out in the cold and rain running our first ever marathon neither one of us has been super excited about going out and running in the cold.  Have you noticed a lot of treadmill runs out of us lately?  Of course we did go run the New Year’s Double races in colder temperatures, but it was racing that got us out of bed for that one.  Getting out of bed and running by ourselves in the cold – no way, Jose!

Back to yesterday morning – We were lucky to be able to have breakfast with our friend Rebekah who tagged along with her husband on his work weekend. So we got to spend time with Rebekah and baby Eliza again!

At breakfast we both said “I am NOT running outside today. TOO COLD.” And then basically discussed how we would work our time in on the dreadmill. Yuck! We left there intending to do treadmill runs. I am pretty sure we both got home and said – “Seriously?? Buck up!” Apparently we both decided to brave the cold at the same time and both reached for our phones to text the other –

B: I think I might brave the cold for hills and then run later tonight at the gym.

T: Haha, I literally picked up the phone to tell you the same!  I’m going to try and get 8? Hope I don’t freeze

Teal headed out for her 8 mile run dressed for snow!

She continues to have serious issues with being cold. For Christmas her mom had bought her Under Armour water proof gloves which very much remind her of the infamous OJ Simpson gloves, but who cares? They are super thick! Slapped those on, found her ear covers and had two shirt layers on as well as a jacket. Mind you it’s now about 40 degrees outside but whatever!

Thank god we don’t live anywhere further north. Teal’s 8 miles went very well. Ran a pretty hilly course at a fairly slow pace and felt great. Her foot, in case you were curious is doing much better!  It still reminds her that it is hurt in runs but is making great progress. Along with the foot Teal thinks that her post-marathon cold trauma is fading!  Well maybe…

Here is a picture of the course Teal ran –

Beth had not done her hill workout for the week or her long run so she decided Sunday would be a double run day.  Seeing as it was in the low 40’s that meant she should dress like it was in the low 60’s, so she figured it would be a good time to take her new lululemon shorts for a spin to test them out for the Princess Half.  And for good measure threw on a hat to keep warm!

As of late when Beth does hills she tries to get a little mileage in, the hills, and then some additional mileage and that’s exactly how today went.  A little over a mile out, ran the hill 10 times, and not quite 2.5 miles to finish it up for a 5.17 mile run.

We did it! We ran outside again and might not be so terrified of the low temperatures anymore!  Call us wimps all you like….but we live in Texas and have for pretty much forever!  We don’t know truly cold weather.

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Tagged: Beth Edition

February 8, 2012 by · 8 Comments

1. Which of your race medals is your favorite? Why?

It’s hard to say a medal other than the New Year’s Double medal.  I mean seriously, the weight of it! The way it’s put together and how we got it! It’s just awesome plus it does represent the first time ever doing back to back half marathons, BUT I will say that the White Rock Marathon medal comes in verry close to the NYD medal!

2. It’s a leap year! What are you going to do with your extra day on February 29th?

Probably just be thankful because it being a leap year enables Brent & I to get married on the day that he proposed to me – October 27th!

3. What food can you not live without?

I definitely go in stages of the food I LOVE! Goldfish for a long time have been the food I love but I rarely buy them because I’ll eat the whole bag. Ha, but for awhile now it’s been egg rolls. Ha I looooove egg rolls! I eat a lot of Lean Cuisine’s version of them to not be eating high calorie egg rolls.

4. What race is your dream race? Why?

I would say that my dream race is The Kauai Marathon!  Absolutely love Hawaii and then Kauai is just beautiful! I’d love a chance to go back there and run!  Plus the view on that course? Has to be amazing!  Because of the time difference, travel time and money I’d need to save up for that race it seems like a dream!

5. What cartoon character are you most like? Why?

Uhhh, well cartoon character automatically makes me think about Disney and if I had to pick a Disney Princess I think I’m most like I’d say Belle and conveniently that’s who I am dressing up as for the Princess Half at the end of the month!

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6. Does each pair of sock have a “left” sock and a “right” sock?

Uhh, they are socks. Ha, if I manage to have two that are the same or even have two at times it’s a miracle! 🙂

7. What is your favorite way to cross train?

SPIN!!  I’ve been regularly going to spin class for about 5 years now! I own a pair of spin shoes because I love it so much!  You know how runners (myself included) get a runner’s high? I also get a spinning high!

8. What is your favorite race shirt?

Ummm, I don’t totally have one. Just love races that give me long sleeve regular shirts! The design of the Dallas Turkey Trot shirts are always great!

9. Do you have a bucket list?

Nope!  My friend Rebekah and I once had a list of things we wanted to do locally, domestically and internationally but I think I lost it.  Bucket lists are great and I’m interested in what I’d come up with to put on it….

10. Do you have a certain song that you always put at the beginning of your playlists?

Not really, but I kind of get addicted to certain songs.  For example – Sean Kingston’s Fire Burnin’ LOVE singing that song. Ha, I memorized all the words to it. 🙂

That body is a masterpiece the order is one in every hundred years but ain’t no doubt I’m takin’ it home, home

Little mama game about to change, She’ll be on covers all over the world 🙂

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11. Do you think I am crazy for signing up for the Tough Mudder?

Yes, haha, but a good kind of crazy!  Betsy you are awesome and will do GREAT! I feel like I’d hurt myself in that type of a race!

11 Random Things:

1.  I am a fourth Swedish

2.  I went to the same private school here in Dallas as Chace Crawford from Gossip Girl…know who I’m talking about? He was two grades below me and I remember seeing him when I was in 10th grade when I’d go over and take pictures of the middle schoolers for yearbook. Kind of gave you two things there – yes, I worked on the yearbook at my school.  Also, if you’re a dude and don’t know who I am talking about – his sister married Tony Romo.

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3. I hate talking on the phone. Ha.  When I was little I was SOOO shy that my mom would make me call the pizza guy and anyone else like that so that I could get over my dislike for talking on the phone and especially to people I didn’t know.

4.  As a little kid I just didn’t talk much and was reeeeeeally shy up until I was in high school.  My poor youth pastor & his wife took me to lunch when I was 12 years old and I maaybe said 20 words the whole time. Haha, oh how times have changed!

5.  It really isn’t represented enough in our blog, but I’m an Aggie!  WHOOP!! =)

6.  I’ve been to the ER twice in my life and both trips were within 48 hours of each other. *knocks on wood*

7. I LOVE movies!  I have been going to the movie every week with one of my friends for a little over 3 years now.

8.  With that last one said my all time favorite movie is Empire Records!

AJ: What’s with you today?

Lucas: What’s with today, today?  

So many great quotes and songs in that movie!

9. The Laughing Toilet – that’s what my older bro, older sister and two older boy cousins started calling me for a brief period of time when I was little.  Apparently at the time I was sick and if I started laughing I’d start coughing and it was a deep cough so you know that sounds like a laughing toilet?  Toilets laugh? Older siblings & relatives can be so mean! 😉

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10. As a child I LOVED Barbies! I played with them until I was like 10 years old….uh, all my friends had stopped at that point. But not all of my friends had cool Barbie clothes their Grandmom sewed for them like I did!

11.  I got the chicken pox when I was 5 & 6…I say 5 & 6 because I had them on my birthday. 🙂  Neither one of my granddads had ever had the chicken pox so I remember sitting in the front entry way of our house with the door open waving at them and them standing by their cars telling me happy Birthday from there because they weren’t going to get any closer to me.

As an added bonus for the few Colorado peeps that read our blog and because 12 is my favorite number –

12. If I had to tell you one thing my family repeats about something I did as a kid it would be when we were on a family trip to Colorado and I said “Hey, dad, does Ouray have a telephone?”

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Tagged: Teal Edition

February 3, 2012 by · 6 Comments

Ok, so Betsy over at The EverydayWarrior tagged us in this 11 Random Things about yourself and answer 11 questions she came up with.  We are going to be rebellious and only answer and then nothing past that…AND to keep you from reading forever we are breaking it up into two posts! Look for Beth’s post next week.

1. Which of your race medals is your favorite? Why?

New Year’s Double Medal because it is amazing. It is the largest medal I have, it’s in TEAL, and the race was the most fun I think you can have running back to back half marathons over New Year’s Eve and Day when most are drinking and partying, just a good way to end and start and a badass medal to go along. 

2. It’s a leap year! What are you going to do with your extra day on February 29th?

I wish I could say sleep but that won’t happen and since it’s a Wednesday I’ll be working both of my jobs that day… BOOOO!

3. What food can you not live without?

Really I can live without anything… I love goldfish and french-fries but I usually avoid both. No real “addictions” or “must haves”

4. What race is your dream race? Why?

Haha um really it would be Boston but I would NEVER qualify. I really want to run and overseas race but I don’t know which one- Italy, Greece??

5. What cartoon character are you most like? Why?

I don’t know so I took a test and it said Jasmine, but I always wanted to be Ariel! Does that help??

6. Does each pair of sock have a “left” sock and a “right” sock?

NOPE! I hate socks and shoes for that matter, most of the time my socks don’t even match and I totally don’t care what foot they end up on.

7. What is your favorite way to cross train?

Spin but I am learning to swim and I think once I actually get the hang of it I will seriously enjoy it.

8. What is your favorite race shirt?

White Rock Marathon Finisher Shirt- not the best “looking” but my fav for the obvious reason!

9. Do you have a bucket list?

No but I really need to write one! I’ve actually thought about that for a while and kind of sealed the deal when the lady this weekend said she was crossing the finish line at 3M to fulfill a part of her bucket list at 62. I want one!

10. Do you have a certain song that you always put at the beginning of your playlists?

I have always, at least since the start of running long distance, have had “Right Now” by Van Halen- its on every playlist so I guess I’ll go with that!

11. Do you think I am crazy for signing up for the Tough Mudder?

Yep!! Certifiable in fact!  I once ran the Mud Run which was the worst thing ever! I hated every minute and then was hosed off in the freezing cold by a fire hose, had mud in my ears and things for a week, and even got a blister that had mud in it. You have fun with that one crazy lady.

11 Random Things:

  1. I am 100% in love with Jimmy Fallon – he is my number 1 on my “celebrities I would marry list.” Hot and funny
  2. I  don’t like watching movies
  3. I don’t like shoes or socks and only wear them because the world basically makes you
  4. I still have to use my hands to determine my right from my left- I always get it wrong. Something must be missing between my brain and my hands
  5. I can name all the members of the WuTang clan
  6. In the 3rd grade I memorized the Gettysburg Address- The entire freaking thing and was able to recite it to my class. I can still recite parts of it (mostly the 1st section)
  7. I am a rule follower – makes me very anxious to not follow the rules and many times this annoys me
  8. Pumping gas is one of my least favorite things to do and I typically test the limits of my car’s ability to run on empty all the time.
  9. I have never broken a single bone in my body and hope to keep it that way
  10. I’m learning to swim- right now I look like a dying fish but that’s ok!
  11. I’m actually very, very shy.

 

*Jimmy Fallon picture from Glamour

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Austin, 3M Volunteering & Weekend of Good People!

January 31, 2012 by · 4 Comments

Ok, so we left you with our “Seven Things Friday” and we figured to recap our weekend we’d let you see how we did on those seven things, so here goes.

1. We are going to AUSTIN today after work!! Wheee!

Well we did and we made it back safe & sound!  Though we are still trying to work on the whole teleportation thing so we don’t have to endure the hours in the car!

2.  So that we can volunteer at the 3M Half Marathon!

We had two volunteer shifts over the weekend and our first was Saturday working packet pickup.  We walked in and were immediately put behind computers next to each other to help check people in.  Those 4 hours fa-lew by!  So many happy runners coming to pickup their bib, chip and awesome swag bag!

It was so sad hearing stories of people who thought they were registered for the race, but their registration really did not go through or they thought they’d still be able to get a spot, but it was sold out.  Definitely a lesson in registering ASAP and double checking your confirmation!

Then we were up bright & early race day morning to help pass out medals.  Along with other volunteers, we unwrapped 6,000 medals for the half & half relay which took about an hour and a half or so.

We had good timing because the first person to finish came in completing his half right around 1:07.  The 1:40 to 2:15 finish time frame was the when the BIG rush came in.  It was awesome!  Seeing the finishers’ faces and being able to congratulate them!  Some people were so excited that they even asked Teal if it was time for a smooch.  Then there were tamer moments like when Beth put a medal around a man’s neck and he wrapped his arms (stinky, sweaty and all) around her for a hug.

The whole time we were looking for our friends who were out there running to finish.  Our first familiar face was from C-Stand [we can’t stop calling you that :)]!!

Pretty positive it was those crazy pants that gave her a kick ass (sorry mom, we used the a word) PR!! Way to go lady! 😉  But really, Courtney, you killed it out there WAY TO GO for real!

Just a few minutes later in came Courtney a.k.a. @cisforcourtney who was easily spotted by us in her purple tank, Teal  yelled out to her and she came running over to us!  It was so cool to put that shiny medal around her neck!  You’ll have to check out her bloggy blog to see how awesome her PR was!

We also got to see and medal Lesley (@RacingItOff) and Tricia (@TriciaRunning) after their beer race 🙂  You ladies awesome! We have managed to see Lesley at a handful of races in Dallas, but it’s never for thaaat long. We have got to fix that!

We should mention we saw a couple of familiar faces from New Years Double out there too! Each of us spoke to one of them briefly – other NYD runners would know him as the marathon winner of New Year’s Eve and her as the half marathon winner of both days!

It was neat to be there and see the entire spectrum of runners out there from an 11 year old boy running his first half to a 62 year old woman crossing off “run a half marathon” from her bucket list.  She was so proud of herself, as she should be, because she could tell her kids that run marathons she had completed a half marathon. LOVED that!  We were there to see the 30 year old first finisher cross the finish line to the 69 year old who was the person to run across that finish line and regardless of their time each of them had such a sense of accomplishment to them!  Just further proving running is really for anyone with a goal!  Such. A. Great. Experience!

3. We are SO excited to get to meet Courtney & Luke!

Obviously you know we saw Courtney at the end of her race, but we first got to FINALLY meet her and Luke during our packet pickup shift! Who doesn’t love meeting someone and being handed over de-licious goodness in the form of a s’mores cupcake??  We also got to hangout with them for a little bit Saturday night too at this cute bar – Dive Bar.  While it was fun to hang with them that night it was at a bar where it was hard to talk and all hear each other, so we were grateful for the opportunity to see them Sunday afternoon too at Austin Java!  Courtney & Luke, you two are awesome!  We loved getting to see you, spend time with you and we can’t wait for the next time!! 🙂

You two are wonderful and we WISH we lived in the same city as you guys!

4.  We are officially signed up for the ZOOMA Austin Half on March 31, 2012!!

Yep, we still are!! 🙂  THAT didn’t change over the weekend, so you should sign up if you STILL have not…AND we still have a coupon code good through TODAY!  You know you wanna!!

5.  Neither of us have actually run in Austin and you know what? We are going to change that this weekend!

OOPS!! Yah, we didn’t!! Wait, we saw a bunch of runners, does that count?? Guess we’ll change that when we run ZOOMA!

6.  We canNOT wait to get coffee at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf – have been dreaming about it since our last trip to Austin!

Yep, we went there! TWICE!  One trip there we might have gotten more than one drink! 🙂  It is safe to say that we are also a fan of their breakfast food there! We would have made a third trip there but we cheated and went to Austin Java.  Brigid to answer you question the other day – when we go there Teal gets either a sugar free caramel latte or vanilla latte and Beth tends to stick with Hazelnut.  If we are remembering correcting all of their drinks with milk are made with non fat milk.  And now we are dreaming about them again…..

7.  We really wanted to post 27 things…

Aren’t you glad we didn’t post 27 things this time either?? 🙂

We also would like to say thank you to Mary Alice for once again letting us crash with you!  And thanks to Mandy & her cute little munchkin, Meranda for meeting us for dinner Saturday night!

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[Not Entirely a] Marathon Running Weekend Part 1

January 23, 2012 by · 5 Comments

Twitter Road Race:

You got to love the weather in Texas! On Friday it was a warm almost 80 degrees and Teal woke up on Saturday morning to a chilly 36 degrees. Teal headed out early on Saturday before work and completed her #TwitterRoadRace early. The first mile was terrible. Her lungs were burning like crazy the entire time. She was kind of worried about running with a lot of speed- stupid foot, but ended up finishing in 28:38. Fairly slow considering but overall not too bad. For Teal this is the first time she had even attempted to run outside since the New Year’s Double. Had it not been for the road race she would have never set foot outside because of the cold. Yep—so glad we don’t live up north and have to deal with the snow. It was so encouraging to know that others in the running community were out doing the same thing and based on twitter many dealt with way worse conditions. Once finished her ears were ringing and she basically wanted to go back to bed. Is that bad??

Beth has a relatively new standing “date” with her trainer on Saturday morning’s at 10:00 a.m. and with a jammed back day of stuff to do decided to have the morning to do what she wanted before that workout. After workout she was off to meet a new client/Bride to pick up her wedding invitation envelopes to address, then pick up her Too Cold to Hold race packet and try and make it back home to run before yoga.  Beth made a first attempt at the #TwitterRoadRace but stopped because realistically it was cutting too close to her next thing to do.  She ended up doing her 5k AFTER we did our trail run at NorthShore.

 

Results of the Road Race:

Teal –

Finished 185th out of 347 runners!

Beth –

For whatever reason her results didn’t get counted. Boo! 🙁  Beth ran her 5k in 26:38 and would have tied @RunfosRunner for 122nd place.

 

Northshore Trail Run:

We both met at Sunstone Yoga at 1:30 to fit in a quick yoga session before heading out to the trail.  Neither of us really knew where we were going and ended up getting lost like 5 times before actually making it out there. We have both lived in Dallas forever, if not our entire lives, but were completely backwards in terms of where we were supposed to turn. 🙂

 

We ended up making it the trail with a little over an hour to run. We showed up at the gate and the man was like “you guys are ambitious.” Whoops… We started out the trail walking a little bit just to see how it would do and picked up running about a .25 mile in. The trail was not crowded, perhaps because it was so late in the day. It was very nice and open, much different from Erwin Park. We didn’t have to dodge as many trees and limbs like before. Here are a few pics of our route.

We changed it up a little and talked the entire run, totally not normal for us! Mostly about wedding stuff and just the weekend coming up and managed to make 2 miles in about 30 minutes. It’s crazy how much slower we are when running trails. We started heading back and both of us were kind of paying attention to time but not that well and apparently our talking made it hard for us to remember where we came from. Just like our drive in we had to turn around a couple of times. The sun was really starting to set by this time and we had again taken the wrong route back. Apparently we were having major directional problems Saturday. As we were running back on the shore you could see the park ranger man in his truck waiting around by our car. We ran the last stretch and managed to get to the car literally 2 minutes before the 5:40 cut off. 4 miles on the trail was very nice! We really liked this trail and seriously want to run it again, next time with more time of course!

 

Getting out there late and running until right up to the park closing gave us some gorgeous views of Grapevine Lake when the sun was setting! Completely worth it!  We’ll have the 2nd half of this weekend up in the next couple days! 🙂

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Teal’s Foot Update

January 17, 2012 by · 8 Comments

Ok so I finally bucked up and went to the doctor about this stupid foot and it turns out I was right all along. Here is a reenactment of our convo since you guys couldn’t be there with me 😉

Dr: “ You know you have Plantar Fasciitis right?”

me “Yep, that is what I thought, but was in denial”

Dr. “ Well great, how much running have you been doing since the pain?”

me: “ Well, ummmmm, well sooo… I ran the White Rock Marathon, and then the New Year’s Double and a couple of other shorter runs in between when I could walk”

Dr: “Well I bet that hurt.”

(source)

The bad news is I have a “classic” case of Plantar Fasciitis, but the good news is there is not a stress fracture or joint damage. He said that because I have had this problem for such a short period of time (about 6 weeks) that I should be able to get it under control. You guys might have seen that I followed a bunch of the things on this post from right after the race and things have been going well. The doctor, as a matter of fact, said that that was EXACTLY what I was supposed to be doing. High five for me – operation stop stubbornness really has paid off a little.

I love this doctor so much. He is also the one that looks at my knees in case you were curious. He said that I CAN keep running but it will be painful at times. He said that PF is mechanical and therefore (on me at least) he said that it is not “dangerous” pain and he stated that as long as I keep it “in check” that I will be ok to keep running.

By “in check” he means a couple of things:

1– ice immediately after exercise especially longer runs for at least 15 mins

2– stretch like crazy, the calves, Achilles, and then arch

3– ibuprofen

4– cross train when the pain is above a 5 on a scale of 1-10.

All doable!

My worry was that I would run myself into a heel spur, which to me looks nasty and he said that my chances of that were veeeerrrry slim! I love him because he said you can run and tells me exactly what to do to be able to continue to do that without beating around the bush and is 100% honest.

He brought in his physical therapist guy who was also AMAZING. He showed me some stretches that I hadn’t seen or done before which was very helpful. After taking me through the stretches he was like – What the heck have you been doing? Your foot is as stiff as a board? He came in and moved my foot around a ton and was like – if I would have seen you before the marathon or before your double I would have told you NO WAY. Whoops?

He gave me this fancy boot that I get to wear to bed at night. SEXY I tell ya, and I’m a little worried that it might scare my dog, but nevertheless I will wear that bad boy until this foot feels better and I will attend the physical therapy. They said I would only need to go once or twice because the real work is done at home and with consistency. I have a follow up in a month so I’ll keep you posted but I am excited for the semi-good news and glad that it is solvable and manageable.

I have learned the importance of stretching! I think I learned it very late but I am sooooo going to get better at this stretching flexibility thing. Yoga will help this too. Oh and on a side note, I was in yoga the other day and just looking around (totally not what you should be doing) but there was this HUGE, I mean HUGE, musclely firefighter dude in the back who he was completely not flexible at all. He couldn’t even do some of the basic moves and I thought to myself that yoga really puts the whole idea of strength and flexibility into perspective and exactly why we need BALANCE! Yoga made him look like a complete weenie. I’ll keep this in mind the next time I want to skip stretching.

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Other Parts of New Year’s Weekend

January 5, 2012 by · 3 Comments

Well, Thursday isn’t totally a weekend day, but it is pre-Friday so we let’s just go ahead and include our day trip to College Station! You might remember from last week the arrival of baby Eliza, well, we took a road trip to meet her and see the new parents, Rebekah & Zac!

Eliza is an absolutely adorable, teeny tiny little girl! Congrats again to Rebekah & Zac! She’s lucky to have the two of you!

Friday Beth spent the afternoon with her sister and cousins for their annual Meatyball day! All of them are a quarter Swedish and get together every year to help Aunt Cindy make a big batch of her mother’s Swedish Meatball receipe and then have a feast!

Cousins! - Chase, Beth, Brice & Kate

Teal was one productive lady – she prepared an entire month’s worth of breakfast options to freeze and ready to go whenever she needs them! She made burritos full of egg whites, green bell pepper, a can of diced tomatoes & onions on flat outs and egg white, mushroom & spinach quiches.

Saturday after the first day of the New Years Double we went and watched a free screening of The Spirit of the Marathon thanks to Cinemark Allen who was one of the sponsors of the New Years Double race! A certain number of tickets were available to NYD runners and one guest per runner, so we jumped on the tickets and brought Michael and Brent along with us.

Ironically enough when we went to google map on our phone how to get to the theater this was the distance –

(source)

Should we have just run there?? Ha

If you have not seen or even heard about this movie – it follows the story of 6 people who will all be running the 2005 Chicago Marathon. They range from first time marathoners to Olympic athletes, and it is definitely an inspiring film to watch! The movie is available for purchase on it’s website, DVD or streaming on Netflix or Hulu Plus. After the movie the four of us headed to Maggiano’s to enjoy a nice New Year’s Eve dinner and fill up on some carbs for the next day’s race! And maybe a glass of wine too. *gasp* 🙂 Pretty sure neither one of us lasted until midnight to officially ring in the New Year. Big thank you again to Michael & Brent for putting up with our low key NYE this year!

The New Years Double race allowed us to meet quite a few people we find ourselves chatting with on twitter regularly….though there were still some we missed! 🙁 Hopefully we can change that at another race though!

After the second day of the race we went out with some running friends to feast on dim sum! Sooo good and we definitely enjoyed the company! Looking forward to doing it again soon! 🙂

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