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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Wounded Warrior

July 24, 2013 by · 5 Comments

Something crazy has been going on in Texas this summer and more specifically in Dallas as I can’t really speak for the rest of the state. 🙂  It’s called rain.

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I was in top 500 or something like that so I also got a hat with my registration and every year they give you a pair of socks in addition to your race shirt.

I woke up race morning and this race really isn’t that far from my house though I was running behind and my fellow NTX Runners who were also running Wounded Warrior had planned a meet up for a pre-race picture.  Just a few minutes behind I was making my way over to packet pickup and juust made it under the awning of the building when all of the water from the sky began to pour down. All of it. Luckily, I’d found some of my NTX people so I wasn’t just standing their by myself since Teal wasn’t able to run this race with me due to high school graduation where she works.  We got a couple updates from a human being that the race was delayed 15 minutes and then another 15 minutes as there was just a massive crowd gathered together trying to stay dry.

For this race they have two distances, a half and a 10K, and per usual I was sticking with the 10K which started after the half did.  It’s too darn hot to be doing a half in June, amiright?  Except for this rainy race day.  I also began tweeting with some other local runners who were hearing the delay was even longer than what I had heard.  Eventually I knew I had 5-10 minutes before my race was to begin so I made my way to the start line in the rain.  I’d already made the executive decision that I was not going to even begin to mess with my phone and Runkeeper for this race.  The life of my phone was more important than music and having exact info on my race.

It rained for half if not more of my race.  They actually had to do a detour on one part of the race that runs on the Campion Trail because it wasn’t just kind of flooded over it was REEEEALLY flooded over.  As in if I ran through that I think the water would have been up to my hips, but I’m also short if you have noticed from all the pictures where I stand next to Teal. 🙂

Throughout the race I didn’t really know how I was doing and was just excited every time I passed a mile marker.  With less than a mile to go I spotted some friends on the course, Lisa & Lucy (who I still had not meet IRL until that moment).  That was  nice little boost at the end.  And then the race was over.  I was drenched and had no clue how I did, but was excited to have my 10K bling! 🙂

 

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I absolutely love this race!  It’s for an awesome cause, it’s close to home and I get a medal for running a 10K!  I didn’t get to stick around too long after the race as some friends of Brent’s were in town and I need to get to brunch. Priorities, people!  But I did get to see quite a few people at the end which was very fun!

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Julie and me

 

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Jesse & me – love his shirt!

I was pleasantly surprised to find out later that day that my naked run at Wounded Warrior was only 15 seconds behind my 10K PR!  I finished in 54:46 which was 9th in my age group.  Not too shabby!

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December Goal Recap

January 11, 2013 by · 4 Comments

Don’t worry we didn’t forget about our goals during our hiatus in the month of December. Yah, yah, it’s the 11th and we are just now posting them…oops?  Story of our lives?!  Here’s how we did during the crazy month that always is December:

Teal-

1. Complete all marathon training runs.

Um, I really don’t know how to give myself a grade for this since I am not actually doing the marathon now. But at the same time I really haven’t altogether been running consistently either. There are many reasons why this has happened, all I am sure you really do not want to hear about. The holiday season is just crazy anyways and if I was still running the marathon it would have taken a lot of discipline to not partake in holiday festivities at the extent that is SUPER fun!

2. Go to the Ross Perot Museum.  This place looks awesome and just opened on December 1st!

F-: I blame my mother for this because she told me that she was going to go with my cousins and so I waited to go with them and then they never went so yea.. I’ll try it in January.

3. Not last minute Christmas shop although I may already be setting myself up for failure.

B-: I finished 2 days early! Haha! This is actually not bad and I had to do no wrapping of the presents the day of which hasn’t happened in a while!

4. Don’t be a scrooge and actually put up the Christmas tree this year

A-: I have to thank my husband for this! We actually put up decorations and a tree. It was only 3 feet tall but it was up! Anyone have one of those tall skinny ones they want me to have? That is what I decided I would do next year because part of my problem is my house doesn’t have a good “Christmas tree” spot. Anyone else have this problem? It drives me nuts! So a tall skinny tree is my answer for next year!

christmas tree mr kitties

Beth-

1. Complete all marathon training runs.

C+: I haven’t completed them and some of that is due to a weird pain in my lower leg, so ummm yah…..we’ll see how this all works out for me in a little over a week at the Louisiana Marathon.

2. Get another room in my house organized this month!

A-:  Last month I got our office darn near close to organized and our guest room darn near close to organized.  They both look SOOOOOOO much better!  There’s still some work to be done, but I am proud of what I accomplished so far!  I even spent part of an afternoon organizing our pantry because it was driving me crazy!

Isn't it purdy?!

Isn’t it purdy?!

3. In addition to organizing there are a couple of crafty projects I want to do around our house, so I’m going to commit to complete one of them this month!

F:  The closest I came to accomplishing this was printing out something I needed in order to do said craft project.  No craft project was accomplished……

4. Run a smart race at Dallas Marathon (only the half though).

A+: I’d say getting a shiny new PR at Dallas Marathon (half) accomplishes this goal!

5. Actually make use of my handy dandy Kitchenaid stand mixer and make Christmas cookies!

A+: I made two batches of Grandmom Lynch’s ginger snaps. They are deeeeeelicious!

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There you have it! We are kind of toying with revamping the way we do our goals, so you aren’t going to find any January goals in this post.  We’ll let you know what we decided to do! 🙂

Until our next post – have a fun and safe weekend! Good luck to all of our friends who are racing this weekend! May the speed be with you. 🙂

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To Marathon or Not to Marathon?

December 12, 2012 by · 37 Comments

Remember that goal I set… have an awesome race, gain some confidence going into the marathon, and don’t need a PR, just a good race? Yea, that didn’t happen.  Then immediately you start to reflect. Why did it not go well? Maybe it was because I did 15 on Sunday, 3miles of speed work Tuesday, and 10 miles at marathon pace Wednesday, and 2 weight training days? So 28 miles right before a ½. Probably not the best idea.  Or, blame it on the weather? It was hot, humid, and gross. My chaffed sports bra lines can show you that for sure.  My legs ached the entire time, even hinging on cramping, especially around miles 7-9. Or maybe it is because this isn’t fun for me right now? I’m more or less running scared. I had a lot of issues last year,Plantar Fasciitis, I have very little cartilage in my knees (thank you dad, he doesn’t either), I have a random hip issue stemming from no cushioning in my bottom two vertebrates (like what happens to 70% of people over the age of 65, except I have it now). I know… I may sound like a whiney excuse maker, but it’s the reality of the situation. So I hope this doesn’t cause your eyes to roll at me. So really I’m not sure… but either way, I should be happier about finishing a ½ marathon than I am.  Boooooo hiss on this attitude but I can’t shake it!!

I have tried everything. EVERYTHING!! Rereading race stories of people, looking over my plan, making changes, looking at the shiny medal I would get at Louisiana Marathon, positive self-talk, negative talk, self-bribery, sarcasm, rest, breaks, I even at this point would pay someone to run next to me the entire time. Takers?? Anyone? Bueller… Bueller?

As of right now, I am NOT going to run the Louisiana Marathon. My heart has also never really been in this race, which to me makes it wayyyy harder. I have refused to let myself get excited (revert back to running scared, White Rock Marathon memories, pain, disappointment). I say this, but I have not gone as far as to change my race, or really even stop training. I have looked at a few other plans, more “finish” a marathon type plans, instead of what we have been doing, that have a few less miles.

The main huge issue is I just truly don’t think my body likes anything over 13.1 miles. I have just now started to feel those issues pop up that kind of remain bearable running under 13. Really half training is not bad on my body, but upper mileage just starts to cause everything to freak out. I’m still sore on Thursday from Sunday long runs. Everything hurts, and every remedy doesn’t work, ice baths, foam rolling, stretching, adult beverages… ha. Nothing. It just feels like crap. This doesn’t happen for a half. I mean it does but NOT to the same level, and it requires way fewer miles per week to run. Duh, half!   So I am not sure if it is “worth it.” I can do it, but what will I feel like after, what will my body do? Can it handle the rest of training and the run? Maybe I’ll just play it on feel? Can you train like that?? UGH!

I could run another marathon… and finish… I think. But I don’t know how fast, how happy, how painful/painless it will be, what damage will be done… etc? Am I supposed to drop to a half and not ever attempt the distance again to “save” my body/mind, so that I’ll actually keep running.

Am I a weenie?

Then to add further confusion to this madness. I am not a lone runner. I have a race buddy. A badass race buddy. I don’t want to not do it and her do it alone, train alone, be out there alone. Not that she wouldn’t be anyways… I’m slower (and ps I’ve known this forever, check out the about us page, so this is not it either) Don’t worry I have run that option through my mind as being a “mental” reason for this. It’s not.  But you get the point. Also that jealous streak sets in of “I’m so close to this person, and she can do it, and I don’t feel I can.” (race distance not speed) Ouch… but it’s true, and you all know what I am talking about. We are human. So yea… I don’t know what to do.

Do I just need to become a bike rider?

So there you have it. My sad whiney, god only knows what rant.

What would YOU do?

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Going Back to Where it All Started

December 7, 2012 by · 10 Comments

This weekend we will be running the race that started it all for us as Life is a Run…well, kinda.  We say kinda because they changed the name on us from White Rock Marathon to Dallas Marathon and the race course is very different.  Not to mention the starting line is no longer in Fair Park, but that’s been the case in years past since this race did start in 1971 and this wouldn’t be the first time the start is actually in downtown Dallas.

Excuse us while we steal a couple words from some of our frunners (stolen word #1 – credit to Mama C), but there’s one frunner in particular, Michelle, who just had her half-a-versary (stolen word #2) and we are about to have our’s!  Hearing that phrase from MK really puts this coming weekend into perspective.  Because really this weekend is kind of a big deal in our world or at least a reflection on where we started and just how far we have come since 2010.

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2010 when we became half marathoners!

We both had been runners in different times of our lives, but 2010 was when Teal asked Beth if she wanted to run a half with her, a distance neither one of us had come close to running.  It’s cute to think now how we use to run for time not for distance, you know like, long run this weekend is running for an hour and a half – oh my!  It’s also cute to think how neither one of us ran with a phone or any device with GPS.  We ran on feel alone. Ohhhh how the times have changed!  And who would have thought in 2011 we’d come back to run White Rock Marathon as our first marathon!? By the time we come back this year to toe the line at the half marathon distance it will be our 15th half marathon upon it’s completion.

In 2010, we had pretty much the perfect weather and little did we know that we were actually going to be spoiled by that.  We would like to pat ourselves on the pack for actually starting our first ever half in very appropriate running gear.  Yes, in the above picture we have fleeces on but we had Michael, Brent & Kate holding onto all of that for us while we ran.  Then 2011, for this very week leading up to the marathon we were both panicked.  WHAT?! Rain on marathon day??  What will we wear? What do we need?  Well, we learned lessons from that one. You could read about them here.

Teal finish photo

Teal becoming a Marathoner!

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Beth becoming a Marathoner!

It’s race week once again for White Rock/Dallas Marathon and per usual we have no idea what we are going to wear because we are pretty sure the projected forecast for Sunday has changed in some form or fashion each day this week. We mentioned in our weekend post how we’d hit a record high last Sunday in the 80’s. Well, we’ve had chances of a cold front coming through Sunday and we’ve had highs of 77 or something like that, so we’ll just have to see how it all plays out. As long as there isn’t rain we should be good! 🙂

In pre-race posts of the past we’ve given you a goal and we are going to kind of do that for you here.  Our individual thoughts, expectations and what not going into Dallas Marathon this weekend –

Teal: I am actually for the first time in a while nervous about a race. I usually just go and run and that is that. I know for a fact that I can make 13.1, clearly!  I haven’t set goals for a while because they started to have the opposite effect on me and they weren’t motivating. I am nervous because I do really want/need this race to go well. It is the last one before the Marathon… dun dun dun. AND I seriously, as dumb as it sounds, am still stuck on how completely and totally crappy last year was for this race (i know it was the full), but still and that has carried over into my marathon training. Sooo really if I was goal setting, my goal is to have an awesome race and to gain some confidence going into the Marathon, confidence that I pretty much do not have right now. I don’t even need a PR, I just want my race to feel good. How to make that happen?? I don’t know. So there goal set. Wish me luck.

Beth: White Rock Half 2010 holds my half marathon PR.  The closest I’ve come to my 1:56:39 PR was at Big D this past April, but I was still 34 seconds away from my PR.  I want so bad to beat that and I want to say that I could do it this weekend, but I just don’t know if I can. I’d like to run a smart race where I definitely do not start out too fast and have enough left in me to speed across that finish line.  I’m afraid of making “get a new PR this weekend” a goal because I’m not fully sure I can do it.  All year I though I’d come back to this race and conquer it with a new PR, but when I heard about them changing up the course it kind of changed things for me a little bit. So just like Teal is nervous, this goal I so want is making me nervous for race day Sunday.

So there you have it some of our reflections as we run our Half-a-versary race this weekend and what we think going into it.  Bring on half marathon no. 15 for #LiAR!  May the speed be with us!

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Our Turkey Day Tradition

November 16, 2012 by · 15 Comments

It’s time for the Capital One Bank Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot AGAIN! Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is literally right around the corner.  We actually got the email Tuesday that said Packet Pick-Up was starting Wednesday.  WHOA!

We love this race because  1.) it’s super fun 2.) the atmosphere around this race is hard to match 3.) it’s pretty much a tradition for us at this point oh and 4.) who doesn’t find it great to burn 800+ calories and enjoying everything you eat that day!  That’s right because each we like to participate in the 8 mile portion of the this race.

Apparently we aren’t the only ones that like this race. Time Magazine actually just listed it as one of the Top 5 Fun Runs to Try Now! Fun Run is exactly the correct terminology, while you could definitely hit a PR in this type of race (both of us did last year 🙂 ) it is definitely not its true purpose.  Even though it is actually one of the largest fun runs in the country, the race is well organized and put together, but some cramping occurs at the beginning making it more fun to take in the atmosphere and enjoy the run through some of the best parts of Dallas! Many families come out for the 5k distance and you are even allowed to bring your pet! Teal is not sure Wilson could handle it though, he is too chicken. 🙁

The Turkey Trot always comes up with something fun and after 40+ years they haven’t run out of new ideas. Last year you might remember that we dressed up as Turkeys and participated in the Guinness Book of World Record challenge to gather the most people dressed as Turkeys in one location! Oh and we did actually break the record! Does this make us famous??

Check out our awesome costumes and Beth’s sewing handy work.

This year they have decided to start the Mascot Trot.  They have invited all of the Dallas area schools to come cheer on the North Texas professional mascots as they race each other around Dallas. There will be “Champ” from the Dallas Mavericks, “Ranger Captain” from the Texas Rangers, and “Rowdy” from the Dallas Cowboys’ mascots and they will all compete in a race with the official Turkey Trot mascot, “Tommy the Turkey.” We didn’t even know they had one!  This happens the day before the race so anyone can come out and watch, even the runners! Maybe you could even be spotted on Good Morning Texas!!

This will be our 3rd year in a row to run together as Life is a Run, but this is something that has been around us for a long time dating back even into our high school running days and hopefully we can keep it up!

Turkey Trot 2010 with Bitner and Chase

There is ONE more thing that makes this day special in addition to it being a day of family (Thanksgiving) and the Turkey Trot, but it is also Teal & Michael’s 4th wedding anniversary!

Who is running the Turkey Trot this year?? We as usual would LOVE to see you.

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Ft. Worth Marathon But You Know Only the Half

November 13, 2012 by · 5 Comments

Perhaps it was the mix of activities for Beth’s wedding or the fact that both of our houses have been a complete disaster, or that we didn’t see each other for a week, or any number of other things but let’s just say this half definitely snuck up on us. We didn’t even do a pre-race post! Whoops?? Perhaps just another bit of proof of our not preparedness.

We double bagged our phones in case it really did rain during the race

Because we were driving to Ft. Worth we wanted to make sure we got to the race in time and especially since we had to get our packets that day!  Teal wasn’t even actually sure she had registered and the guy couldn’t find her name on the list… Oh, he was looking at the list for the marathon, but it was rather hilarious that we really couldn’t remember. So by the time we finished picking them up we had about an hour and a half to kill before our race started.  The different distances at this race are staggered by 30 minutes, so it was a 7:30 a.m. start for the marathon, 8:00 a.m. start for the 20 miler and a 8:30 a.m. start for the half.

Look at how long this race shirt is?!

Miles 1-5

Teal: We talked to Caron before the race and she had mentioned taking it 5 miles at a time. In my head that sounded like a good plan, I hadn’t fully registered that she was running the 20 mile when I decided that sounded great, and it sorta works for a ½ so I went with that. 1-5 seemed to take forever and I couldn’t really figure out why. I am usually done with a mile in about 3ish songs and by mile one I had heard 5. This was not registering with me. Apparently not being prepared also causes my brain to not work. The course was flat for the most part which made me happy! It was too windy to deal with hills too. The wind at points was rather ridiculous.

Beth:  I really didn’t have a game plan in my head AT ALL about this race.  I knew I needed to not start too fast considering the month of October I let my marathon training and mileage be all over the place. 🙁  Plus Thursday night I was hit with a 24 hour stomach bug. So I thought I’d just kind of play it by ear!  Soon after we started and I had turned on my runkeeper there was no music coming from it.  Then I remembered how I had turned the music option off in the app while I was in Hawaii, so I just tried to turn on some music.  When I did it was a slow song, so then I remembered how Thursday night I’d just put my music on shuffle during my stairmaster workout.  To make things even more fun I’d turn down the brightness on my iPhone to help save some battery life which means I couldn’t see through the two plastic bags I had my phone in to turn on a playlist.  My music during this race consisted of almost every slow song on my phone and Christmas music. Ha.

Miles 6-8

Teal: Still not bad but super freaking windy. I was ready to get to the turn around. Not to mentioned this women that had thrown her water on Beth was about to get my foot up her toosh! ( I mean I really would never do that) but she was that much on my nerves. She kept cutting me off for no reason, or running right next to me within like breathing distance. Sometimes Beth and I run like that next to each other but that is because we are LONG TIME RUNNING BUDDIES!! Back up off lady! At 8 I finally was annoyed at how long this seemed to be taking and the time not adding up so I asked Beth what we were really at. She said 7.96! Sweet! I had us at 7.41, so apparently my trusty little Garmin was also not prepared for the day! I actually felt a little energy

Beth: Um, yes to the freaking windy! Do you remember how at the Taco Run there was a guy that messed with my head for the last few miles of the race? Guess who was here at this race? Did you say the Mind Messer Man then you are correct!  I forget when but at one point we caught him and passed him a teeny tiny little bit, but don’t worry, y’all, he surged and he passed us! There was just this nice stretch of me being annoyed that he was there and with the lady who dumped the whole cup of water on me.  It’s one of those things where I get that you don’t want to STOP and walk with your water, but for the love, at least slow down a little.  Her technique of trying to grab a small cup of water at full speed was not affective.  At one water station where I didn’t even get water I was excited because she behind me so no water on me! Wrong, she spilled a cup on my feet. We should also mention that I for one ran more than 13.1 on this race course. Yes, I know tangents, we wrote a blog that included that in it.  There were a couple parts of the course where it split and was either a gravel/dirt path or a paved path and there were no markers to say stay this or what not. I just don’t like courses when it makes me wonder if I’m on the intended path or not?

Miles 9-13.1

Teal: My energy from that .6ish mile increase made me happy and until 10 I was happy. Then at like 10.1 I wanted to die. I had dropped a little behind Beth but just at the perfect timing she slowed to let me catch her! We stayed together until about 11 again and then it was just get home to the finish line. I could see the storm coming in and was just ready to be done mentally but my body just said, Nope you are staying at this pace. I managed to get in and done but was ready to die. My legs hurt and I was pretty shaky and actually a little dizzy. I think the fact that the running was off and 10 mile long runs missed made this difficult. Overall however, I am not disappointed! I finished with a clock time of 2:07 something and really wanted to find out the real time! I am not disappointed with that as it is still pretty quick for me!!

Beth: I was going back and forth on how I was doing and telling myself when you get to 10 it’s just going to be another 5k.  I kind of got pumped at one point and was like LET’S DO THIS!!!  Then at 10 I told myself to take a chill pill.  I was pushing myself too much too fast.  I was coming off inconsistent running and being stick with a stomach bug (a.k.a. not holding food down). So I stopped to find Teal because I was pretty sure if I didn’t chill out and run with her I was not going to make it. When we were about 2 miles out from the finish line I knew I could do this and pushed a little bit harder and at some point in here I passed Mind Messer Man when he stopped to get water. YES! All, I had to do was keep him behind me now! And I did! We actually talked briefly after he crossed the finish line. He was all – weren’t you at the Taco Run? Considering how the last month has been and being sick I am dang proud of this race, but now I got some work to do! We have another half coming up that if I don’t PR at it I better be dang near close!

 

Results:

Teal: 2:06:27, finished 17th in her age group

Beth: 2:05:15, finished 16th in her age group

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PR’ing All Over September

October 2, 2012 by · 7 Comments

Talk about a dreary weekend in Dallas! Lots of raining on Saturday and it just continued Sunday morning.  The race started at 7 a.m. which had this been a hot day like it very well could have been considering it is Texas the early start time would have been awesome!  We arrived at 6 a.m. since registering late made us need to do race day packet pickup.  We got our bibs and our shirts and headed back to the car for a few minutes so Beth could finish her breakfast, put her shoes on and we could drop our race shirts off.  Then we found a covered building entrance riiight next to the start line to hangout under so we wouldn’t get wet from the mist while we waited for the race to start.

 

Teal: We had waited around the start line forever so we actually ended up starting with the “fast group” and this seriously made a difference in the way this race went.  I was very surprised at the pace after mile one and it actually didn’t feel bad at all. I have really been deciding lately how my race will go after mile 1 or 2. I just can’t tell anymore before I start running. By mile 3 we were right around 27 minutes which is fast for me, really fast for me.  My only complaint about miles 1-3 is that I don’t think they could have taken us through an uglier part of Dallas. We were basically running alley ways of only buildings in the crappier part of the design district.

Waiting for the race to start

Beth: We had seen the Luebs right after getting our bibs then found Brian at the start line, and 3 of us chatted about our running lately and what our paces might be for today’s race.  Brian mentioned wanted to run 9 minute miles and I thought Ohh, that sounds good I want to do that! I can do that right?! I just had in my mind the last time I ran a 10 mile race I held about a 9:30 pace, but that was in May meaning hotter weather.  So the race starts and all 3 of us take off. Brian kind of really took off and at the 5 minute mark my Runkeeper tells me we were already over halfway through the first mile and I swear it said we were running at about a 7:50 something pace. That freaked me out. Then I just thought 9 minute pace my ass Brian! 🙂 [Sorry Mom, I said ass, oops did it again]

Miles 3-6

Teal: My goal here was to make sure I stayed under an hour and to make sure I maintained a pace I was happier with. The first 3 were very fast and I was slightly scared I would die. I kept running how tired I was at the end of Tour des Fleurs in my head and worried about what 6-10 would be like. I slowed a little but not much and just kept counting in my head. I lost Beth around 4 but really kept her in my sight for the next mile-ish. I crossed the 10K mark just a tad faster than the 10K PR the week before and was super excited/scared. How long could I maintain this? I kept thinking, you have never run under a 2 hour half and you are on a pace that would let that happen. It was very a weird mix of emotions in terms of “you are going to die” to “just see what you can do and go.”

Beth: The middle of this race I don’t remember all that well.  Probably because I was mainly wondering if I was actually going to end up having a horrible race and slow completely down towards the end or be fine?  So I just kept going.

Miles 6-10

Teal: It was around the 6.5-7ish mark that I moved to running closer to the middle of the road. The race did an out and back and I knew I would start to see Brian or Beth or whoever else and they would give me motivation.  This part of the race seemed so long. The stretch between 5.5 and like 7.5 is up hill, it’s a mild incline, but you can feel it, and it just became annoying. I knew as soon as I saw them that the turnaround would be close and the downhill could begin. I saw Brian pass and then saw Beth not too far behind. I was very confused as to the time and how much was left and I yelled at Beth to pick it up. I for some reason thought we were pretty far off of her 10 mile PR.  (PS.. we completely were not at all, but in my head it was bad, which then confused me because my miles were so close to 9min) I have no clue why I couldn’t sort that out. It was around 7 that my butt muscles were super tight! Like I really just wanted to stop and stretch but I wasn’t about to stop. I just started pushing on my butt hoping it would loosen up. I am sure people around me were like “What the hell is she doing?” I knew that this was not as bad as the women I had passed at mile 7 with her entire butt hanging out. I mean EVERYTHING! It was nasty!

After hitting mile 9 I said to myself, just go. It’s just a mile, just go. I had kind of figured out at this point that I would finish between 1:30 and 1:32 and got really excited! I crossed the finish line and just wanted to die. I kicked it in the last .25 and it was painful. I crossed the finish line, saw Beth and Brian and really just wanted to die. My tail bone was killing me. It really kind of freaked me out.  Every step I took around the Runner’s Village, to the car, and in and out of the car where so painful. My leg was shooting pain and I wasn’t so much convinced my butt wasn’t about to split in half.

Beth: These last miles I do remember. Ha, I remember seeing the turn around for the 10K races and the guy at that turn around saying “10 milers your turn around is just a bit further” LIES! In my world more than 2 miles away is not “a bit further.”  Feel free to call me an idiot, but I actually didn’t realize we were running up a slow incline. Ha.  And I just kept wanting to be at the turnaround! I kept watching for Brian because I knew that would mean I was close and when I finally saw him I was excited! Then past the turn around for the rest of the race this guy was annoying the crap out of me! OK, I used more not nice words than that, but I don’t want to have to apologize to my mom again. 🙂  He was 100% messing with my mind.  I think he caught up to me then he’d slow down and I’d get a little ahead of him, he’d speed up to catch me again and then slow down again and so on and so forth. FOR TWO MILES.  When we finally got off the Katy Trail to finish out the last mile of the race I got ahead of him for a little while then he caught back up and I was just like whatever dude, and let him stay ahead of me. I knew I would be crossing the finish line with a new PR!  Turns out I took 5:14 off of my only other 10 mile race.  I also told that guy he was messing with my mind afterwards (again, not the words I used) 🙂 and he said no, no, you were pacing me. I wanted to make it in under 1:30.  I told him good job and patted him on the back. OK, fine I guess that’s ok that you messed with my mind so much then??

Pretty much when we finished the misting rain turned into, well, rain.  We headed over to the Runner’s Village and grabbed ourselves a small beer. We both wanted to try a taco from Velvet Taco, so we went straight there to wait in the long line for one of their tacos. DEE-LISH!  Then it started raining harder, we may or may not have had flashbacks to White Rock Marathon and promptly decided to get out of there.  A bummer for the whole try all the tacos and vote on them part of the day.

Just a little soaked from the rain 🙂

Teal: I went home and had the same pain, tried to just shake it off, stretch it to go away and nothing. I ended up not really even sleeping Sunday night and was in and out of tears thinking there was no way I could run a marathon and then proceeded to freak out about what I could say to Beth.

I made a dr’s appointment for first thing Monday when I got to work and had it looked at. It turns out I strained my groin muscle, not a full pull, but she said a deep strain. Apparently when you run faster (which I really haven’t done for that far EVER) your body uses that inner thigh so much more. Whoops??

So needless to say, I knew I was in pain and I wasn’t crazy, and I had just run an awesome race so I am still pumped. I am basically out for a week and have some PT, but I should be fine! Hopefully a week is all it will take! Fingers SUPER crossed!

 

Results:

Teal: 1:31:11, finished 14th in her age group

Beth: 1:27:02, finished 18th in her age group

Overall, we are pleased with how this race went, well, really we are pleased with the month of September it brought us some great PR’s.  It also just goes to show how hard work in those hot summer months really can pay off if you just keep on going and don’t give up on your training even if the hot weather has slowed it down.  These HOT Texas summers are making us tough runners!

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Tour des Fleurs 10K

September 19, 2012 by · 9 Comments

Well, as we said in our pre-race post this was Beth’s 5th time and Teal’s 3rd time to run TDF.  It’s just a fun race!  You park off site of the Dallas Arboretum (or we do because we don’t want to pay the ridiculous parking package to park on premise) and get shuttled there.  Once there you get to walk through the grounds a little bit to see some of the arboretum which is usually already full of pumpkins in preparation for Fall, however, this year some of the Chihuly exhibit is taking over so the pumpkins had to share their space.

Who is Dale Chihuly? He is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur. Have you ever been in the Bellagio in Vegas? Well then chances are you’ve seen the amazing glass ceiling Chihuly did in their lobby.  Here is an additional picture of one of his installations we took on Saturday.  There will be another one later on too. 🙂

And now we give you our races from each of our perspectives –

Teal: Friday was an insane day and I was home super late, then after my cake ball disaster I managed to get like 4 hours of sleep and I really as not feeling this race! As a matter of fact, I had really had it with life by 5:30 am Saturday. I was really just ready to go back to bed. I kept saying to myself, Thank GOD we did not sign up for the 20k, because I would have probably broken down and cried.   I was somewhat nervous because I wanted to run a good race because we had decided to really use this as our base time for marathon training. We are going to use the Run Less Run Faster theory and it is based around your 10k time. In my head I wondered, do I just run a good steady race or just race it for real?! I decided I would make that call within a mile. Our friend Veronica asked our pace before the race and I responded “Oh somewhere between 9 and 11 minutes.” Ha, I really had no clue and really have had no clue about pace lately anyway.

Veronice, Teal, Beth & Bitner

Beth: Before we started the race we were hanging out down by the stage where bands play and where we had told people we would be if they wanted to come say hi since we had to live right after the race.  We got see our fellow NTX Runner, Brian and finally meet @runreadrant a.k.a. Caron before they started their 20K race 30 minutes before us.  Brian had told us we were going to do our 10K in 55 minutes.  I’m not sure how Teal felt about that, but in my mind I was going, yah, right! Or could I pull that time out?? I have to run this smart! Oh gooooooddd!

Teal: We started the race and I really felt fine! I had committed to racing for sure by 3 miles.  All miles were well under 9 minutes so I knew it was going well. We all hung in with each other which was an awesome way to keep pace!

Beth: I always forget it can be kind of a cluster at the start of this race. I know, I know, what race isn’t? Well this path is even more narrow to start so it can be hard to get around some people.  I wasn’t really sure what this meant in terms of Teal and I staying together for the race, but before I knew it we were reunited on the course.  Even Friday night I’d been thinking about Brian’s comment to us about running it in 55 minutes since he mentioned that to us somewhere on the internet that day.  I didn’t want to start out too fast and not be able to make it the last few miles. So my thoughts started with – ok, if I run the first mile in 9:30 then start to speed up from there. Plus 8:30 is 18 minutes. Another 8:30 is 26:30…..At some point in the 3 miles Teal and I had joined up with Bitner and we were running together which was really fun!  I was kind of paying attention to my runkeeper but not totally and wouldn’t allow myself to think much about a PR until I got to the last couple of miles.

We are going to probably buy this pic so for now we don’t feel bad for putting it up here like this. Photo courtesy of Your Sporting Image

Teal: At around mile 4, I started to feel it and ran a tad bit slower. I moved back from Beth around here and had actually threw up a little bit, which is totally disgusting, but I was really kind of tired. I really didn’t know where I was in terms of race time and PRing but I just said, you need to pick it up, there are only 2 miles left! I increased my pace by about 20 seconds and just said, keep moving. Beth was out of my site by the 5 mile mark but I could still see Bitner. My goal was to keep him in sight. I ended up losing him in all the turns around 5.5.

Beth: All, I remember from the past 10K’s of TDF that we’ve run is there is one hill that I hate.  Well, I got to it, ran it and it didn’t feel so bad.  I thought we were all set from there and it would be flat from here on out. Uhh, wrong. There were some added little hills in there and not to mention concrete that was cracked, had crevices and holes.  I was kind of nervous about twisting an ankle or something. When we hit mile 4 I knew I had some more in me and I wanted to dig deep and get ‘er done. Early on I’d wanted to slow down some and save some reserve for later in the race, but since I was running with Teal and Bit I just kept going.  It was in mile 4 that I thought, yah, I am running this race and doing the work, but I’m not sure I’d have made it where I was then if it wasn’t for Teal and Bit’s pacing.

Teal: It was a little past this point that I was literally clipped in the elbow by a biker! (not bad but I felt her) I had to throw my arm up to make sure she didn’t hit the rest of me. I looked over and a spectator was shaking his head at her. I can’t believe how close she came. And yes maybe at that point my elbows were wide, but she was way too close!! Most of the time, if you are in a bikers way they tell you,  I had my headphones on but low enough to where I could hear around me because there were so many bikers out, I wanted to make sure it was fine.

Beth: During my last two miles I remember thinking in years past – when is this ever going to end??  I had a good laugh at myself as the amount of halfs I have run have dramatically increased even from last year.  When I ran TDF 2010 I ran it as a race in my training and TDF 2011 we did the 20K for training for our first marathon (plus some additional miles after the race).  This was the first time I’d really run TDF with all the long miles I’ve put in to running. Somewhere in the 5 mile range I was passing a fellow lady runner who turned to me and said “you got this!”  At that point I had no words and wanted to try and find her after the race to tell her thank you.

(source)

Teal: I crossed the finish line and knew it was a PR but I didn’t know by how much. I just had to keep walking because I was spent!  I was super happy because I needed  that after the rough night and really crappy races/running lately! I walked by the announcer and ended up talking to him because he was lecturing the bike riders on his microphone! I went over and told him what had happened and how close she had been to me at the end. I can’t believe how fast the Saturday bikers went by us. This was not the first time we have run around White Rock and had bikers be a tad crazy. We know, and we for sure believe that the road should be shared! It was just so crazy that they still wanted to speed past people on FOOT! That was really too close for comfort!

Beth: There wasn’t much left for my body to give at the end.  I was running with every ounce of my body working the last few miles.  My abs were working and it was here that I was thinking about how important a strong core can be for a runner.  My last few races where I have dug deep, or every time I run hills and every time I run bleachers my core strength has been working with me.  So don’t forget about working on that in your training too! When I crossed the finish line the clock said 55:and change, but based on my runkeeper I thought I had made it in 54:and change.  I didn’t get my runkeeper turned off right away so I would have to wait for the officially results to know exactly what I had done.

Isn’t this Chihuly installation cool??

Needless to say we  love TDF and look forward to running it again in the future! Oh and we totally wouldn’t mind if you guys brought the hat back at the end of the race 😉 Hint, hint, Race Director!!!  See the hat Bitner has on in the above picture? Yah, Beth has 3 of those and then bam! Last year they quit doing them. 🙁  We also should note that this race had some awesome food after too! Wish we could have stuck around longer to eat more of it! We did manage to snag a couple of breakfast tacos before we got shuttled back to our cars. We might need to fill out a survey to let them know what all we liked and what we’d like to see come back!

Results:

Teal: 55:43; 303rd person to finish and finished 26th out of 169 in her AG.

Beth: 54:31; 262nd person to finish and finished 15th out 139 in her AG.

 So we both took home PR’s that day! We have completed our first race in different Age Groups – crazy! Some more to come in the next 8 months.

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Wounded Warrior 10K

June 11, 2012 by · 8 Comments

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

Totally stole this picture from Shannon! 🙂

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

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

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

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

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

(source)

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

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

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

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

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

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