Lazy Solo Running Weekend

October 24, 2011 by · 7 Comments

Beth here with my running recap for the weekend! 🙂  My weekend turned out to be NOT what I was expecting, but exactly what I needed! After my long run Saturday morning I was suppose to be hitting the road to Austin with my sister for a wedding, but life happened and sister felt she needed to stay in town to be with a friend.  I took full advantage of this and slept in on Saturday morning!  And by slept in I mean until 7:30 a.m. Woohoo!  My favorite spin instructor at my L.A. Fitness had been out of town last Monday on my usual spin day, so I skipped it.  I decided spin class on Saturday morning [since favorite instructor would be back] made more sense than Sunday morning and then back to spin class Monday after work.  So I did spin, I did a 30 minute yoga class and then I spent hours with my littlest nephew!  It was a fabulous Saturday! Here’s what my sister and I did to our nephew on Saturday –

This was inspired by what Jack’s Mom did to him last week.  Jack being the first grandbaby of Cindy[#TeamCindy] who we are running Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio half in memory of and raising money for breast cancer.  And here’s me getting some good cuddle time in with Easton!

Sunday I slept in until 8 a.m.  That was some glorious sleep! I wrote that ‘What’s the Deal?‘ post a few weeks ago and to be honest I still hadn’t fully snapped out of it! I’m pretty positive I was wearing myself out during the week and then just going, going and going on the weekends.  Pretty much since the weekend of August 20th I had been going on long runs then drinking tons of coffee in an effort to stay up and go out to celebrate things like: my sister’s birthday, my boyfriend’s birthday, being in California and running a half, celebrating one of my best friend’s birthdays, celebrating a 1 year old’s birthday, celebrating a 2 year old’s birthday, hosting a baby shower, celebrating my oldest nephew’s birthday and my sister in law’s birthday – see what I was doing to myself??

Anyways, I laid in bed Sunday morning catching up on my DVR until I had to get up and meet a friend at yoga at 1:00 p.m.  I ate a late lunch and decided to lay in bed longer while my food digested before I could go out for my long run.  And something happened that NEVER happens – I took  nap!  I am in no way a napper!  I just lack the ability to take a nap and wake up refreshed, so the only times I do it are if I’m sick or I’m apparently wearing myself out THAT much.

Shortly before 5:00 p.m. I was off on my long run for the weekend!  This run I decided to take with me a Clif gel I’d received while I was out on the Tour des Fleurs 20k race course in September.  Like I do every long run I stuck it in the hidden pocket inside my Nike shorts only problem was that the Clif gel packaging is wider than the GU gel packaging I usually take on my run.  I ran through the gel pack poking me for 4 miles then I had it, took it out and ran holding it for 4 more miles until I opened it.  Now I am a HUGE chocolate lover, but I am now not a fan of chocolate flavored gels which is what I had!   But don’t worry Clif! I have not given up on you just your chocolate flavored gel. 🙂

And there is my cut/chaffed area/what have you on the right in the picture above.  I’m not going to tell you where that is exactly, but if I put the pack in an inside pocket of my shorts I think you can use your imagination. 😉 [Sorry Mom if you are reading this and are shaking your head at me! Love you!]  Ok, back to long run – I didn’t know how this would go since I have never run more than 8 miles by myself and Teal had left me to go on an awesome trip to San Francisco!  SO jealous! But it went great! I was so proud of myself for keeping my pace under 10 minutes the WHOLE entire time!  I had a couple times where I wanted to stop more because I needed to use the facilities than being tired. 🙂  I guess that’s the downfall of running not at my usual time.   I explored a little bit and ran a slightly different area than Teal and I have ever run before and overall I felt great during this long running!

I ended my Sunday night with some #runchat, Chipotle, Rangers, wine and my Tommie Copper calf sleeves [if you don’t own any – what are you waiting for?? Seriously!]

Check back with us tomorrow for Teal’s San Francisco Running Weekend recap!

Are you a fan of Clif gels? What is YOUR favorite flavor?

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18 Miles: Check

October 10, 2011 by · 7 Comments

We set out Saturday morning with the goal of 18 miles. The weather was not bad although when we started running it turned out to be extremely windy. We started about 6 o’clock this time with our friend Mary Alice, who was in town this weekend for the baby shower (her sister is Rebekah who we were throwing a shower for Saturday afternoon, more about that later) and also to visit friends. Mary Alice actually ran White Rock half last year with us! Anyways, back to Saturday, we decided to keep with as close to the same route as we ran last week, knowing it was relatively flat and we are comfortable with the area since we trained there for most of White Rock half 2010. We had talked about adding a small portion to our course so we would run all the way up to the Shops at Legacy (where the Heroes for Children 5k was) because last time we were literally running laps around a mall to make sure we got all of the mileage in!

We seemed back to normal running routine, we mentioned last time that we talked a lot, this time I am not sure we said much to each other except for portions where we turned around. Also we didn’t have any restroom breaks this time. Mary Alice ran with us but for most of the time we didn’t see her, we kept turning around to make sure none of us lost each other but despite our best efforts it still seemed to happen anyways. At one point in our route we running down a winding road with no sidewalks, we know—safe right? We both saw Mary Alice (and hoped she saw us) and figured she would run the same way but when we got to the end we didn’t see her so we both decided to run back. If anything was ever going to happen to anyone surely it would happen there. Drivers really don’t see you and sometimes if they do they don’t move over even though there are 3 full lanes and hardly ever traffic…MOVE OVER people… it’s just nice. We would do it for you! Nevertheless we ran up and down that three times, finally deciding to just run up to the Shops at Legacy where we both heard “Teal-Beth!” Luckily we found Mary Alice and talked about where to go from there.

A lot of the turns and runs through the parking lot stuff kind of threw us a little off, and about the 13 mile mark Teal had mentioned to Beth that if she lost her she wasn’t going to make it. Unfortunately an annoying Achilles problem that started last week came back and Teal had to slow down, and Beth thankfully would run ahead and then turn around to stay close. It really is a million times better when your running partner is close! Teal had to stop and walk for about .25 of a mile and managed to start again.

We ran back into each other about 3 miles away from finishing. When we had about 2 miles left Beth said- “I am going to run until I hit 18 and I am going to Starbucks and going to have someone pick us up.” SWEET!! If we had kept running the normal way home we would have had to walk quite a bit. Beth finished up and Teal had to run a few more laps around the Target parking lot. Luckily Beth’s mom, Nancy a.k.a. Fancy Nancy, came to our rescue [Hi, Beth’s mom! Thanks for rescuing us!]! I am pretty sure both of us were in pain. Eighteen miles was rough. I know for me [Teal] this was much harder overall than even the 17. We ran faster last week. Beth said she felt pretty good the entire time so that is a plus.

Of course keeping with our madness- Teal went to work.  Beth got an ice bath, went to yoga before last minute prep for the baby shower.

We met up again around 2:00 p.m. and set up for the baby shower at Teal’s house. The shower went off wonderfully and was a lot of fun. We are super excited and cannot wait to meet baby Elliott!

Teal, Mandy, Rebekah & Beth

Us with MA a.k.a. Mary Alice

We all kind of stayed around after and watched the A&M game [Whoop!] and the Rangers game. Beth even managed to make it all the way out to Dallas for a joint Birthday party for some friends born in September & October!

out celebrating birthdays!

I was able to get some recovery in on Sunday. My knees were throbbing so here is my version of an “ice bath.”

This week brings more training of course. Below is our plan. Luckily our run this week is not as far and we are excited to run in another Susan G. Komen race on Saturday. We will for sure catch you up on that.



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