Susan G. Komen 5k

October 14, 2011 by · 4 Comments

 

So this Saturday brings our only true October race even though it feels like this has been one of the hardest running months thus far. We are in the midst of true marathon training as you know but we really wanted to take this chance to participate in a race that really means something to us! We will be participating in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure tomorrow at North Park Mall. We are especially excited about this chance to participate in another Komen race, because as you know, this cause has become near and dear to our hearts given our efforts to raise money in honor of Team Cindy and others like her.

 

We will set out in the morning and will actually be participating on the Creekview Cheer Team this year. As you might know Teal works for Carrollton Farmers Branch and her friend Cynthia, who you have probably read about before is a cheer coach at Creekview. They are a service squad, as opposed to competitive squad, and they were able to raise money for breastcancer awareness so we are glad to be able to support them in their efforts to do just what we hope to do too!

 

We are very excited to run this race and have heard much about the amazing atmosphere! If you haven’t already you should really check out the website for this race and the cause. We understand now the importance of early detection and awareness and the website is a catch all for anything and everything you would ever want to know about breast cancer.  In Cindy’s case when she finally went to see a doctor her breast cancer was at Stage 4.  No matter how scary a feeling something abnormal in your body may be – simply ignoring it won’t make it go away!

 

 

 

Cindy & her daughters, Julie & Cynthia in March 2009

We will be running this race with a picture of Cindy and for the first time we do not have true goals. We want to run and take in everything that we see. Teal ran this race about 10 years ago and just remembers being in awe of what is present at the race so it is really something to take in. We will also be doing our long training run on Sunday morning which this week should feel like an easy peasy 13 miles, right?? 🙂 

 

 

 

Goals:

Enjoy the race and take in the atmosphere

 

Weather:

Morning – 65*

Rain- 0%

Wind- 10mph

 

 

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Mileage Milestone!

October 4, 2011 by · 4 Comments

This past Saturday we ran the FARTHEST either one of us has ever run before! Mileage milestone!

It was kind of shocking because for the first time in a long time we stepped outside and were kind of chilly!  Nonetheless, we had our camelbaks, our fuel and the tunes to entertain us!

The previous Saturday we started out on our 15 mile run [ultimately we only ran 11 miles of it] and I know both of us walked away from it feeling defeated and how we’d really make it a whole marathon!  After running the 17 miles on Saturday we realized that the previous Saturday it was 1. a hot day again and 2. we hadn’t paced ourselves accordingly for all of the hills in our course.  So in an effort to complete the 17 miles we knew we needed to give ourselves a flatter course this week.

Ok – back to the 17 mile run! We had our flatter course and positive attitudes that we would put in the exact mileage we were scheduled to run this week [Marathon Training week 9]!  Rarely do either of us walk when we ran, we just lack the ability to get going and for a long time after walking.  However, on this run we may have had to take a short potty break after only going about 2 miles, but we were barely in the run so starting up again was no big deal!  When we were in mile 4 of our run we were running towards a group of about 8 women, as we got closer they all parted and moved off the sidewalk so the two of us could just keep on going.  When we were close to them we realized they were out training for the 3-Day for the Cure and they started cheering & encouraging us on in our running!  It was so neat since it happened to be October 1st and they were training and sporting breast cancer awareness shirts and what not.

We actually saw quite a few people out walking or running that morning and when we were in our 8th mile we ran into [not literally] the same ladies again.  We got more cheers and encouragement from them!  They really were great and it was such an unexpected awesome thing added to our training run.  It was just extra inspiring since we are doing our #TeamCindy fundraising and they are walking for the same cause!

It was somewhere around this point that one of us said – I wonder if people think we actually talk to each other while we are running, you know, since we don’t. Which then led to us being the chattiest we have ever been on a run before besides the occasional “we’re half way finished!,” or “do you want to go this way?”  We talked about running New Years Double, and wanting to do the Coast to Coast challenge in 2012.  It was also around this point that we busted out our fuel for the day – swedish fish!

source

After hearing multiple times swedish fish are a great source of fuel for your long runs, which I think this can mostly be credited to Katie.  Just in case we did not care for them while running we each took a GU gel out with us, but the swedish fish were good!  Definitely refueled us and since we put them in individual baggies they were easy to grab from our camelbaks and continue running while eating.  We’ve got quite a few more long runs so if you have any other fuel suggestions we’d love to hear them!!

We finished up our 17 miles exactly where we started and were immediately ready to lay down.  In the last mile or so Teal started to feel some man in her achilles which kind of altered her running stride to make it through the pain and mile 17.  This is what we look like after running 17 miles –

After our run Teal had to get to work at MowerMedic, and Beth opted to try out an ice bath.  Thanks to Heidi, for all her tips & tricks to not feeling completely tortured during an ice bath!  It completely worked and made a huge difference in the ol’ legs that day and the next day.  Definitely did not feel like I’d done 17 miles!  We are pretty proud of ourselves! Next week we are on to our next mileage milestone of 18 miles!

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The Story of Teal & Beth

September 30, 2011 by · 1 Comment

So we officially became bloggers 7 months ago and we started off with race talk immediately, the goals we had for ourselves, why we were blogging and all that fun stuff.  We both realized that really you guys probably don’t know much about us besides that fact that we run, run some more, brunch, and well you know indulge in the occasional adult beverage, but what you may not know is how we met and how we have actually gotten to where we are now—Friends!

We met each other really randomly the first time through a party one our mutual friends had at the time. I had always heard about the infamous Beth Lynch and was really kind of nervous to meet her. She came to the party and we didn’t talk much, but rather I just sort of stayed close to our mutual friend.  In 2006, Beth and I, and our friend were all graduating from college and decided to take a beach trip! Basically to celebrate that accomplishment and it turned out later to be an annual thing… more about that later! I would definitely say we were “friends” at this point but really didn’t do much together or talk or really hang out on our own. I don’t even think we even had each other’s phone number at that point. Our beach trip was awesome, but we really never “bonded” about much. Just talked and stuck with the people we knew most at that point.

After returning to Texas we hung out a while, went to birthday’s, random get togethers and had even starting a “craft night” to which my husband refers to as, “drink and gossip” night. One of Beth’s best friends, Rebekah, around this time had gotten engaged and was planning her wedding. We all gathered basically once a week and helped her prepare for her wedding- glue stuff together, address and lick envelopes- you know crazy wedding stuff!

Rebekah's wedding in Pampa, TX

As I mentioned earlier the beach trip turned into somewhat of a tradition and that next summer of 2007 we made it to Cancun again. Definitely by this time we both had grown much closer in terms of friendship—we had each other’s numbers for sure 😉

Rebekah, Beth, Teal & Vanessa - 2nd Annual Beach Trip!

In 2007 Teal got engaged to her long time boyfriend and really this is when things really changed.  I really wanted to have Beth be a part of my life on a more of a “ yea she is my friend” level and I asked her to be a bridesmaid in my wedding. She of course said yes and then everything just sort of went from there. Beth and I bonded big time about my wedding and the happenings involved with that. I really felt like she cared- You can tell, she makes a great deal of time and effort into her friends and really did anything and everything she could to help and support me with the wedding.  I was slightly crazy (don’t judge- most brides are) – but she never batted an eye- including nights where we would glue, unwrap, wrap, and make crap for hours. (Notice a pattern?) She was there! Not to mention I got to use her amazing handwriting – yes you should be jealous!

So you know how we mentioned that annual beach trip—in 2008 we decided to change things up and went to the Dominican Republic! Of course as you have probably guessed by now- more bonding and hanging out and all that fun friend type stuff.  My wedding was in November of 2008 and basically everything went off without a hitch- minus of course a short temporary moment of panic about my bracelet, but beyond that nothing. Below you can see Beth in her running around madness at the wedding!

Dominican Republic Beach Trip

We flew to Hawai’i that next year to visit Rebekah and tour Hawai’i – Beth who has now flown with me a million times had gotten used to my routine, holds my hand, lets me cry like a 2 year old, and lets me sit by her! A task I am sure not many want! Hawai’i was probably the best trip of my life!

On our way to Pearl Harbor and our hair got stuck together

Things kind of got a little crazy after this year. I had started graduate school, had started working for my dad at MowerMedic and was also teaching. Life was insane. So insane in fact that I had no time off, ended up exhausted and ran around like a crazy person trying to get everything done. Beth always managed to stay around and was always encouraging to me. No real trip took place that year, but I did meet a girl through grad school who would but a bug in my system about running a half marathon. I had talked to this girl in my program about running a 1/2 and neither one of us really thought we could do it. We had talked about it with each other and really realized this was a goal and something we both wanted to do! By September Beth and I really started training and kind of kicked things off with the Tour de Fleurs race and basically went from there- both completing our first half marathon at White Rock.

Mary Alice (who happens to be Rebekah's sister), Teal and Beth after finishing White Rock Half

Upon finishing you could tell that neither one of us was really that satisfied. I honestly think it went something like “that’s it?”  I know for me I looked around at all the people finishing the marathon and was like—we have to do that! Beth of course said “if you’re in, I’m in” and that is how we got to where we are now.

Since finishing the first half we have spent super amounts of time together, the four of us Mandy, Rebekah, Beth and I have spent New Year’s together, traveled to Mandy’s wedding in Cancun and hang out all the time! It is safe to say that this is a friendship I cherish with all my heart- as cheesy as it might sound. She’s not just my running buddy- I think you can see!

New Year's Eve 2010

We are only two short months away from this year’s goal and I know I would never have been here without her support and out support of each other. Beth has a six sense really about the social media world and mentioned a blog- I really have no idea how to do anything technological- She is the brains behind this posting business!! I really kind of thought this blog would not be what is now! This has not only helped us running wise in terms of motivation and accountability but also to learn so much more about each other and become better friends in the process and not to mention has opened both of our eyes to the huge running community.

And a couple of goofy pictures of us to end it all:

– Teal

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Wordless Wednesday No. 7

September 28, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

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7th Annual Heroes for Children 5k

September 22, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

We have reached our FINAL race weekend for the month of September!  Wow, this month sure has flown by!  Back in March Beth got involved with Heroes for Children and immediately knew she wanted to be apart of their 5k committee.  Well, we’ve finally arrived to the week leading up to the big 5k race!

This 5k specifically benefits Heroes for Children and enables them to continue to help families who have a child battling cancer.  The average gift HFC is able to give a family is $750 which often goes towards paying their mortgage, utilities bill, car payments or even for their child’s funeral.  Each month more than $45,000 is given to families who have a child with cancer.  One of the great details that goes along with who HFC gives money to is the age range for children they’ll help, 18-22 years old, so even college age kids and their families are able to receive financial assistance.

Laptops for Love is another way HFC helps by donating a new laptop to a teenager battling cancer so that they are still connected to the outside world while undergoing treatment and even keeping up with their school work while they are unable to attend school. “Between January 2005 and December 2010, Laptops for Love has provided 384 teenagers with a laptop!”  So as you can see this organization does SO much to help out these families and we are so excited to be apart of the 5k this year!

The race is taking place at the Shops at Legacy in Plano, an area we are VERY familiar with as we started pretty much all of our training runs for White Rock Half 2010 at the Shops.  Teal has recruited a few teachers from her school to participate with us and Beth has recruited a couple of her family members to participate as well!

Weather:

Precip: 10%

Wind: 5-10 mph

High: 85

Low: 62

Goals:

Teal: To run it in 25:19 which would beat her Kacie’s Run 5k time in March!

Beth: I haven’t even thought much about a goal since I’m volunteering and not sure if I’ll actually get to run or not…

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Tour des Fleurs

September 16, 2011 by · 1 Comment

Wheee! Another race weekend is in front of us. Tomorrow we will be running the Tour des Fleurs (TDF) benefiting the Dallas Arboretum.  This race is either a 10k or 20k distance – pick your poison.  We have run this race before and only as a 10k.  If you look at our PR page you’ll notice this is our very FIRST time running a 20k race, so yah!! No matter what we’ll both PR this weekend. 🙂

If you checked out our marathon training schedule you’ll notice we put 20k race + 4 miles…well, we decided we are going to attempt a total of 16 miles tomorrow.  Our plan is to run the 20k and keep in mind we have a little bit more than a 5k to do afterwards.  So if you see two crazy girls grab their TDF hats at the finish line and keeping going that’s why!  We’ll actually be out there with our friend Bitner (whom we’ve run with before) and I believe he plans on doing the same thing as he is also in marathon training for White Rock.

Here is what our course looks like:

We have run around White Rock Lake a handful of times so the only surprise for us will be the NOT around the lake part.  We are confident we will do fine tomorrow.  Maybe we still have a Disneyland Half high mixed with oh my gosh the weather is starting to be awesome again in Dallas high!

Weather:

Precip: 10%

Wind: 7mph

High: 89*

Low: 70*

Goals:

We share the same goals this week – do our best with the 20k and have our minds mentally prepared for the additional mileage we’ll put in after the race!  Which will also mean that this is the first time we’ve EVER run more than 13.1 miles! We got this!

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Wordless Wednesday No. 5

September 14, 2011 by · 1 Comment

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September Race No. 1

September 7, 2011 by · 7 Comments

What a fun (and entirely TOO quick) weekend in California!  Due to a small flight delay and then a suspicious bag scare at LAX we didn’t make it to where we’d be staying for the weekend until about 12:00 a.m. PT and then by the time we actually went to sleep we’d both been up for 24 hours.  Little did we know that’d work out to our advantage….

Saturday can’t say we actually did anything THAT exciting (but that doesn’t mean we didn’t still have fun :)) with the exception of visiting the Health & Fitness Expo at the Disneyland Hotel which we didn’t get to until the very end of it.  (The picture below was our first attempt at lunch for the day which didn’t work, but we are proudly sporting our cool Go Sport ID shirts!) We managed to finally fit lunch in around 4:30PM and Beth’s high school friend Chris showed us around Laguna Beach and Dana Point before calling it a night.  We ate a very healthy pre-race meal of Dorritos and were in bed by 9PM.  That was the advantage of our late night the night before…we were exhausted.

That dang 3:30AM alarm came WAY too fast!  We made it to Disneyland a little after 4:00AM.  There were SO many people at the race!  The females actually made up 62% of the participants! Yah, ladies! 🙂 We were assigned to corrals and of course we were not put in one together, so Teal joined Corral D with Beth.

We started the race and per usual we were separated.  We both saw each other at different points in our dodging around people and about a half mile into it we were reunited!  This was our first race to pretty much run the whole thing together! It would be my guess that this was the worst race we’ve had in terms of dodging people and being cut off. The first four miles of the course we ran through Disney California Adventure and Disneyland Park.  So many Disney characters were out to take pictures and were a huge part of being cut off or having someone just stop right in front of you.  We had a really good pace going so neither one of us wanted to add time by picture taking with the characters.  Maybe next time?

There was a lot to see out on the course and amongst all the spectators.  For Teal the girl running with underwear outside of her pants that said on the butt “only 13.1 miles because I am only half crazy,” and for Beth it was the sign someone was holding that said “Running is a mental sport, so you are all crazy!”  There were a lot of people dressed up in costumes and we have to give props to the ones who were in legit costumes that probably added some weight like the man dressed as Mr. Incredible or the girl with Rapunzel hair who was literally carry the hair in one hand it was so long!

Our absolute favorite part of the race came when we were somewhere in mile 9 and we got to run through Angels Stadium!  The energy in there from all the people that were cheering everyone on was incredible.  We both almost started crying that’s how awesome it was for us!

making our way into the the stadium

After Angel Stadium we were almost to the home stretch portion of the race – the last 5k!  We both knew we were on track for a good time and kept plugging away.  When we saw the mile 11 marker our pace picked up.   We basically were at a point where it was going to be a matter of sheer will to get until 2 hours. Teal mentioned that she really at this point thought it was possible and our pace picked up big time. The very end of the course was one where you keep curving around and never really see the finish line until you are right there upon it.  But we finished and we now have new bling to add to our collection!  We both kept walking after the race and immediately found a place to sit down, stretch and gather our thoughts. We both gave each other a look and a very big, “great job.” This race seriously felt awesome in terms of weather and speed. Once we sat down the pain kind of hit Teal. She literally sat down and basically wanted to crawl out of her own legs. She had apparently run through a major shorts malfunction and was actually bleeding due to chaffing. It is seriously interesting the pain you don’t feel or shut off while running that doesn’t hit you until the end. Insane for sure and we can remember times in the past actually questioning how and why runners keep going. It really just seems to turn in to “it’s just what you do.” We sat for a while and then ended up talking to a man who had received an awesome Coast to Coast medal!  In order to earn this medal you basically run at both Disney locations within one calendar year.  The fact that this idea has even been introduced to us of course makes us seriously contemplate the idea of working towards one of those ourselves. They are awesome!

Results:

Teal: 2:01:36 and a new PR!!!  Finished 108th in age group and 1,668 overall.

Beth: 2:01:35, getting closer to the White Rock Half Marathon time!  Finished 107th in age group and 1,663 overall.

Remember how we gave up alcohol for the week leading up to the race?  Well, we finally broke that streak once the race was over! 🙂  We headed out to meet our friend Monica for a late lunch and some cocktails.  Spent the rest of the day enjoying time with friends over some wine and awesome views of Laguna Beach.

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Disneyland Half Marathon

September 2, 2011 by · 1 Comment

It’s finally time for our second biggest race of the year!  Of course our first marathon at the end of this year is the biggest for us, but since we are traveling to California TODAY and running in the Disneyland Half Marathon on Sunday this is definitely the runner up!

We could not be more excited for this race, what we’ll see on the course and just the course itself!  From the event website – “The course for this magical event will take runners from the Disney California Adventure™ Park, celebrating California’s storied past and exciting future, to theDisneyland® Park where you will explore the fantastic “lands” of nostalgia, color and delight. Then it is on to the scenic streets of Anaheim, past the Honda Center, home of the Anaheim Ducks, along the Santa Ana Trail overlooking the Santa Ana River, through Angel Stadium, home of the MLB’s Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and then past Disney’s Paradise Pier® Hotel and the Disneyland® Hotel for an exciting finish of the Happiest Race on Earth!”

 

 

 

We’ll be those girls out on the course wearing matching outfits! Woohoo go Life is a Run! 🙂  Have I mentioned we are excited?  This week we’ve chatted with some fellow runners who will be out there doing the same race and even with all the info they’ve given us I am confident this race will be way more than we can even expect.  What if this race runs us for others?  Guess we’ll just have to make yearly trips to the Disney theme parks for races! 🙂

 

 

 

Weather:

Precip.: 0%

Wind: 1mph

High: 86*

Low: 63*

Kind of sad that we are all excited about the cooler weather in California and Texas is actually getting a bit of a break from the heat while we are gone.  See –

Oh well!  It will still be awesome!

Goals:

The goal for this race is to beat our White Rock 2010 half marathon times although we won’t be disappointed if we get caught up with our surroundings, take some pictures and therefore add a couple of minutes to our time.  Then we can always come back next year and do it again right? 🙂

 

Kind of a short blog post from us – we reserve the right to overshare about our trip when we get back! 🙂

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Goals??

September 1, 2011 by · 2 Comments

We are suppose to have monthly goals?  Are the two of us slackers because we have only set goals for the year of 2011?  As we have made the switch from August to September I have seen quite a few of our fellow runners posting about how they did with their August goals and what their new goals for September will be.  Do the two of us have blatant goals set forth for this brand new month? – No, not exactly….

Our goals for this year in my eyes are as follows:

1. Run a race every month

2. Run a marathon

3. Raise money in honor of Cindy Marshall-Death (Team Cindy)

So far we have succeeded in completing 8 out of 12 months of races and after this weekend 9 months!  September we actually have 3 different race weekends. We’ll be posting our pre-race blog for tthis weekend so let’s just go ahead and skip over the Disneyland Half for now.  Next up this month we will be running one of our favorite races – Tour des Fluers and the weekend after that for the first time we will be participating in the Heroes for Children 5k at the Shops at Legacy.  This race is for such a GREAT cause!  The HFC 5k committee is just barely behind their goals for the 7th annual run – we are still short a few teams and behind a little with our fundraising goal – if you can help please visit the site here.

The new and, to steal a word from Courtney (@CisforCourtney), nerve-citing thing for this month for us is going further than we ever have mileage-wise!  Essentially the last few weeks of our half marathon training has also been the start over our marathon training.  This month we’ll find ourselves running 15 and 17 miles.  So yah, a nerve-citing time for us!

Our last goal is the one we are falling behind in – we are not even quite half way to our fundraising goal and we have LESS than 2 months to get the rest of our $1,200 (a $100 for each month) raised.  We’ll be running the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio half proudly wearing Team Cindy shirts in honor of a great women who passed away in March of 2010.  Please read her story and if you feel compelled to donate we would be forever grateful to you for the support of Team Cindy and the two of us as Life is a Run!  Donations can be made here.

And to completely change subjects we’ll leave you with a music video of one of the songs currently on one of our running playlists! 🙂

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEdvXM45nIY&ob=av2e]

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