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Running Moms Rock 5K

July 31, 2014 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

Back in April I had this brilliant plan that I would keep up with running 5Ks after completing Kacie’s Run and that way I could get a collection of race t-shirts that would fit my growing pregnant belly. Except I pretty much didn’t follow through with that at all. Ha! Both Teal and I had become apart of the local chapter of Moms Run This Town and I heard from our girl, Catherine, that she would be participating in the Running Moms Rock 5K along with some of the other moms.

I might not be a mom to a baby on the outside yet, but I figured since I have a baby cooking I could participate in this 5K, right?

Unlike most races that start in the wee hours of the morning this one was at 5:00 p.m. We are in April here in Texas and the heat has already come out to play for the year, so it was a bit toasty out there. This race was so last minute for me that I actually signed up at the race site.

Even though it was just a 5K, I definitely had a case of the going out too fasts. Oh, well, you live and you learn plus this whole running while pregnant thing is still very new to me. I met up with DK on the course and we completed the 5K together. It was good to have a buddy out there and to catch up with her since I hadn’t seen her in awhile! I brought home a time of 33:58.

25 weeks 3 days pregnant at the Running Moms Rock 5K

Since I was last minute on this race I didn’t get to participate in being on a team for the race and coming up with a costume to wear, but thankfully the other ladies in the MRTT group let me still be apart of their photo after the race! Don’t they look cute?

photo cred: Jolene A from Moms Run This Town

Back to my brilliant plan of running 5K’s so you get a t-shirt instead of a tech tee, well, that definitely didn’t happen here. Who knew they’d actually be passing out tech tees for this race. So while I was successful in running a 5K I was not in having an extra large shirt to fit my pregnant belly. Oh well!

Filed Under: Pregnancy, Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: 5k, highland village, Moms Run This Town, pregnant running, race shirts, races, running, Running Moms Rock, tech tee

Remember That Time We Ran the Turkey Trot in 2013?!

January 21, 2014 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

Happy 2014!! We are playing catch up over here….we enjoyed our holidays a little too much that we neglected the ol’ blog. Maybe next holiday season we should just plan on that and let you know we are taking a vaca. Things to think about for this new year, huh? Well, let’s get to the ol’ catch up……

pre race car pic

All we really want to say about this race is we are SO glad that the Turkey Trot people got it together and let the timed runners start in a separate corral from the non-timed runners. They also banned the strollers and dogs in that corral making it much safer for the actual runners. We were very worried about this race last year with falling and obviously a little more worried about it this year (you know since Teal is with child) before we knew about the change. It seemed to work so much better and we didn’t see anyone fall which was reeeeeally not the case in the past!

Miles 1-4

Teal: So with all that said about the new system we got there and had to pee really fast and get in that corral because it’s shut off! I think we made it by like 3 minutes! Please note that I actually went to the bathroom before the race. By mile 1 I was dying and needed to pee again and there was not a stop there. The stop was just before mile 2 and apparently everyone and their dog had to go as well. I was seriously contemplating stopping but in my head I was like, you are running slower, Chase is doing the 5k and Beth is speedy so you stopping here it is going to take like 10 minutes just suck it up. Worst mistake. I figured at the next water station they would have at least a port-o-potty. NOPE, nothing! I would also like to add here that this was really the first time I ever noticed the X in the road to mark where JFK was killed. They had made a big deal about that this year due to the 50^th anniversary and they repaved the road. So any concerned can now rest easy because it’s there! Anyway, I kept thinking, get to the bridge they always have one up there, but little had I paid attention, they changed the entire course. I saw a bathroom on the way other side of the road at about mile 3 and that was going to take too much effort again. Then my saving grace at about mile 4ish this women was passing out tissues. I ran over, grabbed a handful and peed behind the dumpster basically in front of a cop. I was super worried that he might get mad or ticket me, because he kept looking over like, what is that lady doing. You totally aren’t allowed to pee in public so the entire time I was coming up with my very true pregnant lady excuse. Either way it saved me! Thank you to whomever you are for our tissues!

Beth: Per usual there was still a lot of weaving to be done in this race in the beginning. It just brings so many people out that it happens. I was confused though since we had the timed corral with NO DOGS and NO STROLLERS allowed to see some dogs and strollers. I guess some people did not start at the actual start line and just jumped in!? There’s always a side of crazy at this race. Or maybe that’s every race and we just don’t always know it? No real complaints on the first few miles I was just trying to find my groove and stick with. I was annoyed towards the 5K cutoff because that comes up and there’s a sign that says turn left here for the 5k then down the road there is a sign that says you missed the 5K turn so turn around. A pair of walkers on my right decided to turn left as I was running by them. I hope they enjoyed my “WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!” 🙂

Miles 4-8

Teal: Really went by without me even noticing, the course while flat is pretty boring. Not much happening and there really is like no crowd support or anything. By 6 I had to pee again. This is the worst I have ever had this pee issue before. I stopped at the one that was like at 6.5ish (the one that was too much of a pain earlier) and then went on about my way. The last mile is up hill and kind of a pain in the arse but really still not bad. I was just super glad they changed the course because last year’s course was waaaaaay hillier! Thanks again Turkey Trot people. We appreciate it. They really have restored my love for this race and I have way less bitchy issues about it this year than I have in the past!

Beth: Here I was excited for the change of scenery a little bit, ok, well it isn’t really a beautiful area of town per se but having a change in the course was a nice change. This portion provided a bit of an out an back part and as I was running the out part I overheard a teenager walking down the median of the street saying “I guess I missed the turn off somewhere??” Haha! I laugh but I’ve missed a turn off myself too. I wasn’t really trying for a PR this day, but I was happy to find out my time that day was only 7 seconds away from my 8 mile PR! Not only that but this race has been pretty consistent over the past few years – 2013: 1:11:43; 2012: 1:11:36 and 2011: 1:11:46. Now to try and break that 1:11 time! 🙂 This year was a fun year because I actually got to see my SIL, Lindsay out there and Uncle Rob!

Lindsay, Uncle Rob and Beth

See you in 2014, Turkey Trot!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: 5k, 8 miles, races, running, Turkey Trot

Tour des Fleurs 10K

September 26, 2013 by Life is a Run · 1 Comment

By now you’ve probably learned that with some of our weekends we really like to go big or go home and by that we mean fit ALL of the things into one weekend. 🙂 Our Wordless Wednesday post was a glimpse into everything we had going on this past weekend.

We kicked it off Saturday morning by running the Tour des Fleurs 10K at the Arboretum just like we’ve done every September for the last 5 and 6 years. And per usual our friend Bitner also participated in the race with us, but this year we also made Catherine join in the fun as well!

You can probably tell from the picture that Bitner was a little cold that morning – ha! A “cold” front had come through and we woke up in Dallas to temperatures in the 60’s. It was woooonderful and a big change from the heat! By the time we catch a shuttle bus from the parking lot to the Arboretum and walk through the Arboretum to the race area we aren’t really there that early and it’s time to start the race. Off we all go on our merry way.

Running along White Rock Lake as we have done every year at this race. We make it to the one “major” hill on the course that’s almost at the halfway mark. Beth encounters a runner that’s running a zig zag pattern up the hill with her fingers out dancing along to her music. We turn the corner and the hill is over! There’s a 3 mile marker sign. Huh? Where was the 2 mile marker sign? Oh, well surely someone just messed up. Running, running. Hey 5 mile marker sign. Ok, this is just messed up! We are a little over a mile off from these mile markers. Beth opted to go music-less for this race and no one else around her was commenting about the markers so she kind of assumed maybe she just took a wrong turn because it wouldn’t have been the first time (hello, Too Hot to Handle 2011!). Teal right away knew something was wrong with the course and reaffirmed that with other runners around here.

It turned out that the lead officer took that right turn onto the “big” hill instead of going straight a little bit further and us coming back to the hill. And then there really wasn’t a person out there to direct racers either, so we all ended up running a 5.15 mile race. PR’s for everyone! 🙂

When the race was over we each grabbed our finisher’s hats (THANKS for bringing those back, TDF!!) and made our way to the after party. They do throw a darn good after party with beer, lots of different food options and some free schtuff.

see the free schutff in our hands?

One of the best parts about this race is getting to walk around the Arboretum afterwards and see all the pumpkins and gourds out all over the place. The majority of the time it doesn’t feel like Fall is even that close when we do this race, but we absolutely love getting to see the Arboretum all done up for Fall.

There were a lot of racers whose family came with them and were taking their children out of strollers to have their pictures taken amongst the pumpkins. As you know we don’t have kids so we opted to put Bitner in the pumpkins and take his picture. 🙂 He loves of us, clearly, because he puts up with us doing these things!

It is sad that the race wasn’t a true 10K, but we love this race! We can still remember the feelings of nervousness when we were running our first 10Ks. So far! It’s a bit pricey, but considering the great after party, the finisher’s hat (though they were gone for two years) and the free entry into the Arboretum it’s a good deal! We’ll be back!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: 10k, Dallas Arboretum, Fall, gourds, mile marker, Mile Markers, pumpkinds, races, running, shuttle bus, TDF, Tour des Fleurs, transportation, White Rock Lake

B is for Back to School, Birthdays, Barbies & More!

September 4, 2013 by Life is a Run · 4 Comments

It seems like for the first time in a looong time we had a completely race-less month! We have had a couple times where one of us made a race without the other, but August 2013 was completely race-less for both of us!

But it worked out for us and was in hindsight just what we needed. Also, yes, we know y’all are tired of hearing us say we are busy. We are too and really who isn’t?! And let’s just go ahead and stop with the glorifying of that word. Many of y’all might not know that Teal took a new job and is back to the world of middle school and this time as a counselor! So if you were tracking her professional timeline it would be 5 years as a middle school teacher, 1 year as a high school counselor and now the new gig back in middle school.

In Beth’s family everyone was born in August. OK, not really but it sure feels like it. 🙂 It starts with celebrating her Mom’s birthday (hi, Fancy Nancy!), moves into an August birthday celebration that includes her uncle, aunt, sister and husband and ends with at least some sort of friend celebration for sister (Kate) and husband (Brent). Since those last two are just two days apart in birth days it makes it that much more fun (challenging)!

Kate’s surprise Birthday party was a success!

Teal & Michael got Brent this awesome Aggie Yell Leader Barbie as a Birthday present. Best Birthday present ever!

Thankfully, we’ve still had time to de-stress with running! We’ve put in a lot of hill work in the month of August with our fellow NTX Runners. Actually that statement is true for pretty much the entire summer!

We’ve also added to our fall racing calendar with a not so surprising registration for Dallas Marathon! It is our halfiversary race! This year will be the 4th year we’ve participated in some form of this race (half or marathon).

So, anyway, we survived race-less August, we’ve been doing our training for Dallas, but now that it’s September bring on the next race!

What have YOU been up to? 🙂

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Aggie Yell Leader Barbie, Dallas Marathon, fall races, Half Marathon, Hill work, Marathon, NTX Runners, races, running, training

Friday Food Finds {2}

August 30, 2013 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

Labor Day weekend is upon us! We are totally bummed that we aren’t yet again make a trek out to Anaheim to race the Disneyland Half that we LOVE like we last year and the year before that!

Anyway for us this weekend makes us think of pool parties, BBQs, college football……so in case you are still searching for your perfect side dish to bring to a Labor Day party look no further. #LiAR has got you covered!

Peas & Crayons – Chipotle Sweet Potato Salad: Why make your normal potato salad when you can put a healthy and spicy spin on it?! Our mouths are watering just looking at this picture!

Happy Healthy Mama – Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Chips: Down hurre in Texas we pretty much break out the chips and salsa for any and every occasion. This weekend instead we’re sweetening it up with this fruit dish and homemade cinnamon chips! Another mouth watering recipe!

Kate O Lynch – Best Ever Guacamole Recipe: This recipe truly lives up to it’s name! We can both attest to that as we both have made and enjoyed it many a-times when Kate’s brought it over for a celebration of some sort!

Pinch of Yum – Southwestern Quinoa and Black Bean Casserole: If you are a 7 layer dip loving person THIS is the dish you need to try for this weekend! You can thank us later! 🙂

A Hint of Honey – Tomato and Fresh Corn Quiche: Maybe since it’s a long weekend you’re wanting to have brunch at home with your roommate or husband or your neighbor. Here is the breakfast must make dish!

Happy Labor Day {weekend} to you all! Be sure and let us know what you make! 🙂

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: Anaheim, Disneyland Half, food, fruit salsa, guacamole, Labor Day, Labor Day Weekend, LiAR, potato salad, quiche, races, running, sweet potato salad, Texas

Liberty by the Lake 5K

August 14, 2013 by Life is a Run · 2 Comments

pre-race car pic!

Sooooo July 4th a bunch of our running friends were doing Liberty by the Lake 5K/10K and if they were doing it we had to do it too. Right? That’s how it works? The internets also had a special so we got this race for pretty cheap!

We didn’t have big hopes and dreams for this race because, come on, it’s July in Texas. Hot! But being the weird summer that it is the temperature that morning wasn’t really as bad as it could have been, but don’t worry the humidity was still there. Blah!

Frunners!
(pic stolen from Mama C)

NTX Runners!
Look at Ninja representin’ w/his tank

We should also note how pumped we were to wear our latest purchase from Compete Every Day with our Texas Strong shirts! We loooooove them!! We did see a few other runners out there sporting different CED shirts as well. If you haven’t checked them out you really should, especially if you are a Dallasite, as they are a local business! And no we weren’t paid or rewarded with free things by that mention we just really love their stuff and awesome customer service!

Then at some point it was time to do what we we went to The Colony for and that is run a 5K. So run a 5K we did. Not a lot of shade out there and we hear the 10K-ers have it even worse. We stuck together and ran the whole thing together. This was also our first race back in the same age group since Beth fiiiinally turned 30. We crossed that finish line together at 28 minutes flat!

Several in our group that day won age group awards, but only a couple of them won the privilege of a LiAR photobomb. Way to go Brian & Jesse!!

Another thing we should point out which you can’t see from the above pic, but we totally love Jesse’s method of keeping cool in the Texas heat:

Step 1: wear a hat

Step 2: insert ice in hat

Step 3: put your ice hat on your head

Step 4: repeat as necessary (if you have a cooler full of ice w/you which he normally does somewhere close by)

It ended up being a fun time, but the fun did not stop there! We made our way over to Team K’s house for some 4th of July waffles and mimosas!

Fun times were had by all! We are so blessed to have made such awesome friends in the running community! It really is incredible all the greatness that running can bring to ones life! 🙂

Again the fun did NOT end there because after this we went and met up with our husbands who were drinking some beers to get thaaat much closer to reaching their plates at Flying Saucer.

So here we are – officially caught up on our race posts! 🙂 We don’t have any races scheduled for August though so unless something happens no more race recaps until September!

Also, shout out to all the people whose pictures we stole without telling them to make this post that much more fun (a.k.a. Mama C, MK, Jesse and Alison P.)!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: 10k, 5k, apparel, Compete Every Day, frunners, LiAR, liberty by the lake, NTX Runners, races, running, texas strong, The Colony

Must-Dash 5K

August 1, 2013 by Life is a Run · 4 Comments

Basically the whole mustache incorporation for this Father’s Day weekend race made it necessary for us to run this 5K! 🙂 This was kind of an interesting morning for us as a whole as well. Beth ended up having a flat tire so we got there by way of her husband’s car. You know how sometimes little things like that can throw you off your game?

We got there and ended up having about 20-25 minutes to kill before the race actually started, so we grabbed mustaches that were being passed out and then took pictures with them. Naturally. That’s what you would do too, right? Being a June morning in Texas it actually wasn’t really that hot outside….

….until you started running and it was pretty humid. 😛 This was a new area for us to be doing a race so it was definitely nice to have new to us scenery. Neither one of us ran our best 5K, but we ran it and it was worth it! Only complaint would be that whoever put the 3 mile marker sign down really put it at 2.75 miles. If you weren’t wearing some sort of GPS and decided to give it your all for the last .1 well then you misled and still had .35 left to go. Ha.

We even ran into one of our NTX Runners buddies, Clara! NTX Runners are eeeeverywhere! We love it!

This will probably be our favorite race tee for awhile!

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: 5k, healthy-living, Must Dash, NTX Runners, races, Run Project, running

Wounded Warrior

July 24, 2013 by Life is a Run · 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.

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! 🙂

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!

Julie and me

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!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: 10k, Campion Trail, Half Marathon, Irving, medal, naked run, NTX Runners, PR, race bling, races, runkeeper, Wounded Warrior

The Vineyard Run 5K

July 12, 2013 by Life is a Run · 1 Comment

The Vineyard Run basically popped up in our email, most likely because we have run our fair share of Mellew sponsored races. Teal really wanted to run this race because the Vineyard run is set at Delaney Vineyard where Teal got married!

Plus it offers a few more bonus points such as a free wine tasting and live band. Although we didn’t actually enjoy any wine while we were there. But it’s at a winery and since that is somewhat rare in our parts it’s a nice change of scenery! We should also mention that it was actually a little chilly that day! Hello cold day in May in Texas, what?!

Brian you are all over this blog now!

We headed out together as normal and perhaps our need to be at races super early is dwindling because we really almost missed this one. Oopsies! We hadn’t picked up our bibs and the cut off was like 30 minutes before the race. We thought we left in time but due to the fact that one of us updated our phone to the stupid new operating system that brought with it a horrible update to google maps, and its lame, and the fact that the area around the DFW airport is the biggest cluster of construction, we found ourselves driving in circles trying to get to the stinking race. We finally figured it out and ended up getting in the back way and then running to packet pick up. Apparently that is a way to force us in to a pre-race warm-up?

We made it and got to hang with our fellow NTX Runner Brian for a few minutes before the race started. He was out there volunteering for the race! We might add that he was wearing his 100 miler sweatshirt. Show off 😉

Waiting for the race to start

SOOO really we ran a 5k. It was flat, it had 2 kind of annoying hills but nothing we couldn’t handle and then it was over. Also we might add that it was in no way our fastest or our slowest race, so we can call that a win right!? How do you like that for a recap?? Recapping 3 miles is much easier than 13.

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: 5k, Delaney, Delaney Vineyard, Grapevine, healthy-living, live band, races, running, Texas, wine, winery

Fairview Half Marathon

July 1, 2013 by Life is a Run · 4 Comments

(source)

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!

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.

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: Active Joe, Fairview Half, Fairview Half Marathon, Half Marathon, healthy-living, New Years Double, NTX Runners, race bling, races, running, Showdown Half, training