10 Reasons We Love to Run

February 14, 2012 by · 7 Comments

So we love all things #runchat which means we HAD to participate in their blog challenge to list 10 things we love about running keeping in mind if we were never going to run again.

1.  All the fun gear – shoes, jackets, socks you know….ALL of it! 🙂

2. FRUNNERS!!! [we stole this term from our Dallas area running friends] We have met so many people since we started blogging and our twitter account. We are SO thankful to them for the advice, support, encouragement, motivation and so much more!

(pictures courtesy of Mama C)

3.  Bling Bling!  Who doesn’t love being rewarded at the end of a race with shiny medal?  And who doesn’t love being reminded of the things they’ve accomplished by looking back at a shiny medal?

4.  Getting a break! Love being able to get out on the road and be free of the stresses and concerns of the day!  It’s so liberating to free your mind of all of that!

5.  Testing your limits and realizing you are a whole heck of a lot stronger than you even knew you were!

6.  That we each have a an awesome running buddy! 🙂

Running through Angels Stadium

7.  Those mornings when you don’t want to get out of bed and run because you just don’t feel like, and then you go anyways and the run is freakin’ fantastic!

8.  Feeling healthy on a daily basis because we are active and watch what we eat so that we can be better runs.

9. Travel to races!  While we have only left the great state of Texas once so far for a race we LOVED having that opportunity to travel to California and experience new things there as well as a new course.  At the end of this month our racing will take us to Florida, and we are looking into other states for our next marathon!  There are plenty of races in cities that we might not experience or we might just experience in a new way because we came there to run!

10.  Eating!  There are so many calories and so many food items we would have to cut back on if we just flat out stopped running.  We aren’t talking we run and then go eat the greasiest hamburger and largest order of fries ever, but there are a lot of foods we get to partake in because we are so active with running!

As a side note it was fun seeing our picture on the #runchat website this morning!

Did we leave out something that is key to your running?  Let us know – we want to hear what you love about running!

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Braving the Cold: Texas Style

February 13, 2012 by · 2 Comments

We woke up yesterday morning and it was 28 degrees in Dallas. Brrrr!! Just a week and a half ago we were both getting in a run separately in what seemed like spring time weather – 70ish degrees.  Texas you are so fickle with your weather! Then last night there were snow flurries in different parts of the metroplex – snow flurries!

Ever since we spent four plus hours out in the cold and rain running our first ever marathon neither one of us has been super excited about going out and running in the cold.  Have you noticed a lot of treadmill runs out of us lately?  Of course we did go run the New Year’s Double races in colder temperatures, but it was racing that got us out of bed for that one.  Getting out of bed and running by ourselves in the cold – no way, Jose!

Back to yesterday morning – We were lucky to be able to have breakfast with our friend Rebekah who tagged along with her husband on his work weekend. So we got to spend time with Rebekah and baby Eliza again!

At breakfast we both said “I am NOT running outside today. TOO COLD.” And then basically discussed how we would work our time in on the dreadmill. Yuck! We left there intending to do treadmill runs. I am pretty sure we both got home and said – “Seriously?? Buck up!” Apparently we both decided to brave the cold at the same time and both reached for our phones to text the other –

B: I think I might brave the cold for hills and then run later tonight at the gym.

T: Haha, I literally picked up the phone to tell you the same!  I’m going to try and get 8? Hope I don’t freeze

Teal headed out for her 8 mile run dressed for snow!

She continues to have serious issues with being cold. For Christmas her mom had bought her Under Armour water proof gloves which very much remind her of the infamous OJ Simpson gloves, but who cares? They are super thick! Slapped those on, found her ear covers and had two shirt layers on as well as a jacket. Mind you it’s now about 40 degrees outside but whatever!

Thank god we don’t live anywhere further north. Teal’s 8 miles went very well. Ran a pretty hilly course at a fairly slow pace and felt great. Her foot, in case you were curious is doing much better!  It still reminds her that it is hurt in runs but is making great progress. Along with the foot Teal thinks that her post-marathon cold trauma is fading!  Well maybe…

Here is a picture of the course Teal ran –

Beth had not done her hill workout for the week or her long run so she decided Sunday would be a double run day.  Seeing as it was in the low 40’s that meant she should dress like it was in the low 60’s, so she figured it would be a good time to take her new lululemon shorts for a spin to test them out for the Princess Half.  And for good measure threw on a hat to keep warm!

As of late when Beth does hills she tries to get a little mileage in, the hills, and then some additional mileage and that’s exactly how today went.  A little over a mile out, ran the hill 10 times, and not quite 2.5 miles to finish it up for a 5.17 mile run.

We did it! We ran outside again and might not be so terrified of the low temperatures anymore!  Call us wimps all you like….but we live in Texas and have for pretty much forever!  We don’t know truly cold weather.

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[Not Entirely a] Marathon Running Weekend Part 1

January 23, 2012 by · 5 Comments

Twitter Road Race:

You got to love the weather in Texas! On Friday it was a warm almost 80 degrees and Teal woke up on Saturday morning to a chilly 36 degrees. Teal headed out early on Saturday before work and completed her #TwitterRoadRace early. The first mile was terrible. Her lungs were burning like crazy the entire time. She was kind of worried about running with a lot of speed- stupid foot, but ended up finishing in 28:38. Fairly slow considering but overall not too bad. For Teal this is the first time she had even attempted to run outside since the New Year’s Double. Had it not been for the road race she would have never set foot outside because of the cold. Yep—so glad we don’t live up north and have to deal with the snow. It was so encouraging to know that others in the running community were out doing the same thing and based on twitter many dealt with way worse conditions. Once finished her ears were ringing and she basically wanted to go back to bed. Is that bad??

Beth has a relatively new standing “date” with her trainer on Saturday morning’s at 10:00 a.m. and with a jammed back day of stuff to do decided to have the morning to do what she wanted before that workout. After workout she was off to meet a new client/Bride to pick up her wedding invitation envelopes to address, then pick up her Too Cold to Hold race packet and try and make it back home to run before yoga.  Beth made a first attempt at the #TwitterRoadRace but stopped because realistically it was cutting too close to her next thing to do.  She ended up doing her 5k AFTER we did our trail run at NorthShore.

 

Results of the Road Race:

Teal –

Finished 185th out of 347 runners!

Beth –

For whatever reason her results didn’t get counted. Boo! 🙁  Beth ran her 5k in 26:38 and would have tied @RunfosRunner for 122nd place.

 

Northshore Trail Run:

We both met at Sunstone Yoga at 1:30 to fit in a quick yoga session before heading out to the trail.  Neither of us really knew where we were going and ended up getting lost like 5 times before actually making it out there. We have both lived in Dallas forever, if not our entire lives, but were completely backwards in terms of where we were supposed to turn. 🙂

 

We ended up making it the trail with a little over an hour to run. We showed up at the gate and the man was like “you guys are ambitious.” Whoops… We started out the trail walking a little bit just to see how it would do and picked up running about a .25 mile in. The trail was not crowded, perhaps because it was so late in the day. It was very nice and open, much different from Erwin Park. We didn’t have to dodge as many trees and limbs like before. Here are a few pics of our route.

We changed it up a little and talked the entire run, totally not normal for us! Mostly about wedding stuff and just the weekend coming up and managed to make 2 miles in about 30 minutes. It’s crazy how much slower we are when running trails. We started heading back and both of us were kind of paying attention to time but not that well and apparently our talking made it hard for us to remember where we came from. Just like our drive in we had to turn around a couple of times. The sun was really starting to set by this time and we had again taken the wrong route back. Apparently we were having major directional problems Saturday. As we were running back on the shore you could see the park ranger man in his truck waiting around by our car. We ran the last stretch and managed to get to the car literally 2 minutes before the 5:40 cut off. 4 miles on the trail was very nice! We really liked this trail and seriously want to run it again, next time with more time of course!

 

Getting out there late and running until right up to the park closing gave us some gorgeous views of Grapevine Lake when the sun was setting! Completely worth it!  We’ll have the 2nd half of this weekend up in the next couple days! 🙂

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Wordless Wednesday No. 5

September 14, 2011 by · 1 Comment

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First Trail Run

August 11, 2011 by · 5 Comments

Ok so we have thought about how to actually  start this post so everyone could see the fear we had about this, and we couldn’t think of anything so we think it would work the best to just let you see our text messages to each other which show how clueless and scared we actually were! We were basically trying to decide where we were going to do our long run last weekend and really hadn’t thought much about it except we knew we wanted to run in the morning- duh, its’ 9 million degrees here!  We have both recently joined the North Texas Runners and really wanted to see what they were doing. Beth had been active on twitter during the day and saw that they were going to do a trail run at Erwin Park… here are our initial thoughts –
 
Teal: It says trail? Does that mean grass and stuff?
Beth: Hahaha uh maybe?
Teal:  haha its says, plenty of climbing and alternatives to easy routes, 8.1 mile loop, There is a you tube video.
 LOL it looks CRAZY might be fun might die.
Beth: If you’re up for it. I’m up for it. Ill do whatever.
Teal: ok- I’ll meet you at your house.
It’s a true trail I’m scared
Beth: We don’t have to, Ill do whatever
Teal: Its fine I just haven’t done that since High school
Beth: I have no idea what to expect! Will we die?
Can we stay together I’m scared?
Teal: YES!!
Beth: Oh god
Teal: I know oh god for sure
 
So really this was a little taste of our anxiety- I would highly recommend NOT watching the youtube video. It’s crazy- well maybe not for veterans but for us newbies I was like, great. We are going to die! 
 
We actually never saw the North Texas Runners which was totally our fault, we were running late and we didn’t really know where we were going.  We decided to start where we parked, just the two of us- but don’t worry we seriously questioned staying on the street. We decided to buck it up and actually do it. We started out well. We ran the first 2.5ish miles fairly quickly with a lot of checking on each other and laughing.  Tree branches everywhere, roots- you know… grass and stuff! I am not sure that either one of us anticipated all the weaving and ducking and after about 30 minutes we were exhausted. We decided to walk and take some pics and run again. We started switching off run 10, walk 5.  This is hard for us to admit- we don’t like walking when we run, and I think get a little frustrated about it but this was nuts! We powered through and finished the 4.5ish mile loop in a little over an hour. We were tired, dirty and proud. This was something we had never done, never knew what to expect, and really could have chickened out at any time.
 
Trail running is seriously awesome and challenging. I think we both felt really good after the run and really felt like it was a great work out despite the walking we had to do. This is something we look forward to again as it is great training and just an all over humbling experience.
 
Here are some scenes from our run!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got a little dirty out there which I think is something we didn’t really think about, but it’s a good kind of dirty right?  And Beth went out on her first run using a camelpak which she was VERY glad to have!  In this Texas heat all the water you can comfortably carry is awesome in our opinion!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, we know 4.5 miles isn’t THAT far, but considering it was our very first trail run and it’s a different run than we were use to we were still proud.  We’d anticipated that run being our long run for last week and opted to wake up early Wednesday and put in some good miles together.  So yesterday we met at Beth’s house at 5:30 a.m. and got in just under 7.5 miles!  This coming weekend we are hoping to get in a run and finally meet some other members in North Texas Runners!

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Melon Dash

August 4, 2011 by · 5 Comments

Another race weekend is upon us! And it’s going to be another HOT one, but it is our shortest run in the summer heat which is probably good since it’s only gotten worse!

This Saturday we’ll be running the Melon Dash 5k put on by Run On! in downtown McKinney.  This race benefits the North Texas Cat Rescue, who are committed to the humane and compassionate treatment of cats.

 

Goals:

We both share the same goal of running this race and adding miles to weekly count.  I know this is a VERY exciting goal for the two of us. Ha.  But Sunday we’ll be doing a long run to keep up with our half marathon training which we are less than a month away from running!

 

Weather:

Wind: 6mph

High: 106*

Low: 79*

Precip: 10%

 

 

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