#RnRSA Saturday Lunch!

Ok, our fellow Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio running tweeps!! Let’s have lunch together on Saturday at The Cove!

606 W. Cypress

San Antonio, Texas 

It’s less than 4 miles from the Alamodome if you are going to be coming from the expo or going to the expo after (which is what we’ll probably do).

I’m just going to throw 12:00 p.m. out there as a lunch time and you can comment if you think it should be a different time!

Can’t wait to meet those of you that we haven’t met yet!

Also, feel free to comment and let us know if you plan to come so we can get a count for a table!

The Month of Pink

A new month! And a month that finds us even closer to our two ultimate goals for 2011 – run a race every month and complete White Rock Marathon.

While October is a month that the majority of people associate with Halloween , I am sure more and more people are remembering that October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  This year I am confident in saying that this month is more near and dear to our hearts than ever before.  If you’ve been reading our blog then you know we are fundraising for Team Cindy through our Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio half we will be running, which means we are raising money for breast cancer.  We have pledged to raise $1,200 – that boils down to $100 per month of our 2011 race year.  We are currently at 56% of our goal –

Donate you can find our fundraising page here

Yes, Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio is NOT officially until November so yes, we will be running the Komen 5k in Dallas on October 15th and proudly wearing Team Cindy on our shirts!

So if you follow us on twitter don’t be surprised if the #TeamCindy hashtag is more a part of our timeline than ever before.

One of the exciting parts of the month of October is that it will bring the arrival of Cindy’s first grandchild!  So get ready for some cute pics of a sweet little Jack!

Cancer in general is a hard thing to deal with and there are so many people affected by it and in so many different ways!  This year we have chosen to mainly raise awareness and money for breast cancer, and also childhood cancer with our volunteering and running for the Heroes for Children 5k.

Are you doing anything this month for Breast Cancer Awareness?

We’ll leave you with a picture of Julie and Mr. Death with their Team Cindy sign waiting for Cynthia to finish the 3-Day walk in 2010

September Race No. 3

Since we both did different things on this race day here is a race post that’s a little back and forth from both of us! Enjoy! 🙂

Beth – Going into race morning I had NO idea what I was going to be doing exactly, but nonetheless I was excited to be behind the scenes of a race!  I got to the Shops at Legacy at 5:00 a.m. and shortly thereafter I was given a golf cart.  I’d actually never driven a golf cart before, so it was exciting for me.  At this point the majority of our vendors were setting everything up.  Only problem we had was the barricades hadn’t exactly been put up so off I went (on the golf cart) with my boss lady for the morning to keep people out of our 5k course.  I am not even sure how the time passed so quickly from 5:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m. when opening ceremony began, and I can’t even remember everything I did but I basically was a gopher.  I’d already determined I was not going to run the 5k as I’d have no clue what I’d be doing the moment it started not to mention where I’d keep my bib, armband for my iphone, headphones and anything else I might want to run with while we were getting ready for the race.

Teal – I was excited about the race this weekend because I knew how much Beth had been involved in the process and also because I was going to get to run with a few friends from teaching. My friend Chris from work joined the team- he is also training to run the White Rock Marathon in December and we talk basically every day about our running. The last time we actually got to run together was back in March for Kacie’s Run for our school district. My fellow work-out buddy, morning motivator, and friend Cynthia also joined the team and ran with us this morning. She has recently come off a long, nagging foot injury and is currently building and training to run the Rock n Roll Dallas half in March, so they are awesome fellow runners! Cynthia and I also ran into our personal trainer friend, Nemo from 24 hour fitness and one we both see at least twice a week when we are training with Will. While he’s super in shape he is not a distance runner so it was fun to pick on him at the end!

Beth- As the runners began to arrive I was pretty much just hanging out in the golf cart after eating my Chickfila chicken biscuit and waiting for my next job.  Thanks, Chickfila for providing the 5k Committee and volunteers with breakfast! Haha  But I got to see my mom and sister who I’d signed up for the race. 🙂 As well as a bunch of other friends that had started to arrive to support this great cause!

Teal – I met Chris early and we were able to catch Beth in full volunteer mode and chat with her a while. Somebody at Heroes for Children gave her a golf-cart to drive around—she seriously looked official. I was sad she wasn’t running with me but just overall impressed by her volunteer spirit! The race did a very cool balloon release thing at the beginning. The yellow balloons were released to represent each child battling cancer & their family that had been helped in the past year by Heroes for Children.  Then they also released 2 red heart balloons to represent the two little girls of the mothers who started Heroes for Children in their honor!

 

Beth- I do not think I’ve mentioned much about the co-founders of HFC, so let me take this opportunity to do so.  I met Jenny Scott (co-founder) through yoga at the end of January this year, and learned her story and her daughter, Allie.  She was Jenny’s first born child and at 8 months and 27 days passed away from Acute Myeloid Leukemia in September of 2004.  Larissa Linton’s (co-founder) 4 year old daughter, Taylor passed away in Novemeber 2001 of Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  It was after the death of Taylor that Larissa formed Taylor’s Angels, a non-profit that provided financial assistance to families who had a child battling cancer.  Larissa and Jenny meet in October of 2004 and realized the need for Heroes for Children.  On race day I actually saw a runner wearing a Taylor’s Angels race shirt which was very neat. If you’d like to see a picture of Taylor and Allie or read a little bit more about them then please visit the HFC website here.

Teal – Chris and I had discussed prior in the week how fast we wanted to run. He mentioned 24 mins and in my head I was like- no way. I’ll try but I highly doubt I can do that, my goal was 25:19. We both lined up together at the start line and we were not paying attention and had to wait a while to start after the gun went off, because none of my technology was ready… Runkeeper wasn’t up and my music hadn’t start- priorities!!! One day I may learn to do with out but for now this is a requirement! We took off and dodged and ran on the outside until about the end of the first mile, we passed the clock at about 7:14—what?? Really? I knew we were a little behind the clock but not more than like 30 secs. In my head I was like 1 down 2 to go, which mentally at this point is NOTHING, we are used to saying 1 down- 13 to go or whatever the crazy distance is for that week. I was able to maintain this pace fairly well; I lost Chris at about the 2 mile mark, but only by a few seconds. I managed to run the rest of the race right on the tail of what looked to be a 7 year old, this kid was hauling! Keep in mind I am 5’10” and I could not pass this kid who was like 4 feet tall! My goal at that point was to beat him, or at least attempt to keep up with him since he was the closest person around. I crossed the finish line at what I thought was about 25 minutes. Slightly wondering what my official time was. Chris was able to stay for the entire awards ceremony which was awesome because I can never stay. I managed to set a new PR by over a minute! I was seriously surprised and super excited because Chris even stayed long enough to pick up my medal! I was second in my age group! I have not won an individual medal for running before!!  Overall the race was awesome! Flat, spread out, not a lot of issues with walkers, dogs, strollers, all those random things you get at a lot of races! Cynthia and I also discussed at the end how awesome it was to see the pictures of the kids along the way that HFC has helped and how it was hard to not get choked up by the pictures. Very inspiring race and atmosphere!

Beth – Just as the 1 mile race began I got to drive Hannah & Hannah to the pace car a.k.a. a Ferrari provided by Boardwalk.  Hannah & Hannah were selected to ride in the pace car by the nurses at Medical City Children’s Hospital.  I loved it – they were getting driven over along with one of their little brother’s and a HFC staff member and I heard one of them say “I wanna ride on the one with the girl!”  So I happily drove them over on the golf cart and told them to have fun! Then I quickly took off to get some trash cans out to the awesome volunteers at the water stations and made it back to the start line just as the 5k was beginning.  Here’s a picture right after the gun went off – 

I kept looking for Teal and Chris and never saw them.  Maybe it was because of their technology mishap – I just figured since they are both so tall there would be no way I missed them, but I was wrong!  Then I met up with my mom and sister at the finish line a few minutes before Hannah & Hannah were on their way in on the pace car bringing in the first runner who finished in 17:38.  Then I got to see Teal coming up on the finish –

And just a minute or so behind Teal there was Chris (on the right) coming up on the finish line-

All three of us got to watch Cynthia cross the finish line! [So sorry Cynthia I didn’t snap a picture! :(]

Chris & Teal

Teal & Cynthia

Nemo & Teal

Since we did not take any pictures with Disney characters while we were in California for Disneyland Half we took advantage of all of the Disney characters that came out Saturday for the 5k.  Here we are with Tiana from The Princess and the Frog –


This is such a great race to bring your little kids to since there were the Disney characters and there were also firemen out there with their fire truck – SO many fun kid things!  It was such an honor to be a part of this race.  If you live in the Dallas area we’d definitely encourage you to put it on your calendar/racing schedule for 2012.

Results:

Teal: 23:58; 2nd in age group, 13th female to finish and 39th finisher overall

And one last picture for the road…we ended up having the same workout shorts on that day AND the same yellow band to go with our Go Sport IDs

Celebrating Cindy

Today would have been Cindy’s 54th Birthday.  If she were alive today she’d be about  3 weeks away from welcoming her first grandbaby, Jack, into the world!  And about 4 months away from the birth of her second grandbaby, Cindy!

Cynthia (l) and Julie (r) at a baby shower for Jack!

I remember having a conversation with Julie awhile back about how her mom probably got to hold her grandbabies up in heaven before they were ever in existence.  And I know that Cindy is looking down upon Julie & Cynthia with a full heart.  Those two are going to be fabulous mothers and even though Cindy is not physically with them on earth I know that she is a part of every moment of their every day.  Baby Jack & Baby Cindy have a wonderful heavenly grandmom, and I know their moms will make sure they know who Cindy was.

Teal and I are raising money for breast cancer in honor of Cindy.  We will be running the Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon in San Antonio, Texas on November 13, 2011 wearing our Team Cindy shirts.  It is a big honor to us to be able to wear these shirts in memory of such a great woman! Today we are not quite at 50% of our goal and our deadline is rapidly approaching.  We would appreciate any and all support that you can offer us!

Giving up a drink at Starbucks and donate $5.

Giving up a workday lunch out and donate $10.

Thanks for reading a little bit about Cindy today – if you’d like to donate to Team Cindy please go here!  And if you’d like to read a little bit more about her life and family you can find that here! We’ll leave you with a picture of Cynthia and her husband Mike at the Tulsa Komen Race for the Cure for this past weekend sporting their Team Cindy shirts.

Team Cindy

It is such a honor to me to even be writing this blog – a few weeks ago I got a text from one of my college roommates saying “We are ordering more Team Cindy shirts, do you want one?” I responded immediately with “YES!!”

If we back up a little bit, I met Julie (college roomie) in 2003 and within 9-ish months of our meeting we became roommates.  Right around the time I met Julie her mom was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.  I know the news had to come as a shock and heart break to Julie, her sister, Cynthia, and their dad.  And in the times I first met Cindy and when she would come down to College Station for a visit, I’d never thought she was anything but a healthy lady with a contagious joy for life and her family.

 
Cindy was one of those moms of your friends that you immediately fell in love with and always enjoyed having the opportunity to be around and in truth she has passed that along to her daughters, as well as marrying a man that contains the same quality.

 
The very last time I was around Cindy was in roughly July of 2009 – I had gotten together with Julie, her husband, Cynthia, her boyfriend (and future husband) and another couple for a low-key dinner at Julie’s house.  After dinner we decided to play cranium so Cindy came over to hangout and give us an even number for teams.  She just fit right in and never seemed like a mom who had 20 years on us.  I could always see how Cindy’s daughters were her passion and so important to her.  She loved and adored Julie & Cynthia and never in an overbearing way – I always viewed her as a close to perfect balance of being a mom and a friend to her daughters.

Julie, Cindy & Cynthia

One of the things I loved hearing about Cindy, prior to my meeting her, was she had been an elementary school teacher for years, and I believe before every school year the kids who would find out Mrs. Death was their teacher would come up with these stories of how scary she must be!  How silly they must have felt upon meeting her that first day of school and realizing there is absolutely nothing scary about Cindy Death.

 
In the early months of 2010, Cindy began to experience organ failure as a result of all the chemo she had received.  Many nights were spent in the hospital with Cindy surrounded by her loving family.  Cynthia was scheduled to be married in early May, but it started to look like Cindy would not be able to be there unless the wedding was moved up.  Everything actually fell into place and Cynthia’s wedding was moved up by a little over a month.  But there was yet another hiccup in the plans for Cynthia & Mike’s wedding and having Cindy be there – she would not be able to leave the hospital.  The last Friday of February the wedding was brought to the hospital so that Cindy could see her baby girl get married. 

Julie, Cindy & CynthiaThe entire Death Family & their spouses - Jimmy, Mike, Cynthia, Julie, Jeff and Cindy

The pictures above were taken by a very talented photograph here in DFW, Love Me Photography,  you can see her blog here as well as a slideshow of all the photographs she took at Cynthia & Mike’s wedding.  Just six days after this wedding, Cindy went on to heaven.  Or as I have heard Julie say “heaven just got another angel!”
 
 
Cindy Death, was a beautiful woman, a daughter, sister, wife, mother, teacher and friend to many, as well as being adored by many.  That is why I am so honored to be running a race and running for Team Cindy/Life is a Run.  Teal will be running with me in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half in San Antonio in November and we have set a goal to raise $1,200.00 for Susan G. Komen ($100 for each month of this ruinning year).  As of today we have $90 towards our goal!  If you would like to donate to Team Cindy please go here.
 
 
If you plan on running Rock ‘n’ Roll SA look for me in my Team Cindy shirt:
 
 
– Beth

March’s Races

This past weekend was a very busy race weekend and is a little bit of a glimpse into how crazy the two of us are with a short race on Saturday, Kacie’s Run, and a bit of a longer run on Sunday, Rock ‘n’ Roll Half.  But first let’s back up to our week leading up to our race weekend – Teal had a lingering cough and ultimately started treatment for bronchitis.  Mid-week Beth got a cold and with a double race weekend we would be lying if we said we were not nervous.  We looked and sounded crazy, Teal would break into coughing attacks, and Beth had to carry around a box of tissues.  Not a pretty sight.

Kacie’s Run on Saturday went GREAT!  CFBISD had over 500 people participate in either the 1 mile or 5k races.  The crazy wind we had all week in Dallas stuck around for the run but the sun was definitely out and the temperature was in the high 70’s by the time we ran.  The course was awesome as it is super flat and plenty of space to not run into or have to dodge other runners.  I am pretty sure our nerves had taken over slightly as we both ran the first mile in right under 8 minutes. By mile two we were great, only one small coughing attack but we pulled through!

Our Results

Teal: 26:26, finished 6th in age group and 68th over all

Beth: 26:19, finished 4th in age group and 63rd overall

 

 

For the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half, we decided to run the relay and that we might have a better chance of placing if we ran on co-ed teams than as a Life is a Run team.  Teal partnered up with Joe and Beth partnered up with Bitner.  The boys were given the first leg of the half marathon to run, 7.1 miles, and the girls got the last leg, 6 miles.  As crazy as we were expecting the race to be with making sure we got to the right place, Rock ‘n’ Roll staff seriously had it under control.  The exchange area was well organized and it was awesome to see all the race action.  At about 35 minutes in, the first place runner passed all of us waiting for our partners at the exchange.  Oh to run a 5 minute mile…

L to R: Bitner, Beth, Teal & Joe

 

The weather in Dallas literally changed over night – Saturday we had a high in the 80’s and by the time we went to run our relay Sunday morning I think the temperature had maybe gotten up to 50 degrees with no sun.  Even the Rock ‘n’ Roll staff said that it must have been some kind of cruel joke.  It was freezing.

None of us had run a race in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series, but we were so impressed with how organized and just how great overall the event was.  There were spectators everywhere, awesome bands, and even the High School cheerleaders from Teal’s school district.  We both talked after the race about being moved, almost to tears, by some of the pictures on runner’s shirts.  Beth saw a girl who ran with an extra bib that said “I run for my mother” and Teal ran behind a boy who had lost his mother to breast cancer, he had a giant picture of her on his back.  It is seriously motivating to run for a good cause and to see those affected by cancer, working for a cure!  This race also supported Susan G. Komen!

One of the exciting parts of the race was when Teal actually ran beside Troy Aikman!  Teal said that he literally just ran up on the side of her, he was on the left and his pacer on the right, and was talking about his race bib.  He thought he was the only one wearing it.  She looked up at him as it is weird to hear a lot of talking during a race and realized who the heck it was!  She looked at the girl on the other side of her for reassurance and yep, it was really him.  Teal looked right at him and asked, “Can I take your picture?”  He said, “Sure if you run fast!”  He had a pace to keep afterall!  Teal, who was running with her iphone to use the runkeeper app, took a quick picture and tweeted it while running.  Seriously cool!  Troy even contacted Life is a Run afterwards to find out about the picture!  How cool is that?

Beth and Teal both finished the race with an excellent pace.  It is safe to say our best 6 miles run ever!

Our Results

Teal & Joe: Ran the half in 1:50:22 (an avg. 8:26/mile pace) Teal’s half in 51:44.  They finished 8th amongst the co-ed teams and 19th out of 305 relay teams!

Beth & Bitner: Ran the half in 1:44:55 (an avg. 8:01/mile pace) Beth’s half in 50:37.  They finished 4th amongst the co-ed teams and 13th out of 305 relay teams!