Wounded Warrior 2014

Wounded Warrior 2014

October 9, 2014 by · Leave a Comment

Ok, so if you saw yesterday’s post you might be thinking, huh?! Well, we migrated over to our own self-hosted site quite awhile ago, but we still get so many inquires about Advocare over on our old site we thought we’d make it abundantly clear over there we are operating over HERE!

And now we shall take you back into time to four months ago! 🙂  Sorry for all life flashbacks, but we want to keep a record here of our races and what not so back to June when Beth was still pregnant……

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For the past three years I have run the Wounded Warrior 10K each June and really love this race even though usually it is super toasty outside.  We are talking about June in Texas here. But I didn’t want to miss out on running Wounded Warrior for my fourth year in a row although I’m pretty sure no one would have minded if I said I’m pregnant I’m out this year.

why yes I did take a pre race care selfie :D

why yes I did take a pre race care selfie 🙂

We actually had a WAY cooler summer this year so I was hoping for some great race day weather!  As it turns out it actually was raining that morning and the race was delayed due to lightning and so by the time we did all get out there to run it sure was humid.  I was going to take it easier out there and do lots of listening to my body.  About 1.5 miles in I had some round ligament pain and had to stop to walk.  Of course I had lots of people around me checking on me to make sure I was ok.  Such sweet people!

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Luckily, my friend, Cassie, out there let me tag-a-long with her on the course and we did a nice run/walk combo to get through the 10K.  I’m so glad that I did still commit to running this race.  The heat was my biggest fear about keeping up with running.  This is probably the least exciting race recap, but if you made it through this then THANKS!

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And I shall leave you with this picture because it’s funny! 🙂

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hashtag pregnant jokes

 

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Wounded Warrior

July 24, 2013 by · 5 Comments

Something crazy has been going on in Texas this summer and more specifically in Dallas as I can’t really speak for the rest of the state. 🙂  It’s called rain.

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I was in top 500 or something like that so I also got a hat with my registration and every year they give you a pair of socks in addition to your race shirt.

I woke up race morning and this race really isn’t that far from my house though I was running behind and my fellow NTX Runners who were also running Wounded Warrior had planned a meet up for a pre-race picture.  Just a few minutes behind I was making my way over to packet pickup and juust made it under the awning of the building when all of the water from the sky began to pour down. All of it. Luckily, I’d found some of my NTX people so I wasn’t just standing their by myself since Teal wasn’t able to run this race with me due to high school graduation where she works.  We got a couple updates from a human being that the race was delayed 15 minutes and then another 15 minutes as there was just a massive crowd gathered together trying to stay dry.

For this race they have two distances, a half and a 10K, and per usual I was sticking with the 10K which started after the half did.  It’s too darn hot to be doing a half in June, amiright?  Except for this rainy race day.  I also began tweeting with some other local runners who were hearing the delay was even longer than what I had heard.  Eventually I knew I had 5-10 minutes before my race was to begin so I made my way to the start line in the rain.  I’d already made the executive decision that I was not going to even begin to mess with my phone and Runkeeper for this race.  The life of my phone was more important than music and having exact info on my race.

It rained for half if not more of my race.  They actually had to do a detour on one part of the race that runs on the Campion Trail because it wasn’t just kind of flooded over it was REEEEALLY flooded over.  As in if I ran through that I think the water would have been up to my hips, but I’m also short if you have noticed from all the pictures where I stand next to Teal. 🙂

Throughout the race I didn’t really know how I was doing and was just excited every time I passed a mile marker.  With less than a mile to go I spotted some friends on the course, Lisa & Lucy (who I still had not meet IRL until that moment).  That was  nice little boost at the end.  And then the race was over.  I was drenched and had no clue how I did, but was excited to have my 10K bling! 🙂

 

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I absolutely love this race!  It’s for an awesome cause, it’s close to home and I get a medal for running a 10K!  I didn’t get to stick around too long after the race as some friends of Brent’s were in town and I need to get to brunch. Priorities, people!  But I did get to see quite a few people at the end which was very fun!

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Julie and me

 

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Jesse & me – love his shirt!

I was pleasantly surprised to find out later that day that my naked run at Wounded Warrior was only 15 seconds behind my 10K PR!  I finished in 54:46 which was 9th in my age group.  Not too shabby!

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Wounded Warrior 10K

June 11, 2012 by · 8 Comments

This weekend was another solo race weekend….well, kind of!  Teal was off at a friend’s wedding in the Dominican Republic and I was still here in Tejas! 🙂  I might have driven to the Wounded Warrior race alone, but managed to see some friends out there!  Before I could even get out of my car I saw my friends Ashley & Jason walk by.  Somehow I always miss them at races so I jumped out of my car as fast as I could to catch up with them.  I’d also planned on meeting up with a few other twitter ladies, but sadly we didn’t all see each other! :-/  We’ll have to work on that again for another race, Caron & Kyra!!  But it was SO good to meet Shannon as well as your mom and Cory!

Totally stole this picture from Shannon! 🙂

The half marathon started 15 minutes before the 10k, so we all parted ways.  I walked up to see the half marathoners take off and chatted with a mom and her daughter who were also doing the 10K.  Loved hearing about how her other daughter was running the half and she had gotten them into doing races.  They’d driven up from Katy (Houston area) to participate in the Wounded Warrior race.  The mom told me she would probably be the last person finished.  I quickly told her I doubted it and with her run walk method she had she would be ahead of others.  I was proud of her when I saw her on the back part of my race and there were plenty of people behind her.  I quickly gave her a high five and told her good job and to keep it up!

Anyways, back to the start of this race, I had run this same race last year and kind of knew what I was getting into.  I just kept thinking let’s get this done and over with before it’s reeeally hot out there.  Off we were!  Within the first half of a mile I realized they had made the course different this year which was nice because it created less direct sunlight as a lot of it was on the Campion Trail in Irving.  I ran without any sort of water on me, but grabbed some at each water stop.

Thanks to my Runkeeper app I knew I was coming up on the 3.1 mark and therefore the turnaround because I might have missed it.  I didn’t need to make this a longer race than it was suppose to be like I did Too Hot to Handle last year! Ha, but there was only a small sign that said turn around.  Not a human being there to reassure you that you do in fact need to turn around.  Turn around here? Or like this is my warning sign that it’s coming up??  A barefoot man in front of me yelled TURN AROUND and I then said this is really the turn around??  But I followed his lead and figured if I needed to I could just admit to all of you I accidentally cut my run short.  That is probably my one and only complaint about the race, but I think the Race Director does such a good job with this one that I can let it slide. 🙂

Once I turned around I kind of had a need to vomit feeling hanging around me for the last three miles.  I just wanted to be finished with the heat.  I drank water, dumped water on myself, took cold towels from the awesome volunteers and kept chugging along.  When I got off the Campion Trail I was in the home stretch for the finish line.  I kept telling myself to push but not so hard that you do in fact vomit.  Well, guess I did push too hard bc in the last .1 of a mile I had to pull over to the side and you know…vomit not once, not twice, but three times. Ha.  See I knew my pace had a potential for a new PR, so I was having an inner struggle of get that PR yet don’t kill yourself.

I didn’t get a PR yesterday and I’m completely OK with that.  I crossed the finished line running with 2 minutes and some change until the hour mark and I’m proud of that.  If you look at my results online I finished 10th in my age group and 170th overall and I’m proud of that!  If you look at the ladies who finished 8th and 9th in my age group even if I hadn’t have had to make my little stop before the finish line I wouldn’t have gotten there faster than them and would have still been 10th in my age group.

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Thanks to April who got to see my fun incident right before the finish for checking on me!  I got some water, powerade and pop ice in me and was feeling MUCH better!  I absolutely love that they provide pop ice at the end of this race!  Love it so much I ate three of them!

After that I hung around to see if I might see anyone else that I know plus I knew Ashley was around somewhere with their cute dog, Atlas, since she’s sidelined from running right now. 🙁  Hoping your recovery time heals you up all the way, lady!  Overall, it was fun just sitting and watching people finish and the soliders that were out there.  Love this race! It is for such a good cause that even though it’s freakin’ hot in Texas in June it still draws a crowd!  This was the Wounded Warrior Half Marathon & 10K’s third year and drew in over 3,000 runners and doubled their fundraising this year from last to over $50,000 raised for the Semper Fi fund.

I ran into Jason, Ashley & Atlas again after Jason completed his half.  Congrats to you on a new PR and completing a half in that heat!  So impressed with everyone that goes out there and runs the half in that toasty weather!

If you are in the Dallas area you should really consider adding this race to your schedule for next year!  Like I said it’s for a great cause, but it is also a race that is put on really well!

Do you have a race that you go back to every year that despite everything else the cause gets you signed up again and again?

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Wordless Wednesday No. 14

December 28, 2011 by · 9 Comments

Our 2011 Race Medals!

 

Our favorite medals for 2011!

Oops…we are putting words in this post!!!…..We each picked our favorite medal for 2011 as you can see above. Teal picked the medal from our Disneyland Half in September because it was her fastest half and most memorable run in terms of the crowd and scenes.  Beth actually had a hard time choosing between three (Disney – SO memorable like Teal said and Rock ‘n’ Roll SA – went sub 2 hours on a half again!) but ultimately picked the Dallas White Rock Marathon medal!  What you probably can’t really tell is Teal has one more medal than Beth – remember back in September at the Heroes for Children 5k where she hit a major PR AND won her age group?  Yah, she’s got a medal to prove that!

Top left to bottom left: Rock 'n' Roll Dallas, Wounded Warrior, White Rock Centennial Half Marathon and Disneyland Half

 

DRC Half, White Rock Marathon and Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio

 

These are our 2011 medals!  All of these medals represent our original goal for this year, BUT we still have half of a medal to earn December 31, 2011 and complete the other half on January 1, 2012 at New Year’s Double!

Do you have a medal you are most proud of this year?

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June’s Race

June 13, 2011 by · 4 Comments

Well we survived!! The person who decided to start the race at 7:15 was genius, any later and we really might not have made our goal of not dying and finishing. This being our first “hot” weather race, we were very nervous. Neither of us does well in the heat, as we are sure many runners feel the same way, although our friend Chris will tell you he enjoys it, we think he’s nuts.


We both rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn (both a blessing and a curse) as I said, any later of a start and we might not have made it, but as the busy people we are, less sleep is always a negative! We arrived at the race about 30 minutes early and met up with Tracy, Michael, Ashley and Chris. Chris pulled a hamstring earlier in the week and was unable to run, but he raised money for the cause and just loves to cheer us on, so he came! We didn’t see our friend Joe before, but we were able to catch up with him at the end. He ran the ½ like a pro!
The race started promptly at 7:15 (good job, race organizers!) It started at Williams Square, which is a really cool part of downtown Las Colinas, and ran through the Campion Trail area. The course was well laid out and the website even states that it is essentially “hill-less”! Huge plus! We were even able to run a part of the race in shade, as part of the trail ran through a tree-lined area. As previously stated we didn’t know how fast we would run, but we both came in the first mile at a little over an 8 minute pace! Not bad!  The goal really was steady and finish. We had no idea how the heat would get or how we would do having been inconsistent for the month. Around mile 3, we were both together and pretty much stayed the way through the race! For the first time in a while, both of us ran most of the race close together. We discussed afterwards how kind of weird it is. Both of us actually think it’s weird how the other can keep going based on what we sound like running.  If you ever listen to another runner’s breathing it is actually crazy! We all sound weird.  I always think Beth is dying and she thinks I am. Very funny, but somehow we both make it each time.
It really did heat up outside toward the end and the last miles was rather torturous. None of it was in the shade and it’s now full-sun in Texas. We both crossed the finish line seconds apart! Upon finishing, the Junior Military kids handed us our medal and a sweet ending treat, POPSICLES!  Beth ran straight to the restroom and Teal went straight for the shade! We both sat for a while to cool off and ate our popsicles. Two to be exact! This was the first time we received popsicles at the end and they were A-mazing! As well as the cold paper towel handed to us!

The Junior Military passing out the medals


We both hung around after the race to wait for Joe to come in and to cheer on the other runners. Joe ran an excellent half and impressed us all. Teal’s friend Chris was unable to make it- he was supporting the youth at his church and had to leave earlier than expected. Being the trooper he is, he still ran is 13.1 miles that morning on his own! Great job! Because the race had a military cause, many service men and women ran the race. Some of them were even in their full gear -seriously impressive stuff. We watched one troop come in wearing full gear and his backpack on having run the ½! Another marine carried the flag above his head as he finished the last stretch. They really have great strength and energy!  I was whining about my shorts and a tank top being too hot for the day, and I only ran 6 miles. Many carried flags and military gear and it really was an awesome thing to see. It’s safe to say we will do this one again. It was only the second year of this race and overall the organization was great and the turnout was awesome! Great event for an awesome cause!

Results


Beth: Finished the 10k in 56:46, 6th in age group and 87th overall
Teal: Finished the 5k in 56:41, 5th in age group and 86th overall

So proud of how we did!

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