Texas Doesn’t Really Have Four Seasons Anyway!

October 8, 2012 by · 6 Comments

Happy Monday, friends!  Thank you to everyone who is bearing with us as we are in the last couple of weeks before THE wedding and trying to get everything accomplished!  Speaking of the wedding…this weekend we kicked off our Saturday with a wedding shower for Beth thrown by her mom’s close friends.

photo courtesy of Kate O. Lynch

We don’t actually have a picture of us there together. Sad day! But there were mimosas there – yum!

In our Taco Run recap Teal mentioned that she’d strained her groin muscle and the reality of that strain was the potential need to take an entire week off from running.  BUT race 3 out of 4 in our four season challenge was scheduled for this Sunday!?  We discussed how this was possibly sign #2 that we weren’t meant to do this challenge right now.  The day before the Hottest Half in August Teal had a calf injury due to some fun tubing on the lake.  We both said that no matter what training for our marathon was more important than running Tyler Rose and to worsen the muscle strain on Teal was not an option for us.  Turns out she was getting back to normal by the end of the week, so we could run Tyler Rose!

BUT that didn’t mean we ready to spend the four hours in the car for the round trip out to Tyler.  We might have been a little ambitious back in March when we thought doing a race 21 days before Beth’s wedding would be a good idea.  Well, not just a race, but a race where we would be getting up at 4:00 a.m., driving two hours to the race, running two-ish hours and then driving back to Dallas for two hours.

Beth’s sister, Kate, made the executive decision for us (because neither one of us wanted to actually make it) that we would stay put in Dallas. Thank you,Kate! So Sunday morning we met up for our first long run of marathon training – 13.1 miles. We’re coming for you Louisiana Marathon!

We had a cold front come through Friday night so the chilly weather was still there Sunday morning.  For the first time in a long time we went outside to 48 degree weather!  Of course you know it’s always hard to remember what exactly you want to wear in that type of weather, but we were both content with our choices and neither one of us got overly hot out on the run.  Details you really wanted to know about, right??

Teal’s fancy new garmin!

Of course at this stage in the game a half is something we have done a lot of, so we both felt good out there.  This weekend does mark a first for us – DNS.  We’ve run a lot of races and had yet to DNS, but we did and we don’t regret it. We needed to for our own sanity.  We will still race the 4th half in our four seasons challenge come February, but we won’t actually receive that four seasons medal. 🙁

 

A couple of the other benefits of us staying tight in Dallas instead of going to Tyler was Beth got to be on time to Birthday brunch for her dad, and we both had the opportunity to grocery shop and prepare for our 10 day cleanse.  That’s right – we are advocare cleansing again! 🙂  When we’ve done this in the past we have had quite a few questions about it which also includes Beth asking Teal eleventy billion questions each time, so we’ve decided to share more details of our cleanse throughout this week and maybe a little of next week with you too. 🙂  Hope at least one or two of you out there are interested in knowing more.

What was your first race DNS? Do you regret?

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PR’ing All Over September

October 2, 2012 by · 7 Comments

Talk about a dreary weekend in Dallas! Lots of raining on Saturday and it just continued Sunday morning.  The race started at 7 a.m. which had this been a hot day like it very well could have been considering it is Texas the early start time would have been awesome!  We arrived at 6 a.m. since registering late made us need to do race day packet pickup.  We got our bibs and our shirts and headed back to the car for a few minutes so Beth could finish her breakfast, put her shoes on and we could drop our race shirts off.  Then we found a covered building entrance riiight next to the start line to hangout under so we wouldn’t get wet from the mist while we waited for the race to start.

 

Teal: We had waited around the start line forever so we actually ended up starting with the “fast group” and this seriously made a difference in the way this race went.  I was very surprised at the pace after mile one and it actually didn’t feel bad at all. I have really been deciding lately how my race will go after mile 1 or 2. I just can’t tell anymore before I start running. By mile 3 we were right around 27 minutes which is fast for me, really fast for me.  My only complaint about miles 1-3 is that I don’t think they could have taken us through an uglier part of Dallas. We were basically running alley ways of only buildings in the crappier part of the design district.

Waiting for the race to start

Beth: We had seen the Luebs right after getting our bibs then found Brian at the start line, and 3 of us chatted about our running lately and what our paces might be for today’s race.  Brian mentioned wanted to run 9 minute miles and I thought Ohh, that sounds good I want to do that! I can do that right?! I just had in my mind the last time I ran a 10 mile race I held about a 9:30 pace, but that was in May meaning hotter weather.  So the race starts and all 3 of us take off. Brian kind of really took off and at the 5 minute mark my Runkeeper tells me we were already over halfway through the first mile and I swear it said we were running at about a 7:50 something pace. That freaked me out. Then I just thought 9 minute pace my ass Brian! 🙂 [Sorry Mom, I said ass, oops did it again]

Miles 3-6

Teal: My goal here was to make sure I stayed under an hour and to make sure I maintained a pace I was happier with. The first 3 were very fast and I was slightly scared I would die. I kept running how tired I was at the end of Tour des Fleurs in my head and worried about what 6-10 would be like. I slowed a little but not much and just kept counting in my head. I lost Beth around 4 but really kept her in my sight for the next mile-ish. I crossed the 10K mark just a tad faster than the 10K PR the week before and was super excited/scared. How long could I maintain this? I kept thinking, you have never run under a 2 hour half and you are on a pace that would let that happen. It was very a weird mix of emotions in terms of “you are going to die” to “just see what you can do and go.”

Beth: The middle of this race I don’t remember all that well.  Probably because I was mainly wondering if I was actually going to end up having a horrible race and slow completely down towards the end or be fine?  So I just kept going.

Miles 6-10

Teal: It was around the 6.5-7ish mark that I moved to running closer to the middle of the road. The race did an out and back and I knew I would start to see Brian or Beth or whoever else and they would give me motivation.  This part of the race seemed so long. The stretch between 5.5 and like 7.5 is up hill, it’s a mild incline, but you can feel it, and it just became annoying. I knew as soon as I saw them that the turnaround would be close and the downhill could begin. I saw Brian pass and then saw Beth not too far behind. I was very confused as to the time and how much was left and I yelled at Beth to pick it up. I for some reason thought we were pretty far off of her 10 mile PR.  (PS.. we completely were not at all, but in my head it was bad, which then confused me because my miles were so close to 9min) I have no clue why I couldn’t sort that out. It was around 7 that my butt muscles were super tight! Like I really just wanted to stop and stretch but I wasn’t about to stop. I just started pushing on my butt hoping it would loosen up. I am sure people around me were like “What the hell is she doing?” I knew that this was not as bad as the women I had passed at mile 7 with her entire butt hanging out. I mean EVERYTHING! It was nasty!

After hitting mile 9 I said to myself, just go. It’s just a mile, just go. I had kind of figured out at this point that I would finish between 1:30 and 1:32 and got really excited! I crossed the finish line and just wanted to die. I kicked it in the last .25 and it was painful. I crossed the finish line, saw Beth and Brian and really just wanted to die. My tail bone was killing me. It really kind of freaked me out.  Every step I took around the Runner’s Village, to the car, and in and out of the car where so painful. My leg was shooting pain and I wasn’t so much convinced my butt wasn’t about to split in half.

Beth: These last miles I do remember. Ha, I remember seeing the turn around for the 10K races and the guy at that turn around saying “10 milers your turn around is just a bit further” LIES! In my world more than 2 miles away is not “a bit further.”  Feel free to call me an idiot, but I actually didn’t realize we were running up a slow incline. Ha.  And I just kept wanting to be at the turnaround! I kept watching for Brian because I knew that would mean I was close and when I finally saw him I was excited! Then past the turn around for the rest of the race this guy was annoying the crap out of me! OK, I used more not nice words than that, but I don’t want to have to apologize to my mom again. 🙂  He was 100% messing with my mind.  I think he caught up to me then he’d slow down and I’d get a little ahead of him, he’d speed up to catch me again and then slow down again and so on and so forth. FOR TWO MILES.  When we finally got off the Katy Trail to finish out the last mile of the race I got ahead of him for a little while then he caught back up and I was just like whatever dude, and let him stay ahead of me. I knew I would be crossing the finish line with a new PR!  Turns out I took 5:14 off of my only other 10 mile race.  I also told that guy he was messing with my mind afterwards (again, not the words I used) 🙂 and he said no, no, you were pacing me. I wanted to make it in under 1:30.  I told him good job and patted him on the back. OK, fine I guess that’s ok that you messed with my mind so much then??

Pretty much when we finished the misting rain turned into, well, rain.  We headed over to the Runner’s Village and grabbed ourselves a small beer. We both wanted to try a taco from Velvet Taco, so we went straight there to wait in the long line for one of their tacos. DEE-LISH!  Then it started raining harder, we may or may not have had flashbacks to White Rock Marathon and promptly decided to get out of there.  A bummer for the whole try all the tacos and vote on them part of the day.

Just a little soaked from the rain 🙂

Teal: I went home and had the same pain, tried to just shake it off, stretch it to go away and nothing. I ended up not really even sleeping Sunday night and was in and out of tears thinking there was no way I could run a marathon and then proceeded to freak out about what I could say to Beth.

I made a dr’s appointment for first thing Monday when I got to work and had it looked at. It turns out I strained my groin muscle, not a full pull, but she said a deep strain. Apparently when you run faster (which I really haven’t done for that far EVER) your body uses that inner thigh so much more. Whoops??

So needless to say, I knew I was in pain and I wasn’t crazy, and I had just run an awesome race so I am still pumped. I am basically out for a week and have some PT, but I should be fine! Hopefully a week is all it will take! Fingers SUPER crossed!

 

Results:

Teal: 1:31:11, finished 14th in her age group

Beth: 1:27:02, finished 18th in her age group

Overall, we are pleased with how this race went, well, really we are pleased with the month of September it brought us some great PR’s.  It also just goes to show how hard work in those hot summer months really can pay off if you just keep on going and don’t give up on your training even if the hot weather has slowed it down.  These HOT Texas summers are making us tough runners!

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Wordless Wednesday No. 31

September 26, 2012 by · 3 Comments

 

 

 

(source)

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Tour des Fleurs 10K

September 19, 2012 by · 9 Comments

Well, as we said in our pre-race post this was Beth’s 5th time and Teal’s 3rd time to run TDF.  It’s just a fun race!  You park off site of the Dallas Arboretum (or we do because we don’t want to pay the ridiculous parking package to park on premise) and get shuttled there.  Once there you get to walk through the grounds a little bit to see some of the arboretum which is usually already full of pumpkins in preparation for Fall, however, this year some of the Chihuly exhibit is taking over so the pumpkins had to share their space.

Who is Dale Chihuly? He is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur. Have you ever been in the Bellagio in Vegas? Well then chances are you’ve seen the amazing glass ceiling Chihuly did in their lobby.  Here is an additional picture of one of his installations we took on Saturday.  There will be another one later on too. 🙂

And now we give you our races from each of our perspectives –

Teal: Friday was an insane day and I was home super late, then after my cake ball disaster I managed to get like 4 hours of sleep and I really as not feeling this race! As a matter of fact, I had really had it with life by 5:30 am Saturday. I was really just ready to go back to bed. I kept saying to myself, Thank GOD we did not sign up for the 20k, because I would have probably broken down and cried.   I was somewhat nervous because I wanted to run a good race because we had decided to really use this as our base time for marathon training. We are going to use the Run Less Run Faster theory and it is based around your 10k time. In my head I wondered, do I just run a good steady race or just race it for real?! I decided I would make that call within a mile. Our friend Veronica asked our pace before the race and I responded “Oh somewhere between 9 and 11 minutes.” Ha, I really had no clue and really have had no clue about pace lately anyway.

Veronice, Teal, Beth & Bitner

Beth: Before we started the race we were hanging out down by the stage where bands play and where we had told people we would be if they wanted to come say hi since we had to live right after the race.  We got see our fellow NTX Runner, Brian and finally meet @runreadrant a.k.a. Caron before they started their 20K race 30 minutes before us.  Brian had told us we were going to do our 10K in 55 minutes.  I’m not sure how Teal felt about that, but in my mind I was going, yah, right! Or could I pull that time out?? I have to run this smart! Oh gooooooddd!

Teal: We started the race and I really felt fine! I had committed to racing for sure by 3 miles.  All miles were well under 9 minutes so I knew it was going well. We all hung in with each other which was an awesome way to keep pace!

Beth: I always forget it can be kind of a cluster at the start of this race. I know, I know, what race isn’t? Well this path is even more narrow to start so it can be hard to get around some people.  I wasn’t really sure what this meant in terms of Teal and I staying together for the race, but before I knew it we were reunited on the course.  Even Friday night I’d been thinking about Brian’s comment to us about running it in 55 minutes since he mentioned that to us somewhere on the internet that day.  I didn’t want to start out too fast and not be able to make it the last few miles. So my thoughts started with – ok, if I run the first mile in 9:30 then start to speed up from there. Plus 8:30 is 18 minutes. Another 8:30 is 26:30…..At some point in the 3 miles Teal and I had joined up with Bitner and we were running together which was really fun!  I was kind of paying attention to my runkeeper but not totally and wouldn’t allow myself to think much about a PR until I got to the last couple of miles.

We are going to probably buy this pic so for now we don’t feel bad for putting it up here like this. Photo courtesy of Your Sporting Image

Teal: At around mile 4, I started to feel it and ran a tad bit slower. I moved back from Beth around here and had actually threw up a little bit, which is totally disgusting, but I was really kind of tired. I really didn’t know where I was in terms of race time and PRing but I just said, you need to pick it up, there are only 2 miles left! I increased my pace by about 20 seconds and just said, keep moving. Beth was out of my site by the 5 mile mark but I could still see Bitner. My goal was to keep him in sight. I ended up losing him in all the turns around 5.5.

Beth: All, I remember from the past 10K’s of TDF that we’ve run is there is one hill that I hate.  Well, I got to it, ran it and it didn’t feel so bad.  I thought we were all set from there and it would be flat from here on out. Uhh, wrong. There were some added little hills in there and not to mention concrete that was cracked, had crevices and holes.  I was kind of nervous about twisting an ankle or something. When we hit mile 4 I knew I had some more in me and I wanted to dig deep and get ‘er done. Early on I’d wanted to slow down some and save some reserve for later in the race, but since I was running with Teal and Bit I just kept going.  It was in mile 4 that I thought, yah, I am running this race and doing the work, but I’m not sure I’d have made it where I was then if it wasn’t for Teal and Bit’s pacing.

Teal: It was a little past this point that I was literally clipped in the elbow by a biker! (not bad but I felt her) I had to throw my arm up to make sure she didn’t hit the rest of me. I looked over and a spectator was shaking his head at her. I can’t believe how close she came. And yes maybe at that point my elbows were wide, but she was way too close!! Most of the time, if you are in a bikers way they tell you,  I had my headphones on but low enough to where I could hear around me because there were so many bikers out, I wanted to make sure it was fine.

Beth: During my last two miles I remember thinking in years past – when is this ever going to end??  I had a good laugh at myself as the amount of halfs I have run have dramatically increased even from last year.  When I ran TDF 2010 I ran it as a race in my training and TDF 2011 we did the 20K for training for our first marathon (plus some additional miles after the race).  This was the first time I’d really run TDF with all the long miles I’ve put in to running. Somewhere in the 5 mile range I was passing a fellow lady runner who turned to me and said “you got this!”  At that point I had no words and wanted to try and find her after the race to tell her thank you.

(source)

Teal: I crossed the finish line and knew it was a PR but I didn’t know by how much. I just had to keep walking because I was spent!  I was super happy because I needed  that after the rough night and really crappy races/running lately! I walked by the announcer and ended up talking to him because he was lecturing the bike riders on his microphone! I went over and told him what had happened and how close she had been to me at the end. I can’t believe how fast the Saturday bikers went by us. This was not the first time we have run around White Rock and had bikers be a tad crazy. We know, and we for sure believe that the road should be shared! It was just so crazy that they still wanted to speed past people on FOOT! That was really too close for comfort!

Beth: There wasn’t much left for my body to give at the end.  I was running with every ounce of my body working the last few miles.  My abs were working and it was here that I was thinking about how important a strong core can be for a runner.  My last few races where I have dug deep, or every time I run hills and every time I run bleachers my core strength has been working with me.  So don’t forget about working on that in your training too! When I crossed the finish line the clock said 55:and change, but based on my runkeeper I thought I had made it in 54:and change.  I didn’t get my runkeeper turned off right away so I would have to wait for the officially results to know exactly what I had done.

Isn’t this Chihuly installation cool??

Needless to say we  love TDF and look forward to running it again in the future! Oh and we totally wouldn’t mind if you guys brought the hat back at the end of the race 😉 Hint, hint, Race Director!!!  See the hat Bitner has on in the above picture? Yah, Beth has 3 of those and then bam! Last year they quit doing them. 🙁  We also should note that this race had some awesome food after too! Wish we could have stuck around longer to eat more of it! We did manage to snag a couple of breakfast tacos before we got shuttled back to our cars. We might need to fill out a survey to let them know what all we liked and what we’d like to see come back!

Results:

Teal: 55:43; 303rd person to finish and finished 26th out of 169 in her AG.

Beth: 54:31; 262nd person to finish and finished 15th out 139 in her AG.

 So we both took home PR’s that day! We have completed our first race in different Age Groups – crazy! Some more to come in the next 8 months.

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Tour des Fleurs Pre-Race Thoughts

September 14, 2012 by · 5 Comments

Like we mentioned in our latest goal post, we plan to race the hell out of this 10k! 🙂  It is our intention to follow the Run Less Run Faster marathon training plan this time around and we will use the Tour des Fleurs 10K to set our training paces.

This will be Teal’s 3rd time and Beth’s 5th time to run this race. We really like it, ok? Although, Race Director, we really liked it when you gave us hats at the end of the race and you disappointed last year when you quit that. Hint. Hint.Anyway, last year we took a break from the 10K distance and tried for the 20K as it fit in with some extra miles into our 2011 marathon training plan.  This year we are back for the 10K distance.  Our PRs for this distance currently stand at:

Teal: 56:41

Beth: 56:46

So we’ll see what we can do out there this weekend! Right now there is a 30% chance of rain for race day and looks like we’ll have temperatures in the mid to high 60s!  Have a great weekend!

Are you racing this weekend? Or what does your training schedule call for? We want to know!

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Ahhh, It’s August! July Report Card & Goals for This Month!

August 2, 2012 by · 6 Comments

We’ll skip the whole OMG-let’s freak out-it’s August thing.  Kinda anyway and dive right on in! Here’s how we measured up with our goals for the month of July –

Teal:

1. Read Power of Habit, work on the stupid ”I am just going to stand here and eat random crap while I look for something to eat” problem. 

C- : I am only about half way through this book but I think I get the point, he repeats a lot and gives very long winded examples. I have been so busy that my habit in and of itself has had a hard time existing because I have not been in the kitchen!

2. Get my office ready at my new job. My contract starts July 30th and I would like to be more than set before I start working. I can’t work if stuff is not organized and finished so this is a must. Right now it looks like a war zone and crap is all over the place.

 A: Off ice is ready and as of Monday I am officially back to work. So so so glad I got that done before we started because there would have been no time.
3. Run an avg of 25 miles a week.  This is close to the plan, not every week, but I am trying to still balance what my body decides it will do and my wanting to get faster and have more endurance.
F: I ran 48 miles total last month, so not even 2 weeks worth of what I wanted to do. This would totally make sense if you saw our running funk post.

Beth

1. Read This Is Why You’re Fat by Jackie Warner.

A+: LOVED IT!! Look for a post all about this book soon!

2. Keep up with My Fitness Pal and keep up with Daily Mile. 

C+: I definitely could have done WAY better than I did, BUT it is a far better improvement from where I was all of June!

 3. I have my own monthly challenge I started of doing dips and planks regularly, and have been keeping a record of it on a calendar I printed out.  Here’s to getting in 5 days of those at least each week!  I’ll show you my calendar at the end of the month!
F: Do I have to show you my calendar? 🙁 I started out fine and then it dwindle…..blah!  The calendar might as well be empty, but I am proud of my #powerplankchallenge I completed on Tuesday thanks to Mindy & Holly for hosting it! Planked once every hour for 8 hours!
As far as my trying to run hills weekly – yah, I think I did once last month. Fail!  And in addition to reading This Is Why You’re Fat I also read Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane which was a fun read since I’m wedding planning and the main character as a small back story is planning her’s as well.
***

And here is what we plan to accomplish in the month of August –

Teal:

My goals for August are basic because I know that this may be the busiest month I have had in a long long time, if ever. I just want to make it through work and stay running! So here you go!

1. Get through the first month of my new job without having any major breakdowns. I have found out over the last 3 days that this is going to be crazy- in a good way crazy but there is so much to learn and a lot at stake for mistakes.

2. Keep running at least 3 days outside. I don’t like the treadmill but it is about 100 even at 9 o’clock at night and the mornings range in the upper 80’s with the sun still down.

Beth:

My goals are also pretty basic too as the month of August scares me! No free weekends whatsoever and SO MUCH to accomplish!

1. Yoga once a week.  I’ve been trying to do this and haven’t but I think for my stress levels this month I REALLY need to add this one into my routine!

2. Mail ALL wedding invitations!

3. I’m going to be like Teal and say keep up with my running and get in 4 days of running each week!

Joint Goal:

Our marathon training for the Louisiana Marathon will be here in no time and in preparation for training and making a plan we both are going to take the time this month to read Run Less Run Faster. Just want to explore options and get a plan that fits both of us!

Here’s to getting it all accomplished this month!

What are your goals for the month of August?

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June Report Card & Our Goals for July

July 6, 2012 by · 4 Comments

Have you noticed a trend in us running behind this summer?? 🙁  Thanks for having patience and sticking around with us those that are!  Maybe it’s just a summer thing and come fall we will be back to our normal routines?? One can hope right? We continue to be freaked out by each and every new month that comes because well – time is flying people!

Teal:

1.  Clean out the garage which involves properly deposing of all old paint, chemicals, and random things you can’t through in the regular trash, donating anything that  should have donated a long time ago, if it belongs to my brother it’s going to his house, and then just generally cleaning. Why I pick June to work outside in the heat is beyond me but whatever!?

A+: this was so much easier than I thought. I just called the city, ordered the bag and left it on the front porch! The garage is cleaned out, despite an attack from 2 cockroaches, don’t worry the Orkin man has been out to fix that little problem too!

2.  So I graduated at the beginning of May!! Yay, but I have very annoying things that I have/need to do

  • Consolidate and move all my student loans to one place and get on a better plan to pay off faster. YUCK, YUCK, YUCK!
  • Register for the LPC exam and not cry when I pay the $300 to take it
  • Organize all the grad work that I did that I want, toss the old stuff, bind what I am keeping ( anyone have one of those spiral binding things?)
  • Organize, bind, toss, or give away my teaching stuff! I will be moving to counselor next year and have a billion teaching things to go through

B: Turns out I can wait until November to consolidate, so I will, can’t register for the LPC until October, paper are organized ( I used binders instead) and my teaching stuff is ready for my friend to have whenever I see her!!

3.  Follow my under 2 hour half marathon runkeeper running plan as close to possible! I will eventually run an under 2 hour half marathon if it kills me! Well not really, I want to live, but you get the point!

B-: I am not sure how to rank this, I have done most of the runs, I usually end up leaving one of the runs per week out because my body doesn’t do well with 3 relatively tough days in a row, by the third one my knee hates me and I would rather keep my body intact and not made at me than to run! However, I do feel stronger and better already so I’ll just keep working through July!

4.  Eliminate random eating. Raise your hand if you stand around trying to figure out something to eat and you find yourself eating crap in the process! ME!! This has to stop!! It’s not like am eating like crazy stuff, but it is mindless and when I finally figure out what to eat, I’m annoyed that I ate weird random things in the meantime!

F: I think I need to make a sign for the pantry and refrigerator. Not sure how to stop this habit. I bought a book – The Power of Habit… maybe just maybe that will help? Re-do in July!!


Beth:

1.  This time around my weight goal is simply: DON’T GAIN ANY!!! Ha, sounds simple right?  Well, this is my birth month and my parents are divorced so this usually means multiple celebrations with good food, good drinks and dessert.  So it’s a dangerous time of year for me. No weight gain in June!!

A++++++: I am still at the same weight! Wahoo! I survived all of the Birthday eating this month!

2. Yoga 2-3 times a week.  Ever since I finished my goal of completing 200 classes in a year I’ve been kind of a slacker, so let’s get back to yoga goals! It’s soooo good for me!

F: Yah, I didn’ t go at all. Fail, Beth, fail!

3.  Finish projects at Brent’s house.  I volunteered his house to host a friend dinner (like this one) towards the end of the month and I haven’t finished some art I started for the walls, since I’ll eventually move in there (you know when we are married) I had already left all of my racing medals, hook to hold them, awesome race bib board my SIL made me over there they just need to be hung up.

A: I finished my “home” picture I was making though I have a feeling the perfectionist in me will make me redo it at some point!

It says home in a bunch of different languages all of which are written on the canvas so I can always know.

I also got my medal hook and medals hung up – now what to do with the OTHER medals that are not on this hook??

I might kind of have a thing for the color blue….

I didn’t get my bib holder hung up because I decided that I wanted to change out the hooks that are currently on it to clips so that all different size bibs can hang for it, so that’s still a project! But I did get a shelf all spray painted and it sits below the medal hook in the office AND we got the guest bedroom cleaned up for now.  My purdy quilt Rebekah made me occupies the bed and I put up some other things around the room. I consider what I did at my future home a success this month!

4. Finish the two wedding projects I have ALL of the supplies for! :)

Looking back at this goal I am not exactly sure which ones I was talking about. HA!  But y’all I got A LOT of wedding schtuff done this month!  Some projects might not be finished but they are well on their way to being completed!  And there is one project for sure still sitting in the packaging, but it requires me sitting in the garage by myself for awhile to work on it which does not fully excite me hence the delay! 🙂  I am kind of afraid to show pictures of projects I am working on as I don’t want to give everything away on the internet and would like certain stuff to be seen for the first time at the wedding. 🙂

My reoccurring goals – Hills, well, I did 3 out of 4 weeks of hills in June and let me tell you that it is getting HOT in Texas!  As far as books go I am still on Target with my goal of reading 24 this year and read my 12th book this month, the recent release, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Could not put this book down!

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And on to July goals!! Here’s also to hoping that our July Report Card is up on the blog in the first few days of August!! Wheee! HA

Teal:

1. Read Power of Habit, work on the stupid ” I am just going to stand here and eat random crap while I look for something to eat” problem.

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2. Get my office ready at my new job. My contract starts July 30th and I would like to be more than set before I start working. I can’t work if stuff is not organized and finished so this is a must. Right now it looks like a war zone and crap is all over the place.
3. Run an avg of 25 miles a week.  This is close to the plan, not every week, but I am trying to still balance what my body decides it will do and my wanting to get faster and have more endurance.
I think 3 is enough for July as we have a late start and I will be out of my house for a little more than a week for training in Ft. Worth and Beth’s bacheorette party (wahoo!!) which makes just the balance of life harder! Here we go July!
Beth:
1. Read This Is Why You’re Fat by Jackie Warner.  I saw Dorothy talk about this book on her blog and immediately wanted to read it.  I’ve been a fan of Jackie Warner’s since she had that show on Bravo called Workout, so Jackie Warner book here I come!
2. Keep up with My Fitness Pal.  I don’t usually record what I eat on the weekends, and so this month I’m going to try hard to keep up with it during the week!  And this is a twofer – keep up with Daily Mile. I totally let that one go in June so keep up with my fitness apps in July!!
3. I have my own monthly challenge I started of doing dips and planks regularly, and have been keeping a record of it on a calendar I printed out.  Here’s to getting in 5 days of those at least each week!  I’ll show you my calendar at the end of the month!
Also, in other news…we LIED and we will reveal the winner of our Tone It Up Challenge Monday!! 🙂  Have a great rest of the month and hope you have some awesome things in store for it!
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Things We’ve Learned & Wished That We Knew Sooner

April 24, 2012 by · 13 Comments

As you may or may not know in 2010 was when we began our training to run our first half-marathon.  Both of us had run in high school and/or college, but never to the distance we would hit in our half marathon training.  The two of us and probably like a lot of people who train for their first half marathon followed Hal Higdon‘s guide.

 
Hal Higdon’s guides are great and perhaps there are some people out there who work their way through a number of his different plans.  We, however, did not and kind of decided to start looking through different plans (one of which was definitely Hal Hidgon’s) and piecing them together.  After all what works for one person might not work for another and it never hurts to try something to see if it works for you!

Throughout the not quite two years of us running together we’ve learned to appreciate aspects of our training, realized some things that needed to be added and why, so we shall share with you!

Weight Training

Both of us got personal trainers at a point where we each wanted to lose weight (You can read about Beth’s story here and Teal’s story here).  Boy are we thankful to Will & Johnny for helping us to get into shape, get healthy and teaching us a lot!  Weight training is very important as you need to build a base for yourself.  If you only rely on running to build your muscles then you are missing out!  Not every single race you might run will you actually feel yourself digging deep and using that core strength or pumping those arms hard to get to that finish line, but those are important parts of your body to work on strength so you have it when you need it.   With that said it’s important to find a balance with your weight training and make sure you are working every part of your body.  Build that strong foundation so you can be a stronger runner!  It was well into us running together that we realized we were at an advantage by already having trainers and having those weekly weights session.  We didn’t know where we would be in our running if we didn’t have them!

While yes, a trainer makes it so much easier to get your weights session in you don’t neeed to have one! Grab a friend that’s knowledgeable about weights and ask them to show you the ropes a few times or look into one of the many apps that’s how there and available to guide you through a workout!

If you would like more of an explanation of the benefits weight training please see this post from Runner’s World.

Tempo Runs

We just recently started to incorporate these into our workouts.  What were we waiting for with these??

What? There is lots to read out there about tempo runs and sometimes it doesn’t seem to be written in layman’s terms, or is that just us?  Part of why we probably did NOT do tempo runs for awhile was because we did not truly understand them.  A tempo run normally consists of running at an easy pace to start, let’s say we are doing a 4 mile tempo run, so you may run your first mile at an easy pace then for miles 2 and 3 you kick it into a higher gear. This higher gear is a hard pace yet if you were rate levels of hard you might have comfortably hard, hard, and extremely hard.  You want this higher gear to be at a comfortably hard pace so that you can sustain this level of intensity for the entirety of your two miles.  Once you hit mile 4 take your speed back down to where you were in mile 1 for a nice recovery mile.

Importance.  The idea behind a tempo run is to raise your lactate threshold. If you are at a point in your running where you are able to run the mileage you want in a long run but are ready to work on speed this is a workout you’ll want to add into your training schedule once a week to build speed and strength.  The one thing that really helped us in determining how to do a tempo run was by using the McMillan Running Calculator not only did it help with tempo runs but also discovering what type of speed we needed for all sorts of runs.

Hill Workouts

What? While yes there are races out there that you might register that are flat, flat, flat!  But that is simply not going to be the case for each and every race that you will ever run.  Those hills in your runs/races continue to help challenge us as runners.  The best workout we have found to make sure a hill does not defeat us in a race are hill repeats.  We’ll be honest they aren’t the most fun type of workout, but believe us when you finish a race with hills you’ll be thankful for the time you spent on hill repeats.  For us a hill repeat workout consists of:

1.  Doing your homework and find a hill that will work.  You might want a hill that is somewhere between .1 – .2 of a mile.
2.  Get a little bit of mileage in before your hill repeats, i.e. run from your house out to the hill
3. When you reach your hill if it’s your first time maybe try 4 or 5 runs up the hill and back down (but have a goal of working up to 10 hill repeats)
4. Get in that last bit of mileage back to your house
Importance.  We’ve recently heard a couple people say this and it is the absolute truth, “the difference between me continuing to run and the people walking up the hill in that race are these workouts.”  Even if you are not specifically training for a race that has hills in them, this workout is beneficial! It’ll build muscle that running on a flat path does not, help with your endurance and help you to get faster!  Throw this type of running workout into your weekly mix as well and you’ll feel a difference at your next race!

Tangents
Just for good measure we are throwing this one in this post.  And no we aren’t taking you back to geometry class either! 🙂 Or is it basic algebra?? Ha, math is hard, y’all! 🙂 There were plenty of times that we can remember one of us saying “ugh! My Runkeeper says I ran 6.43 in that 10k race!” and there were times when we’d finish our long runs together that we were asked “why did Teal run a further distance than you Beth?” TANGENTS! It’s about tangents!  We can honestly say we were taught this very valuable piece of information from reading katieRUNSthis’ blog!

The majority of races we have run together have a certified course so it has been measured and is exactly the distance the course claims it to be.  When a course is measured it is done so on tangents, so when there is a curved portion of your course the person who measured it did so on the tangents.  This is also why for instance when we go run our long runs or even if we run side by side during a race our mileage for that long run or race could be different because neither one of us is running the curves the exact same.  For the visual people out there, let us show you the tangents in visual form.

 

While you might have learned about tangents today know that at your next race you might do your best to run the tangents but still find that you have some extra mileage at the end, well, it’s hard to run the tangents EXACTLY.  As you have to be looking ahead and plotting out exactly how to run the next curve not to mention that there are other runners out there with you on the course that might keep you from running that straight line exactly.  All we can do is do our best!

We are no experts by any means! We read articles, blogs, etc. online in an effort to try and learn how we can improve our running.  We wanted to share some information that opened up our eyes, helped us to understand running more and that we think everyone should have the benefit of knowing!

If you already knew all of this, well, thanks for bearing with us today!  If you didn’t know all of this – are you going to be making some changes now to your weekly running?  Glad to know why there is extra mileage on those races you’ve run before?
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We’re Running in the Rain, Just Running in the Rain

April 17, 2012 by · 17 Comments

Should we get out of the car now? Or wait a few more minutes?

Well, Saturday afternoon the winds started picking up here in Dallas.  It never really rained in our neck of the woods that day and even when we went to bed that night it was still dry.  By the time we both woke up think the rain hadn’t fully started until it was time to actually drive down to Fair Park. But enough about that let’s just cut to the chase. Here’s how Big D Half went for each of us…

Miles 1-3

Teal: Ugh! Where is a water station when you need it? These first few miles were HOT! I think I had more sweat in these 3 miles then I did during any other stretch of the race. It was hot and humid and the air was seriously thick! I kept coughing because it honestly felt like something was stuck in my throat. I start looking to the sky and thinking where is the rain we’ve been hearing about and if it doesn’t rain I am going to be pissed because I decided to forego buying new shoes because I felt like that would be a dumb idea to run in new shoes in the rain and then feel like they were ruined after one time.

Beth: I didn’t really have a goal in mind for this race because I knew I needed to see how the weather would play out so my goal would be determined out on the course. Somewhere in mile 1 a man asked where the water stops were and I told him I had heard they were few and far between out here. In these miles I saw a man who is a regular with me in spin class and talks to me about my running. He asked me why I wasn’t further up and I told him I was trying! Ha. Teal and I had decided we needed to take advantage of each water stop since we wouldn’t know how the weather would be throughout the race. At the second water station we had to stop and wait for water to be poured in a cup for us.

Miles 4-6

Teal: Not bad but I was worried about being too hot as there was still no sign of rain and I was like, I’m not in the mood to deal with this heat and decided to slow down. Not based on total need just based on me really only going to do what makes me happy right now and that is not run fast in the heat. Happy also meant eating all my gummi bears, which I did! At this point, I was thinking, just do what you feel like, just be happy, and who really cares about the rest. At mile 6.5 the air started to cool and you could see darkening clouds! I kept crossing my fingers!

Beth: I forget when exactly now, but somewhere around 3 or 4 miles I’d seen the 2 hour pacer pass and thought welp, there goes that, but if it’s going to end up being hot this whole time I can live with that. Still have yet to get many runs in while it’s just been HOT outside. At some point running along White Rock Lake a breeze was coming through periodically so I started to feel good and knew I could pick up my game some but that there where still hills to conquer! Even though I had my Runkeeper app going I wasn’t fully aware of where I stood to finish this thing at the pace I was at, but I knew if I wanted it I could possibly bust out another sub two half. Just as we were leaving the lake we had pretty much switched over into a new climate. It was cool! I let out a woohoo!! And the people around me said yes! This feels good! This next part I mention only because it gave me a laugh out there but shortly after this I’m coming up on this muscular guy running without his shirt on and then I see him raise one arm, flex and admire his bicep. Ha! Then I passed him. Ha!

Miles 7-10

Teal: Sweet RELIEF!! The rain hit at 7 and I could not have been happier. Had the crazy humidity kept up it would have been a different story. Everyone around me literally started to cheer! Most people put their hands in the air and you could just tell we all wanted that rain. This excitement died shortly after, and honestly I got a little worried. I didn’t want to deal with lightening or anything and decided to speed it back up and just get off the course. It pretty much rained consistently during these miles!

Beth: After the rain hit in the beginning of mile 7 I knew a sub two half was mine that day I just had work to do to in this last half! The rain was completely exhilarating to me and from there on out I was running happy! I thanked as many police officers and volunteers as I could. I also high fived as many little kids as I could! I just felt awesome so I picked up the pace! Go time!

Miles 11-13.1

Teal: Not bad at all. Not too tired, didn’t feel great but didn’t feel bad. Just wanted dry clothes. I usually count when I run but instead of counting as pace keeping I just decided to repeat the phrase “ dry clothes, dry clothes” as motivation to get this over with! I saw Beth at 13 and she ran a few steps with me and then it was over!

Beth: To me some of this last half truly runs together because I was happy. I was constantly thinking you got this! Let’s get it done! It was also somewhere in here I spotted the 2 hour pace and eventually passed him! YES! Running through numbers in my head and somewhere in here I thought, wait a second, could I get a new PR today?! So I kept pushing. When mile 12 came I knew I’d put in a ton of work and my body could only take so much more pushing. I knew if I did PR it would be a close one and I thought if I don’t I don’t care. I’ve run a strong race and I am so proud of myself!  It was kind of nice that Teal and I happened to walk by the 13 mile marker that morning as we made our way to the start and knew just where the finish was.

Teal: Not my best run and not my worst run. I can honestly say I am excited for the break. I have not expected a PR or anything in a while for the simple fact that I have not been training at all. I have done a couple hill work outs and nothing over 2-3 miles randomly besides the hills. I am ready to have time to train, change things up and use the second half of the year to work getting faster and stronger. Continually just running races and using them as “training” is no bueno and does not make you faster! I’m healed now and ready to go. Can’t wait until August when I feel better about doing actual training work and regaining the confidence that I have worked on speed! The break is needed because I really have not felt that huge desire to push!

Beth:  I didn’t stop my Runkeeper app right away, but I’d gotten across the start fast and when I crossed the finish line I knew I was in the 1:57 range.  I missed my half PR by 34 seconds meaning 34 seconds faster and I would have hit my same exact PR so 35 seconds faster and I’d have a new PR barely.  But I didn’t care! I had a good race! Overall, I finished 22 in my age group and 326th in the race. The past few months I had put in a lot of hill work and with just the two short stadium workouts my trainer Johnny has had me do in the last two weeks I had that push in me during the race.  Yes, we are taking a few months off from running halfs and I’m excited to take this opportunity to get stronger!  I know that I’ll come back in the Fall making sure I conquer my overall goal of having mostly sub two half marathon races.

Once the race was over we wanted to try and see a few people who were running the marathon.  After the marathoners hit the mile 26 marker they had to keep running up this road that takes them along the gate of Fair Park and we stationed ourselves where they’d make their last turn into the park.  We cheered for a good two hours out there!  Ultimately we ended up missing the people we knew, but we managed to see Army Amy as she was closing out her marathon!  We still haven’t met you in real life, but it was good to see you out there! You were looking strong, lady!  So there you have it our Big D race recap and if you’d asked us 4 months ago after White Rock Marathon if we would ever be grateful to run in the rain again we both would have probably yelled NO!! But the rain made this race bearable!

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Wordless Wednesday No. 20

March 21, 2012 by · 13 Comments

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