Sugar Land Half

June 3, 2013 by · 5 Comments

It’s been three months today since we ran this half. Ha! Talk about being behind BIG time!  The only reason we even found out about this race was because of our fellow NTX Runner, Brian, who’d notified the internets that – Hey! This half is only $25 for a limited time! Get your registration on! We are pretty sure those were his exact words.

We figured $25?!  In Houston and it’s over six months away we got time to figure this out!  One of us (take your guess who) immediately began to peer pressure Beth’s cousin Chase into also registering.  Upon the completion of his registration we then called dibs on the couch and floor space in his apartment so that we might have a place to stay that weekend. 🙂 Thanks again for that, Chase!

Honestly, the Friday night portion of this weekend has been blocked out in the past three months. 🙂  Saturday morning we got up to go to packet pickup and then secure some warm clothes to wear pre-race and ditch once the race started.  One of us had the brilliant idea of getting robes!  Turns out this was genius as they cover an even greater portion of your body with just one piece and with just a strap keeping it closed super easy to ditch while running.

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Pretty much the rest of Saturday was spent doing really random things or eating. 🙂  We hit up the near by Bed Bath & Beyond for some shopping.  We met Brian, his wife and sweet daughter for dinner.  We  in detail reviewed the hand drawn course map and longest list of course rules any of us had ever seen! We were pleased to discover there was a loop set up that each runner would cover twice and make up the majority of the course, so we would all be able to see each other!

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pre-race car photo op

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LiAR and Brian

Neither one of us had been keeping up with our running very much after Louisiana Marathon, so the main goal for the day was to finish!  One of Beth & Brent’s friends, Taylor, who is from the Houston area who also got in on the sweet $25 registration price and was out there for the race. We found him before the start and got to catch up before we went out to face the cold.

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Taylor & Beth

Ultimately, we accomplished our only goal for the day – survive!  Teal & Chase ran the whole half together, but like we said all early we ended up getting to see each other out on the course several times even speedy Brian.  One of Teal’s favorite volunteers was a high school kid out on the loop standing by one of the mile markers and see since it was the loop portion of the course sometimes you’d see a mile marker that you weren’t really at yet because you’d only just begun loop 1, so this kid used a sheet of notebook paper to cover up the 7 on the mile marker sign since it was also mile 3.5ish.  In place of the number 7 was in the kid’s handwriting “3.5ish”. So funny and so sweet to look out for the runners and not discourage them early on in the race!

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Another successful half marathon completed for LiAR, and put us at half marathon no. 17!!

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The Texas Half

March 25, 2013 by · 5 Comments

So once upon a time we signed up for the four seasons challenge and we kicked that off by running the Big D Half in April of last year, then slowly completed the Hottest Half in August and then we decided to skip the Tyler Rose Half in October since wedding stuff with Beth was wrapping up and we were busy!  Well, that’s only three halfs and that last sentence says FOUR seasons challenge.  The last race happened to be just two weeks after completely The Louisiana Marathon.

Which worked out perfectly because we were sad that the Louisiana Marathon meant that we would no longer have a matching number of halfs that we have run. 🙂  Yes, we are nerds like that, but you are reading this so you apparently still like us despite that.  Teal being the awesome friend and running buddy that she is still wanted to come and be there for the race.

Since so much time has gone by I don’t have a play by play of this to that mile for you (you’re welcome for that).  It was a chilly morning and the race was small enough that I was able to sit in the car with Teal for awhile to keep warm.  But when I did make my way to the start line I found a fellow DFW frunner, Caron! We both love getting to see her at races and talk with her!

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I had time for a quick potty break and then headed back to the start line to wait for about five minutes.  Then we were off and almost immediately ditched my zip up hoodie I had been wearing to stay warm which I found in the same place I ditched it after the race. Yay, small races! The first 3 miles were an out and back so that you hit the 3 mile mark right when you were running by the starting line again.  It was fun getting to see the leaders of the race early on and admire them for their speediness!  I also hadn’t really run in this area particular area of Irving so I was checking it all out, and trying to decide if I was running too fast or at a pace I could maintain throughout.

Like I said it was a small race so at right around the halfway point I saw Teal! My Runkeeper was at one point ahead on mileage and then got behind.  Around here a fellow racer asked me where I was mileage-wise and I think I said around mile 6 and then 30 seconds later there’s the 7 mile marker! 🙂  Ok, it might not have really been a full mile off, but when I saw the 7 that’s what it felt like. Ha

During this race I got to run by my husband’s office building though no one was in there…..it was still fun because it made me think of him.  In the last half of the race some of the miles were done on the Campion Trail which is where Teal and I did a couple of training runs while we were getting ourselves ready for Louisiana Marathon.  It was here I saw a fellow Private Training Zone member who asked me, “What are you doing?!” “Running a race!” Haha.  Always great seeing a familiar face!

The last two things that stand out to me about this race was as I was making my way over the bridge back towards the Irving Convention Center to the finish line the course here had blocked off one lane for runners so that cars had two lanes to themselves.  This suburban was heading in the direction towards me and another car pulled up beside the suburban, rolled the window down and yelled “WHY ARE YOU DRIVING SO SLOW?!”  Pretty sure I immediately rolled my eyes.  Can we all just take a minute to shake our heads at the yeller?

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Thanks for sharing in that moment with me!  I also applaud the slow suburban driver as they were simply being a cautious driver! As I got myself over the bridge and under the highway I saw Teal again! Teeeeeeeal!! She was telling me, Push! And you got this!  But I didn’t feel like I had that much give left.  Maybe that’s due to my lack of running between Louisiana and this race? Ha, but what I had I left out on the rest of the course.  Then there was the finish line!  Not only did a bring home a shiny medal from my 16th half marathon, but I also brought home a shiny new PR at 1:55:02!  I finished 13th overall in my age group.  So crazy that my half marathon PR stood at 1:56:39 since I ran my very first one in December of 2010 then December of 2012 I beat it at Dallas Marathon and come back to beat that in February 2013.  Running can be a crazy thing!

Tied at 16th again!

Tied at 16th again!

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The Louisiana Marathon

February 6, 2013 by · 14 Comments

We know you have all been eagerly anticipating our recap of the Louisiana Marathon. 🙂  Not!  But without further ado we give our Louisiana Marathon experience…

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the logo on the Capitol Building

the logo on the Capitol Building

Mile 1-3:

Teal: I was really not nervous about this race at all. I knew exactly what I was going to run and how to do it. Beth and I had talked a little bit about White Rock and how much adrenaline we had at the beginning and we definitely went out too fast. I figured since I was there and generally run around a 9:30ish pace that I would focus on that and Beth would stay with me to not go out too fast. That is pretty much exactly what we did. We hung within 10 seconds of this for the majority of our miles together. I just kept a constant watch on my Garmin, which really helps pass time, in case you are looking for ways to do that.  I did get a little nervous because at about half a mile in the women next to us took a huge spill and actually slid down the road. It was nuts, she got up fast and kept running but it was huge. I know I am a huge weenie because I might have cried and stopped. Props to her!  I looked down at the road at this point and saw just how bad it was. Large holes and rivets everywhere. I made sure to keep an eye out from here on.

Beth: The main thing I remember  in these first few miles was starting my runkeeper and no music starting.  Then when I did get music started it was SO LOUD.  So lots of messing with that then putting my phone in my flipbelt and then thinking about all the energy I just wasted doing all of that.  Then there was the lady who fell and all I could do was cringe inside as I saw her body kind of slide on the concrete.  From there on out I understood why occasionally other runners were pointing at the ground when there were rough areas of the road.

Mile 4-6:

Teal: This part takes you closer to the LSU campus which was probably the nicest part of the race. We kept a steady pace here and really not much else could be said for me.  I really thought that we would see these trees in the pictures for the race that look like that have legs, but we didn’t. Boooo on that!

Beth: At some point early on I thought that a good game plan would be take this one 5k at a time.  Then I turned my thoughts to when will we see our husbands? I hope Teal likes the sign! Just gotta make it another 5K to 6.2. You got this!

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Mile 7-9:

Teal: We saw the boys right around here, I believe at Mile 7 and I got to see the sign Beth made me. She threw in my love of Mark Salling and it gave me a good burst of energy in this part. Mile 7 is a really good place for me to need people because it is about here that I get a little bored and the feeling of being tired usually sets in for me around here.  Example – at Dallas Marathon this year I actually stopped and stood. Something over an hour for me is a mental block. Also my feet are burning here. The stupid roads were harder or something. Yep, harder roads is totally possible in my runner mind!  

Beth: Husband! YAH! I’m sure he appreciated me throwing my GU trash at him. 🙂 It was in these miles that we were running a curvy path which kind of annoyed me because I was having a hard time seeing ahead to attempt to run the tangents. As mile 9 was approaching I was starting to get sad that my time with Teal was almost over.  I think it was also somewhere at the end of this section we saw a man near a water stop telling everyone, “the finish is just up ahead over the hill!” He was holding a sign that said “Course Liar,” I think we both got a good laugh out of that. Plus I saw the “liar” part and read it as LiAR since we are LiAR!! Haha

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Mile 10-13.1:

Teal: At nine I knew I only had about a mile and a half left with Beth and I actually started to get kind of anxious for her.  Right about 10 she said, “ok, if I am going to pretend like I started my race now, I can do 16.” In my mind I was like OH Lord, that is still a lot of miles. I was super excited about my 3 left. No worries! At 10.5 we saw our mark to split. I just grabbed Beth’s hand and just said “you got this” and we split. I stopped here to take a picture of her leaving and to tweet about the split. I figured that would have been the first update anyone got from us about where we were and there really wasn’t any tracking so I went with that! I am glad I stopped because that pain that was in my feet stopped with just that minute or so stop and the rest was pretty much a breeze. Well except for the fact that the last 2ish miles of this race are probably the hardest. There is a huge hill up the bridge and then the road in to finish is definitely rolling. I kept thinking, this will suck big time for the marathon people.  You remember that lady I told you about at .5 into the race? I actually crossed the finish line with her. I stopped her and told her how crazy I thought her fall was, and yep she was COVERED in blood. It had dripped down her leg and was a mixture of wet and dry. It was gross (aren’t you glad I told you that). I was impressed and love runners for that!

Beth: With the half and marathon split just .5 into this section I was sad, but I had made it through 15k and on my way to a 20k! When Teal grabbed my hand I just wanted to yell “Noooooooooo!!!”  I got a little choked up, but managed to start breathing normally again and not hyperventilate and cry all at the same time.  That would have been some uuuuugly crying fo sure.  I could see the 4:10 pacer ahead of me and I pressed on!  Made it through the 20k…keep on truckin’! Wonder if Teal’s done now?  Did she see my other sign? Hope she liked it! Wonder when I’ll see them again?

Teal: The guys meet me at the finish line and we literally b-lined it out of there. We had planned to get over to about 16-17 to see Beth. When we got there I knew she was still doing fine because we had come up on the 4:20 pacer and she was still a head of it. I hoped that she saw my sign at 17 since we missed her and we just hung around and cheered. I think I would have been so bored.

LOVE these mile markers!

LOVE these mile markers!

Mile 13.2-16

Beth:  Here, I didn’t let myself think halfway done because let’s be honest the hard stuff hasn’t even started yet!  And in this stretch of the race I was able to do a better job of running the tangents which is also a fun game of keep your mind occupied.  A dude passed me with a Dallas Marathon shirt on under his marathon maniac tank.  I made some comment to him about the weather being nicer for this marathon, talked to him for a minute and eventually wished him well and told him I didn’t want to slow him down any longer.  But that was fun to see as well as all of the Dallas Running Club shirts on the course.  Coming into this race I had a rough game plan of taking fuel every 5 miles, which is not actually something I’ve ever done in training or any other race.  Normally I just go by feel, but I definitely get bursts of energy throughout races and was hoping that plan would just keep me on the burst the majority of the time.  Well, pretty early on I knew this plan wasn’t going to work, but what sucked was I was HONGRY before I even hit 10 miles.  I burped at some point around then and realized I could not feed myself much more GU or I might vomit.

Miles 17-20

Beth: This was where I saw my sign!  I had still been wondering when I would see Teal and the guys again and she had mentioned where the boys were to put a sign she had made, so I was on the lookout for all those things.  Then I saw it –

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and I proceeded to tear up and have to not hyperventilate again. Just what I needed! I loved it!  Right after the sign was a spectator heavy area and I heard lots of “still smiling! Great job!”  And I just thought yep, because I just saw my sign from Teal!  Just up ahead was the 20 mile marker for coming back and I was excited to see a little girl with a container on one side of the road and who I assumed to be her dad on the other side of the road with a container full of sliced oranges. Food! I took one and was so excited that there would be another one waiting for me at mile 20.  The majority of this stretch was lonely.  There were times I’d look ahead and I was pretty much alone on a random street in a neighborhood.  I’d also at this point lost sight of the 4:10 pacer.  But I did find another person passing out orange slices, took one and I got a five from this like two year old boy who was out cheering with his mom and siblings.  As I grabbed my orange slice at mile 20 I started to think, I really need to see my peeps.  I don’t want to see my peeps!  I wanted to see them for the motivation and energy, but I didn’t want to see them because I’d started to get hot, my hips were starting to ache and I just wanted to be done.  I saw them! Loved the cheers! Threw my arm sleeves at Brent and kept going.  Then I stopped. Ahhh!  I was wearing my I Run This Body shirt from Mile Posts so I kept saying to myself, your shirt doesn’t say I Walk This Body! Let’s goooo! I let my mind get to me.

Teal: That last part of the race is out and back and there are not many cheerers. We hung around and as soon as we saw Beth at 20, I knew it would be a good idea to see her one more time at finish. We booked it to 24 and got one more chance to see her. She was still kicking ass and still a head of the 4:20 pacer!  The boys and I booked it again back to the finish. I was so nervous for her and kept watching the clock. 4:11 was the time on the clock at that point and I am pretty sure at this point I texted her one more cheer because I figured there was no way she didn’t have it!

Miles 21-26.2:

Beth: Struggle city.  I don’t walk in races! I can’t do the run/walk thing! I’ve run a complete marathon without walking why am I walking? I text messaged Teal and told her I’d been walking.  I saw them again at 24, ugh, and I was walking!  After the last seeing of my peeps I told myself, just run this!  It doesn’t have to be fast just get it done.  I was dreading the end with still an overpass incline and the rolling hills.  When I was at the rolling hills part a man behind me said “THIS is the worst hill of the race!”  True story, mister! But I ran it then all of a sudden bam! Done! And somehow I managed to look like this in my finisher photo –

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In all honesty, I am disappointed in my performance somewhat at this race, but then I think, my training really did have quite a few hiccups in it so maybe I should be really impressed considering?  It is a PR which was probably my C goal for this race.  I just don’t walk in races (and every time I say that I feel the need to reaffirm that I’m not dissing you if you do, I just personally don’t do well with the run/walk combo).  Ultimately though I did run a marathon and completed it.  It got hard, but I didn’t just all out give up.  This also just reaffirmed to me that I’m not done with the marathon distance – we shall meet again!  🙂

Final thoughts: 

Teal: I am pretty impressed by this race. And I am sorry if this offends anyone but Baton Rouge is not a pretty city. The race literally took you through the best parts of the city and showcased the good. Thank you for that! The organization was awesome and everyone was so friendly. The art design was amazing and Beth and I used every chance we had to snag pictures of what they had done. I seriously think of all the races we have done this has my favorite design!  I do not regret for one second not running the full. I know I enjoyed cheering on Beth more than I would have enjoyed running it and even the accomplishment of running it, cheering her on was my purpose for that last part and I think that made it all fitting. I ran a pretty decent race for myself and was proud of that.  Also, I am so in love with this race’s design, if you have seen my foot you know I have a think for feet with trees on them!

Beth: My running partner is better than your running partner!!  Haha, ok, not entirely, but so much YES at the same time.  Or maybe what I really mean by that is I am 100% lucky to have a friend first and running partner second in Teal.  I know she’s proud of me for completing this race even when I’m not 100% proud of it, but at the same time I’m proud of her for being brave, for being vunerable with y’all about not running the marathon, for putting out there the why for everyone to read when I don’t think a lot of people would and for that being a strong runner who takes care of herself!  It’s moments like these where I see why our local frunners wondered if we were not just running partners but partners in real life. HAHA Yes, to everything Teal said above. The Louisiana Marathon is a great example of a local race doing things right!

If you are still reading this then thank you! Thanks for sticking through this long post with us and we promise the next post will be WAY LESS wordy! 🙂

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Wordless Wednesday No. 36

January 23, 2013 by · 6 Comments

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Final Louisiana Marathon Thoughts

January 18, 2013 by · 7 Comments

the la marathon 9.25.12

Well folks its time!! Louisiana Marathon time!! As you might have seen yesterday we are super excited to go, I mean heck, we have 26.2 reasons. Do you need more proof?? Yea we didn’t think so.

This time around will be a little different. We are not running this entire thing together, Beth will carry on for the full and Teal will run the half. A super tough decision but ultimately the right one! Now this is not totally what we had planned on so we are doing this one a little different. We decided that we will each make race signs for each other and keep them super secret until the day of! It’s actually kind of funny because both of us had this idea individually and then it just came out so we decided to make it a surprise! Fun, right?? So guess they will also be surprise for YOU! Stay tuned…

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We will set out eeeearly Saturday morning and make our trek to Baton Rouge via a road trip with our husbands. Whoa that is weird to say…we both have them now! We will make the stop at the expo, of course, and then head to dinner and bed! Duh, really what else is there to do the night before a race?  If you know something better we are totally up for suggestions!

As far as goals go, we, as usual want to run smart before anything else. Smart and safe! We don’t think this will turn out anything like the White Rock Marathon but if Mother Nature just so happens to be a biotch Sunday, we know what to do.  We are excited about this course because there is actually A LOT of it together. PLUS, for the second 13.1 we will easily be able to find Beth multiple times in that the race loops back around at some pretty hard miles. 15 and 16 turn into 21 and 22. Good job there race director, we like the way you think about the spectators too! The half marathon doesn’t split away from the full until about 10.5 meaning we can run with each other for that long. Our plan, well as of now is to stay together for that part and Teal will stay with Beth and almost pace her a little slower then she might just go normally (not slower per se but just at a steady  pace that’s not like “oh here I’m just gonna run my normal half pace”) hope that makes sense. This will hopefully help maintain energy throughout the race and avoid the ever scary problem of going out too fast due to adrenaline. We think this will be helpful but who the heck knows?? I think we both have mentioned to each other throughout this that the Marathon is a CRAZY BEAST. So even the best laid plans fail sometimes but we have super high hopes that this will be great!

Hopefully the fact that our signs are a secret will keep our minds busy and watching for what is to come and the time and miles will pass by super fast! This could totally work right?? RIGHT!!

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26.2 Reasons We Are Excited to Race the Louisiana Marathon

January 17, 2013 by · 9 Comments
1.  It will be our first time to run in Louisiana not just race but actually do even a run in this state!
2.  ROAD TRIP!!
3.  Look at this pretty bling we get to add to our collection:
la marathon medal
4.  This will be the 1st time either one of us has been to Baton Rouge! Unless there was sometime when we were little kids and do not remember………..
5.  We will have two of the most handsome dudes out there cheering us on!
just the two in the front, we don't know the guy in the white shirt! :)

the two in the front, we don’t know the guy in the white shirt! 🙂

6.   We can’t wait for the race swag! Whoever does the design work for their logos ROCKS!
the la marathon 9.25.12
7.  We heard the Race Director has a brother-in-law who lives in Texas – who doesn’t love a good Texas connection?!
8.  This is the Louisiana Marathon’s 2nd year and they have runners (as of 1/15/13) from 47 states and 12 countries participating.
9.  There are designated Cheer Zones on the course that are actually stocked with snacks, refreshments AND cheering supplies! Talk about a great race for runners and spectators!
10.  We get to run with each other until this mile, ok, really it is like until 10.5.
11.  We hear it’s a fast course which who doesn’t like a fast course?!
12. The weather for race day is looking awwwwwesome! *knock on wood*
13.  The course is suppose to be beautiful!
13.1.  Teal will finish her 16th half marathon!!
14.  People have constantly asked us WHY we are running THIS race, well, we think this best explains it: THE WHY
15.  This race starts and finishes right by the State’s Capitol.
16. To steal the words from Brian, we are excited to “carbeaux leauxd” for this race! 🙂 In fact let us point out one more time if you aren’t following Brian on twitter then you’re doing twitter wrong! Might we also point out, if you are in the market for a running coach you should get in touch with Brian! OK, enough about Brian….
17.  Po’ boys!
18. ALL of the snacks we have planned for the car ride! 🙂
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19. Not only are there cheer zones set up on this course, but a lot of great opportunities to see runners multiple times without having to cover a lot of ground!
20.  We will actually run on the campus of LSU!
21.  Race weekends in which Monday is a holiday are awwwesome!  Though please note Teal was the only one who didn’t have to request this day off from work. Ha.
22.  Our pre-race dinner at Mike Anderson’s…unless something happens between now and Saturday night to change that!
23.  The two of us and our husbands all sharing one hotel room the night before the race!
24. Craft beer at the Finish Festival.
25.  Gumbo, Jambalaya, Crawfish Etouffee and more food selections at the Finish Festival.
26.  We will end our trip to Louisiana with a celebration in New Orleans! 🙂
from Beth & Brent's trip to NOLA in 2009

from Beth & Brent’s trip to NOLA in 2009

26.2. Beth will finish marathon no. 2!
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Happy Half-a-versary to LiAR

December 11, 2012 by · 12 Comments

Let’s just start by saying good Lord this was an early and long morning. Ok, fine, we’ve gotten up earlier for Disney races, but still. Everything said you should NOT be in downtown Dallas later than 6 a.m. Fiiine, cue alarm clocks going off in the 4 o’clock hour. Beth picked up Teal at 5 a.m. and we were in a parking spot by 5:30 a.m. So there we were with 2.5 hours to kill before the start of the race. Our early arrival insured us an awesome parking spot and first use of port-a-potties!

The corrals and port-a-potties all to ourselves!

The corrals and port-a-potties all to ourselves!

Portapotty

It’s normal to be this excited about a port-a-potty, right?!

Thankfully we realized the Luebs were down there just as early as us. More people to entertain ourselves! Then of course it was time to head to our corral where we found even more frunners to hang with before the official start.

LiAR before the race!

LiAR before the race!

Frunners in Corral A!!

Frunners in Corral A!! Photo courtesy of Heidi

Teal: I, for the first time in a while, prepared for this race in terms of, eating right the few days before, getting enough sleep before, laid out my clothes, painted my finger nails, downloaded a new playlist…etc. I reallllly wanted this race to go well. I said I didn’t need to PR and I still say that, but I did want it to feel good. You know like, those runs that almost feel effortless. I haven’t had a single one since the marathon. I wanted one just as a boost of confidence. NOPE. Fail, giant zero. This didn’t feel good. It felt like work, and I did work.

I really had debated this week’s training runs. We were scheduled for 10 at Marathon pace on Thursday. I decided to still do the run, thinking more long term to the marathon, and decided to run it a day earlier, and then rest my legs until Sunday. I figured it would be ok, but I didn’t know. Running a half marathon with 28 miles on your legs that week was probably not the best idea. I really didn’t think much of it, apparently I have more faith in my legs than they have in themselves, I thought they would recover. I don’t think they did.

Beth: So it was kind of important to me to do all that I could to make a potential PR happen at this race. This means I skipped my 10 mile run at marathon pace on Thursday. A big oops there since it goes against one of my December goals. Brent and I actually had two Birthday parties we wanted to go to the night before which had me eating a sushi dinner – not my norm, but at this point with food I don’t really have tons of issues. *knock on wood* Something I don’t take for granted, trust me! When I didn’t get full from sushi I ate goldfish on the way to the next Birthday party.  I made Brent take the bag of goldfish away so I wouldn’t eat them all, but I was still hungry. Which resulted in me stealing part of someone’s spinach quesadilla. Haha. Not my typical night before a race! Oh and not to mention we hit traffic going home, so I definitely got to bed later than I had anticipated.

Miles 1-4

Teal: These actually felt good, my pace was good, I felt like I could keep it, my legs didn’t feel bad. It was super super humid 90% and even on some accounts I saw 100% humidity and close to 70 degrees. And huge eye roll to those who say perfect running conditions. Nope. They are not; try 50 degrees, no humidity. I’ll take that. I was drenched by mile 4 and my hair was sticking to me. LOVED running over Large Marge (also known as the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge). Love that bridge and it’s a great addition to Dallas. Brian L. was at 4 to cheer us on with Mama C, Fiona and Dat! Boost of energy!!

photo courtesy of Mama C which means she's not in it :( Dat, Fiona & Brian L.

photo courtesy of Mama C which means she’s not in it 🙁 Dat, Fiona & Brian L.

photo courtesy of Mama C

photo courtesy of Mama C

Beth: Back to my goals again, I said I wanted to run a strong race and I knew that had to start from the beginning. I told myself this wasn’t the Turkey Trot and I’m not about to start being a crazy people dodger. I did the bare minimum to go by people slower than me. I kept making a conscious effort to see how I felt and slow down if necessary. My mind was also all, look! Old Red where I got married. Look! Belmont Hotel where your Bachelorette Party was and the Shepard Fairey mural you took some engagement pictures in front of that! I knew after I crossed Large Marge I’d see my first set of familiar faces and was ready to see them too!  And I looooved hearing Mama C call me Beeper at this point! Pumped me up!

photo courtesy of Mama C

photo courtesy of Mama C

Miles 5-8

Teal: Love, loved, loved running passed Scottish Rite. I love that hospital and spent a ton of time there in High school. I volunteered in Child Life my senior year, and in other areas of the hospital my Junior year. Patients and parents were outside cheering us all on. This was new and a totally good addition.

I start to feel more pain in my legs at this point. I feel labored and pretty stiff. My calf muscles were really tight and my quads ached. I just wanted to stay steady. I saw my husband and Brent around 6 and high 5’ed them. Wasn’t expected to actually see them so that was super awesome! I ended up getting super tied up at the water station around 7. I actually just stopped. It was a cluster. I think I probably spent 2 minutes here dealing with the madness. My music stopped playing and it was in my skirt zip pouch in the back. I couldn’t get it out or then back in. I asked a spectator to help me get it fixed. I think she was like “what in the world do you want me to do?” I was annoyed here and the stop made me stiffer. BONUS!!

Beth: Parts of this section of the course were similar to the past two years. Um, so I kind of just blew by Scottish Rite without paying attention.  Oops? I think I was just really determined and focused that I really kept to myself a lot this race and I might not have survived had I not done so.  I only really expended extra energy 3 times and it was each of the 3 times I saw familiar faces. Well, I guess, I expended energy in trying to see my husband which I never did. :-/ But gah, that looking for him in the crowds was tiring me out.  That’s probably just the weather factor right there. I kept thinking in this stretch, why didn’t I ask him w hat he’d be wearing? Why didn’t we figure out a mile for him to be in? I did know that Rebekah would be right around the split of the half and the full, so I kept looking for her father-in-law since he’s much taller than her. 🙂  Loved getting that high five from her at that point it totally pumped me up. Also, the wind that was occurring in random bouts during this part pumped me up as well!

Miles 8-10

Teal: I was looking everywhere for people. I thought Rebekah would be here and she was but I missed her. It really does kind of make you dizzy to find people while you are running. Which leads me to another weird thing about this race, it NEVER thinned out. It was seriously thick with people the entire time. This surprised me and it almost felt like maybe the streets were skinnier this year. I’m feeling very labored at this point and I really just wanted to stop. My legs are tight, super tight, and this is affecting the way my knee works. It always has affected it, and I have had some issues recently with the longer runs. Post runs it will hurt to even touch. This is what is happening now around 9ish. I really just want to get done and it was somewhere around this point I see the 2:10 pacer on the loop around and just said, stay in front of him and I’ll be happy.

Beth: I had known where the mile 8 sign was because we had already run by it and the split was really us running down the other side of part of the street we had just run up.  In my mind I was just trying to get to the last 5K get there and you go this.  I was going back and forth between you could PR!! It’s not happening today! Either way I knew I just need to keep going. Then I saw Brian E. in here, yelled at him but you know just to get his attention not in angry way and was glad to see a familiar face right then and there! Thanks for being out there Brian!

Miles 11-13

Teal: Just really wanted to be done. I really had no desire to keep going except I just wanted to be done. I think my shoes are too big too… I’m running this stretch just thinking of stupid things like “ I want to eat at El Fenix, can I actually ride the escalator at Ross Perot, can I have a mimosa when I’m done, how close are we, if I was a snake my feet wouldn’t hurt, why am I not Harry Potter or Meb, or a super speedy runner, what am I going to eat for lunch next week.” I just kept thinking of the dumbest stuff to make the time go. Also, while I do *think* I like this course, it has a lot of uphill, I clearly was on another planet for the down hills because I don’t remember them. Dallas is a big city, I hated the little loopy out and back thing we did between 12 and 13, there is plenty of room to not do that, it was such a tease too, because you could see the finish line and you still had to run up and around for about .70 of a mile. Lame.

photo courtesy of Brian L.

photo courtesy of Brian L.

Beth: It should also be noted that my thought process was kind of similar to Teal’s here – what is this new restaurant next to El Fenix? I wonder if it’s good?? We should try it sometime! Anyway, and then here’s where we make our back into downtown.  Here’s where I start thinking, man, I didn’t actually give the course map a good lookin’ at, did I? Surely they wouldn’t give us a hill right here before the mile 12 marker? But we are coming into downtown from this side it’s pretty much inevitable there WILL be a hill right here. And I’m kind of glad I figured that out so I could back off my pace a little and make it to the top of that hill alive. The out and back thing was miserable and I kept wondering if people would just cut it? Haha. It was also in this stretch I saw a runner laying on the ground and being worked on by EMTs.  I have no idea what the outcome of that was but in that moment it made my heart heavy for sure!

13.1

Teal: Done and I stayed under 2:10. Not bad and really in retrospect pretty good for my week’s work itself. Not disappointed in time because that is about average for me. I am more disappointed in the feel of it, how labored it was, and the fact that my knee proceeded to be in throbbing pain for well over an hour after and then just dull pain even as I type this a day later. Damn knee…. Anyone want to trade??

Beth: Somehow, someway I had a last little kick to give at the end. You better believe I crossed that finish line with my arms up in the air.  I knew I was teetering the line because I’d heard my Runkeeper tell me I’d hit the 1:55 mark however many yards back.  So I immediately got out my phone, got on twitter to look up Brent’s twitter (I’d set his to tweet my time) and saw that I had PR’d by 11 seconds!!!! Holy crap!  Later that day I looked online at the official results which put my time at a 12 second PR. WHOOP! I had opted to wear my Aggie ring to this race and try and take some of good juju that was out there from Johnny Football winning the Heisman! 🙂

We did it! Half marathon no. 15 for the two of us and two years of racing under out belts!

with MK! We are so awesome that we are standing in number and height order!

with MK! We are so awesome that we are standing in number and height order!

Us with Melvin! We can't even tell you how much his encouragement and support means to su!

Us with Melvin! We can’t even tell you how much his encouragement and support means to us!

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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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November Report Card & December Goals

December 4, 2012 by · 6 Comments

Happy  December to you!  What a year! Here’s to hoping that everyone has a fabulous last month! Let’s all make it great….us included!

The Report:

Teal –

1. Get my house in order without losing it! I am too routine and orderly for this mess. 

A: Done and Done and I didn’t totally lose it but I NEVER want to deal with that again. It was madness for three straight weeks! I only took this picture to send to a friend because really it hasn’t totally even been clean since the finish. Put you can see the floor and the bar change!

new orange door

new orange door

photo 261

before

and after!

and after!

2. Get my butt/mind in gear for marathon training. I feel so blah about it right now. It doesn’t feel right or like it is supposed to happen and I need to figure out how to get excited about it!

B: Better, I have not missed a run but have cut a couple short ie: this weekend I ran 15 instead of 18 and I have not done a couple of the “warm-up” miles. Still trying to get excited womp womp.

3.  Send out Christmas cards by the end of the month! We have only done this once and I want to make it a tradition.

F: yea nope, but I blame living socials, there was a problem with my paypal and I tried to fix it 3 times and they never got back to me thus no cards have been ordered. This might not happen! Oh well it will be totally fine!

4. Successfully host Thanksgiving at my house for the first time (ties to number 1 big time). Pressure is on for number 1 for sure!

B: I mean this went fairly well. You could have probably told from the Turkey Trot post recap that the turkey was slightly a mess, it was a little dry but everyone ate! My nephew had a great time with the bounce house, and everyone left full! I’d say that’s not a bad Thanksgiving!

my nephew Caleob

my nephew Caleob

Elijah

Hanging out in the bounce house with Elijah on Thanksgiving

Beth –

1. Get my house in order!  I didn’t get ALL of my stuff moved out of my sister’s house before the wedding and with wedding presents there are A LOT of boxes over at my new house with my husband. :) :) We both don’t like messes so this is hard to look at right now until we get it all organized and into place.

B+: There is still a lot to be organized, but we are definitely in WAY better shape than when this month started. Plus Christmas decorating didn’t exactly help the organizing part out.

our kitchen looks SO much better!

our kitchen looks SO much better!

2. Get in the game with marathon training!

A: I missed one tempo run in November, but I honestly think it worked out for the better.  It was the last week when I was about to do my 2nd 18 mile long run of this training cycle and kept having a slightly annoyed pain in one leg.  By long run day it had gone away, so I count this all as successfully getting my butt into gear.

3. Have all Christmas cards addressed and ready to be sent out by December 1st!  I’m so excited to send out Christmas cards this year! :)  I have them already to order, so this goal shouldn’t be too hard to tackle!

A+: I just have to put them in the mail!! I didn’t say actually mail them so I count this as an A+!

4. I’m bringing back my yoga goals, and in baby steps. Yoga once a week!  If I don’t start doing this I’m going to need to either cancel my membership or freeze it to save some moolah.

F: I didn’t go at all. I failed.  The thing is my body craves yoga it’s just like there’s some disconnect in actually getting my butt there….I don’t know what my deal is at all.

The Goals:

Teal-

1. Complete all marathon training runs.

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

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

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

Beth-

1. Complete all marathon training runs.

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

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!

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

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

And here go, time to make these goals happen! Have a wonderful December! What are you wanting to accomplish this month?

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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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