Races Archives - Page 3 of 7

Sugar Land Half

June 3, 2013 by Life is a Run · 5 Comments

It’s been three months today since we ran this half. Ha! Talk about being behind BIG time! The only reason we even found out about this race was because of our fellow NTX Runner, Brian, who’d notified the internets that – Hey! This half is only $25 for a limited time! Get your registration on! We are pretty sure those were his exact words.

We figured $25?! In Houston and it’s over six months away we got time to figure this out! One of us (take your guess who) immediately began to peer pressure Beth’s cousin Chase into also registering. Upon the completion of his registration we then called dibs on the couch and floor space in his apartment so that we might have a place to stay that weekend. Thanks again for that, Chase!

Honestly, the Friday night portion of this weekend has been blocked out in the past three months. Saturday morning we got up to go to packet pickup and then secure some warm clothes to wear pre-race and ditch once the race started. One of us had the brilliant idea of getting robes! Turns out this was genius as they cover an even greater portion of your body with just one piece and with just a strap keeping it closed super easy to ditch while running.

Pretty much the rest of Saturday was spent doing really random things or eating. We hit up the near by Bed Bath & Beyond for some shopping. We met Brian, his wife and sweet daughter for dinner. We in detail reviewed the hand drawn course map and longest list of course rules any of us had ever seen! We were pleased to discover there was a loop set up that each runner would cover twice and make up the majority of the course, so we would all be able to see each other!

pre-race car photo op

LiAR and Brian

Neither one of us had been keeping up with our running very much after Louisiana Marathon, so the main goal for the day was to finish! One of Beth & Brent’s friends, Taylor, who is from the Houston area who also got in on the sweet $25 registration price and was out there for the race. We found him before the start and got to catch up before we went out to face the cold.

Taylor & Beth

Ultimately, we accomplished our only goal for the day – survive! Teal & Chase ran the whole half together, but like we said all early we ended up getting to see each other out on the course several times even speedy Brian. One of Teal’s favorite volunteers was a high school kid out on the loop standing by one of the mile markers and see since it was the loop portion of the course sometimes you’d see a mile marker that you weren’t really at yet because you’d only just begun loop 1, so this kid used a sheet of notebook paper to cover up the 7 on the mile marker sign since it was also mile 3.5ish. In place of the number 7 was in the kid’s handwriting “3.5ish”. So funny and so sweet to look out for the runners and not discourage them early on in the race!

Another successful half marathon completed for LiAR, and put us at half marathon no. 17!!

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: course map, Half Marathon, Louisiana Marathon, NTX Runners, races, running, Sugarland Half

The Texas Half

March 25, 2013 by Life is a Run · 5 Comments

So once upon a time we signed up for the four seasons challenge and we kicked that off by running the Big D Half in April of last year, then slowly completed the Hottest Half in August and then we decided to skip the Tyler Rose Half in October since wedding stuff with Beth was wrapping up and we were busy! Well, that’s only three halfs and that last sentence says FOUR seasons challenge. The last race happened to be just two weeks after completely The Louisiana Marathon.

Which worked out perfectly because we were sad that the Louisiana Marathon meant that we would no longer have a matching number of halfs that we have run. Yes, we are nerds like that, but you are reading this so you apparently still like us despite that. Teal being the awesome friend and running buddy that she is still wanted to come and be there for the race.

Since so much time has gone by I don’t have a play by play of this to that mile for you (you’re welcome for that). It was a chilly morning and the race was small enough that I was able to sit in the car with Teal for awhile to keep warm. But when I did make my way to the start line I found a fellow DFW frunner, Caron! We both love getting to see her at races and talk with her!

I had time for a quick potty break and then headed back to the start line to wait for about five minutes. Then we were off and almost immediately ditched my zip up hoodie I had been wearing to stay warm which I found in the same place I ditched it after the race. Yay, small races! The first 3 miles were an out and back so that you hit the 3 mile mark right when you were running by the starting line again. It was fun getting to see the leaders of the race early on and admire them for their speediness! I also hadn’t really run in this area particular area of Irving so I was checking it all out, and trying to decide if I was running too fast or at a pace I could maintain throughout.

Like I said it was a small race so at right around the halfway point I saw Teal! My Runkeeper was at one point ahead on mileage and then got behind. Around here a fellow racer asked me where I was mileage-wise and I think I said around mile 6 and then 30 seconds later there’s the 7 mile marker! Ok, it might not have really been a full mile off, but when I saw the 7 that’s what it felt like. Ha

During this race I got to run by my husband’s office building though no one was in there…..it was still fun because it made me think of him. In the last half of the race some of the miles were done on the Campion Trail which is where Teal and I did a couple of training runs while we were getting ourselves ready for Louisiana Marathon. It was here I saw a fellow Private Training Zone member who asked me, “What are you doing?!” “Running a race!” Haha. Always great seeing a familiar face!

The last two things that stand out to me about this race was as I was making my way over the bridge back towards the Irving Convention Center to the finish line the course here had blocked off one lane for runners so that cars had two lanes to themselves. This suburban was heading in the direction towards me and another car pulled up beside the suburban, rolled the window down and yelled “WHY ARE YOU DRIVING SO SLOW?!” Pretty sure I immediately rolled my eyes. Can we all just take a minute to shake our heads at the yeller?

……

Thanks for sharing in that moment with me! I also applaud the slow suburban driver as they were simply being a cautious driver! As I got myself over the bridge and under the highway I saw Teal again! Teeeeeeeal!! She was telling me, Push! And you got this! But I didn’t feel like I had that much give left. Maybe that’s due to my lack of running between Louisiana and this race? Ha, but what I had I left out on the rest of the course. Then there was the finish line! Not only did a bring home a shiny medal from my 16th half marathon, but I also brought home a shiny new PR at 1:55:02! I finished 13th overall in my age group. So crazy that my half marathon PR stood at 1:56:39 since I ran my very first one in December of 2010 then December of 2012 I beat it at Dallas Marathon and come back to beat that in February 2013. Running can be a crazy thing!

Tied at 16th again!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: Campion Trail, Half Marathon, halfs, Private Training Zone, races, runkeeper, running, Texas Half

The Louisiana Marathon

February 6, 2013 by Life is a Run · 14 Comments

We know you have all been eagerly anticipating our recap of the Louisiana Marathon. Not! But without further ado we give our Louisiana Marathon experience…

the logo on the Capitol Building

Mile 1-3:

Teal: I was really not nervous about this race at all. I knew exactly what I was going to run and how to do it. Beth and I had talked a little bit about White Rock and how much adrenaline we had at the beginning and we definitely went out too fast. I figured since I was there and generally run around a 9:30ish pace that I would focus on that and Beth would stay with me to not go out too fast. That is pretty much exactly what we did. We hung within 10 seconds of this for the majority of our miles together. I just kept a constant watch on my Garmin, which really helps pass time, in case you are looking for ways to do that. I did get a little nervous because at about half a mile in the women next to us took a huge spill and actually slid down the road. It was nuts, she got up fast and kept running but it was huge. I know I am a huge weenie because I might have cried and stopped. Props to her! I looked down at the road at this point and saw just how bad it was. Large holes and rivets everywhere. I made sure to keep an eye out from here on.

Beth: The main thing I remember in these first few miles was starting my runkeeper and no music starting. Then when I did get music started it was SO LOUD. So lots of messing with that then putting my phone in my flipbelt and then thinking about all the energy I just wasted doing all of that. Then there was the lady who fell and all I could do was cringe inside as I saw her body kind of slide on the concrete. From there on out I understood why occasionally other runners were pointing at the ground when there were rough areas of the road.

Mile 4-6:

Teal: This part takes you closer to the LSU campus which was probably the nicest part of the race. We kept a steady pace here and really not much else could be said for me. I really thought that we would see these trees in the pictures for the race that look like that have legs, but we didn’t. Boooo on that!

Beth: At some point early on I thought that a good game plan would be take this one 5k at a time. Then I turned my thoughts to when will we see our husbands? I hope Teal likes the sign! Just gotta make it another 5K to 6.2. You got this!

Mile 7-9:

Teal: We saw the boys right around here, I believe at Mile 7 and I got to see the sign Beth made me. She threw in my love of Mark Salling and it gave me a good burst of energy in this part. Mile 7 is a really good place for me to need people because it is about here that I get a little bored and the feeling of being tired usually sets in for me around here. Example – at Dallas Marathon this year I actually stopped and stood. Something over an hour for me is a mental block. Also my feet are burning here. The stupid roads were harder or something. Yep, harder roads is totally possible in my runner mind!

Beth: Husband! YAH! I’m sure he appreciated me throwing my GU trash at him. It was in these miles that we were running a curvy path which kind of annoyed me because I was having a hard time seeing ahead to attempt to run the tangents. As mile 9 was approaching I was starting to get sad that my time with Teal was almost over. I think it was also somewhere at the end of this section we saw a man near a water stop telling everyone, “the finish is just up ahead over the hill!” He was holding a sign that said “Course Liar,” I think we both got a good laugh out of that. Plus I saw the “liar” part and read it as LiAR since we are LiAR!! Haha

Mile 10-13.1:

Teal: At nine I knew I only had about a mile and a half left with Beth and I actually started to get kind of anxious for her. Right about 10 she said, “ok, if I am going to pretend like I started my race now, I can do 16.” In my mind I was like OH Lord, that is still a lot of miles. I was super excited about my 3 left. No worries! At 10.5 we saw our mark to split. I just grabbed Beth’s hand and just said “you got this” and we split. I stopped here to take a picture of her leaving and to tweet about the split. I figured that would have been the first update anyone got from us about where we were and there really wasn’t any tracking so I went with that! I am glad I stopped because that pain that was in my feet stopped with just that minute or so stop and the rest was pretty much a breeze. Well except for the fact that the last 2ish miles of this race are probably the hardest. There is a huge hill up the bridge and then the road in to finish is definitely rolling. I kept thinking, this will suck big time for the marathon people. You remember that lady I told you about at .5 into the race? I actually crossed the finish line with her. I stopped her and told her how crazy I thought her fall was, and yep she was COVERED in blood. It had dripped down her leg and was a mixture of wet and dry. It was gross (aren’t you glad I told you that). I was impressed and love runners for that!

Beth: With the half and marathon split just .5 into this section I was sad, but I had made it through 15k and on my way to a 20k! When Teal grabbed my hand I just wanted to yell “Noooooooooo!!!” I got a little choked up, but managed to start breathing normally again and not hyperventilate and cry all at the same time. That would have been some uuuuugly crying fo sure. I could see the 4:10 pacer ahead of me and I pressed on! Made it through the 20k…keep on truckin’! Wonder if Teal’s done now? Did she see my other sign? Hope she liked it! Wonder when I’ll see them again?

Teal: The guys meet me at the finish line and we literally b-lined it out of there. We had planned to get over to about 16-17 to see Beth. When we got there I knew she was still doing fine because we had come up on the 4:20 pacer and she was still a head of it. I hoped that she saw my sign at 17 since we missed her and we just hung around and cheered. I think I would have been so bored.

LOVE these mile markers!

Mile 13.2-16

Beth: Here, I didn’t let myself think halfway done because let’s be honest the hard stuff hasn’t even started yet! And in this stretch of the race I was able to do a better job of running the tangents which is also a fun game of keep your mind occupied. A dude passed me with a Dallas Marathon shirt on under his marathon maniac tank. I made some comment to him about the weather being nicer for this marathon, talked to him for a minute and eventually wished him well and told him I didn’t want to slow him down any longer. But that was fun to see as well as all of the Dallas Running Club shirts on the course. Coming into this race I had a rough game plan of taking fuel every 5 miles, which is not actually something I’ve ever done in training or any other race. Normally I just go by feel, but I definitely get bursts of energy throughout races and was hoping that plan would just keep me on the burst the majority of the time. Well, pretty early on I knew this plan wasn’t going to work, but what sucked was I was HONGRY before I even hit 10 miles. I burped at some point around then and realized I could not feed myself much more GU or I might vomit.

Miles 17-20

Beth: This was where I saw my sign! I had still been wondering when I would see Teal and the guys again and she had mentioned where the boys were to put a sign she had made, so I was on the lookout for all those things. Then I saw it –

and I proceeded to tear up and have to not hyperventilate again. Just what I needed! I loved it! Right after the sign was a spectator heavy area and I heard lots of “still smiling! Great job!” And I just thought yep, because I just saw my sign from Teal! Just up ahead was the 20 mile marker for coming back and I was excited to see a little girl with a container on one side of the road and who I assumed to be her dad on the other side of the road with a container full of sliced oranges. Food! I took one and was so excited that there would be another one waiting for me at mile 20. The majority of this stretch was lonely. There were times I’d look ahead and I was pretty much alone on a random street in a neighborhood. I’d also at this point lost sight of the 4:10 pacer. But I did find another person passing out orange slices, took one and I got a five from this like two year old boy who was out cheering with his mom and siblings. As I grabbed my orange slice at mile 20 I started to think, I really need to see my peeps. I don’t want to see my peeps! I wanted to see them for the motivation and energy, but I didn’t want to see them because I’d started to get hot, my hips were starting to ache and I just wanted to be done. I saw them! Loved the cheers! Threw my arm sleeves at Brent and kept going. Then I stopped. Ahhh! I was wearing my I Run This Body shirt from Mile Posts so I kept saying to myself, your shirt doesn’t say I Walk This Body! Let’s goooo! I let my mind get to me.

Teal: That last part of the race is out and back and there are not many cheerers. We hung around and as soon as we saw Beth at 20, I knew it would be a good idea to see her one more time at finish. We booked it to 24 and got one more chance to see her. She was still kicking ass and still a head of the 4:20 pacer! The boys and I booked it again back to the finish. I was so nervous for her and kept watching the clock. 4:11 was the time on the clock at that point and I am pretty sure at this point I texted her one more cheer because I figured there was no way she didn’t have it!

Miles 21-26.2:

Beth: Struggle city. I don’t walk in races! I can’t do the run/walk thing! I’ve run a complete marathon without walking why am I walking? I text messaged Teal and told her I’d been walking. I saw them again at 24, ugh, and I was walking! After the last seeing of my peeps I told myself, just run this! It doesn’t have to be fast just get it done. I was dreading the end with still an overpass incline and the rolling hills. When I was at the rolling hills part a man behind me said “THIS is the worst hill of the race!” True story, mister! But I ran it then all of a sudden bam! Done! And somehow I managed to look like this in my finisher photo –

In all honesty, I am disappointed in my performance somewhat at this race, but then I think, my training really did have quite a few hiccups in it so maybe I should be really impressed considering? It is a PR which was probably my C goal for this race. I just don’t walk in races (and every time I say that I feel the need to reaffirm that I’m not dissing you if you do, I just personally don’t do well with the run/walk combo). Ultimately though I did run a marathon and completed it. It got hard, but I didn’t just all out give up. This also just reaffirmed to me that I’m not done with the marathon distance – we shall meet again!

Final thoughts:

Teal: I am pretty impressed by this race. And I am sorry if this offends anyone but Baton Rouge is not a pretty city. The race literally took you through the best parts of the city and showcased the good. Thank you for that! The organization was awesome and everyone was so friendly. The art design was amazing and Beth and I used every chance we had to snag pictures of what they had done. I seriously think of all the races we have done this has my favorite design! I do not regret for one second not running the full. I know I enjoyed cheering on Beth more than I would have enjoyed running it and even the accomplishment of running it, cheering her on was my purpose for that last part and I think that made it all fitting. I ran a pretty decent race for myself and was proud of that. Also, I am so in love with this race’s design, if you have seen my foot you know I have a think for feet with trees on them!

Beth: My running partner is better than your running partner!! Haha, ok, not entirely, but so much YES at the same time. Or maybe what I really mean by that is I am 100% lucky to have a friend first and running partner second in Teal. I know she’s proud of me for completing this race even when I’m not 100% proud of it, but at the same time I’m proud of her for being brave, for being vunerable with y’all about not running the marathon, for putting out there the why for everyone to read when I don’t think a lot of people would and for that being a strong runner who takes care of herself! It’s moments like these where I see why our local frunners wondered if we were not just running partners but partners in real life. HAHA Yes, to everything Teal said above. The Louisiana Marathon is a great example of a local race doing things right!

If you are still reading this then thank you! Thanks for sticking through this long post with us and we promise the next post will be WAY LESS wordy!

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: 5k, Dallas Marathon, Dallas Running Club, GU, Half Marathon, health, healthy-living, Louisiana Marathon, LSU, Marathon, marathon signs, pace, races, runkeeper, running

Happy Half-a-versary to LiAR

December 11, 2012 by Life is a Run · 12 Comments

Let’s just start by saying good Lord this was an early and long morning. Ok, fine, we’ve gotten up earlier for Disney races, but still. Everything said you should NOT be in downtown Dallas later than 6 a.m. Fiiine, cue alarm clocks going off in the 4 o’clock hour. Beth picked up Teal at 5 a.m. and we were in a parking spot by 5:30 a.m. So there we were with 2.5 hours to kill before the start of the race. Our early arrival insured us an awesome parking spot and first use of port-a-potties!

The corrals and port-a-potties all to ourselves!

It’s normal to be this excited about a port-a-potty, right?!

Thankfully we realized the Luebs were down there just as early as us. More people to entertain ourselves! Then of course it was time to head to our corral where we found even more frunners to hang with before the official start.

LiAR before the race!

Frunners in Corral A!! Photo courtesy of Heidi

Teal: I, for the first time in a while, prepared for this race in terms of, eating right the few days before, getting enough sleep before, laid out my clothes, painted my finger nails, downloaded a new playlist…etc. I reallllly wanted this race to go well. I said I didn’t need to PR and I still say that, but I did want it to feel good. You know like, those runs that almost feel effortless. I haven’t had a single one since the marathon. I wanted one just as a boost of confidence. NOPE. Fail, giant zero. This didn’t feel good. It felt like work, and I did work.

I really had debated this week’s training runs. We were scheduled for 10 at Marathon pace on Thursday. I decided to still do the run, thinking more long term to the marathon, and decided to run it a day earlier, and then rest my legs until Sunday. I figured it would be ok, but I didn’t know. Running a half marathon with 28 miles on your legs that week was probably not the best idea. I really didn’t think much of it, apparently I have more faith in my legs than they have in themselves, I thought they would recover. I don’t think they did.

Beth: So it was kind of important to me to do all that I could to make a potential PR happen at this race. This means I skipped my 10 mile run at marathon pace on Thursday. A big oops there since it goes against one of my December goals. Brent and I actually had two Birthday parties we wanted to go to the night before which had me eating a sushi dinner – not my norm, but at this point with food I don’t really have tons of issues. *knock on wood* Something I don’t take for granted, trust me! When I didn’t get full from sushi I ate goldfish on the way to the next Birthday party. I made Brent take the bag of goldfish away so I wouldn’t eat them all, but I was still hungry. Which resulted in me stealing part of someone’s spinach quesadilla. Haha. Not my typical night before a race! Oh and not to mention we hit traffic going home, so I definitely got to bed later than I had anticipated.

Miles 1-4

Teal: These actually felt good, my pace was good, I felt like I could keep it, my legs didn’t feel bad. It was super super humid 90% and even on some accounts I saw 100% humidity and close to 70 degrees. And huge eye roll to those who say perfect running conditions. Nope. They are not; try 50 degrees, no humidity. I’ll take that. I was drenched by mile 4 and my hair was sticking to me. LOVED running over Large Marge (also known as the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge). Love that bridge and it’s a great addition to Dallas. Brian L. was at 4 to cheer us on with Mama C, Fiona and Dat! Boost of energy!!

photo courtesy of Mama C which means she’s not in it Dat, Fiona & Brian L.

photo courtesy of Mama C

Beth: Back to my goals again, I said I wanted to run a strong race and I knew that had to start from the beginning. I told myself this wasn’t the Turkey Trot and I’m not about to start being a crazy people dodger. I did the bare minimum to go by people slower than me. I kept making a conscious effort to see how I felt and slow down if necessary. My mind was also all, look! Old Red where I got married. Look! Belmont Hotel where your Bachelorette Party was and the Shepard Fairey mural you took some engagement pictures in front of that! I knew after I crossed Large Marge I’d see my first set of familiar faces and was ready to see them too! And I looooved hearing Mama C call me Beeper at this point! Pumped me up!

photo courtesy of Mama C

Miles 5-8

Teal: Love, loved, loved running passed Scottish Rite. I love that hospital and spent a ton of time there in High school. I volunteered in Child Life my senior year, and in other areas of the hospital my Junior year. Patients and parents were outside cheering us all on. This was new and a totally good addition.

I start to feel more pain in my legs at this point. I feel labored and pretty stiff. My calf muscles were really tight and my quads ached. I just wanted to stay steady. I saw my husband and Brent around 6 and high 5’ed them. Wasn’t expected to actually see them so that was super awesome! I ended up getting super tied up at the water station around 7. I actually just stopped. It was a cluster. I think I probably spent 2 minutes here dealing with the madness. My music stopped playing and it was in my skirt zip pouch in the back. I couldn’t get it out or then back in. I asked a spectator to help me get it fixed. I think she was like “what in the world do you want me to do?” I was annoyed here and the stop made me stiffer. BONUS!!

Beth: Parts of this section of the course were similar to the past two years. Um, so I kind of just blew by Scottish Rite without paying attention. Oops? I think I was just really determined and focused that I really kept to myself a lot this race and I might not have survived had I not done so. I only really expended extra energy 3 times and it was each of the 3 times I saw familiar faces. Well, I guess, I expended energy in trying to see my husband which I never did. :-/ But gah, that looking for him in the crowds was tiring me out. That’s probably just the weather factor right there. I kept thinking in this stretch, why didn’t I ask him w hat he’d be wearing? Why didn’t we figure out a mile for him to be in? I did know that Rebekah would be right around the split of the half and the full, so I kept looking for her father-in-law since he’s much taller than her. Loved getting that high five from her at that point it totally pumped me up. Also, the wind that was occurring in random bouts during this part pumped me up as well!

Miles 8-10

Teal: I was looking everywhere for people. I thought Rebekah would be here and she was but I missed her. It really does kind of make you dizzy to find people while you are running. Which leads me to another weird thing about this race, it NEVER thinned out. It was seriously thick with people the entire time. This surprised me and it almost felt like maybe the streets were skinnier this year. I’m feeling very labored at this point and I really just wanted to stop. My legs are tight, super tight, and this is affecting the way my knee works. It always has affected it, and I have had some issues recently with the longer runs. Post runs it will hurt to even touch. This is what is happening now around 9ish. I really just want to get done and it was somewhere around this point I see the 2:10 pacer on the loop around and just said, stay in front of him and I’ll be happy.

Beth: I had known where the mile 8 sign was because we had already run by it and the split was really us running down the other side of part of the street we had just run up. In my mind I was just trying to get to the last 5K get there and you go this. I was going back and forth between you could PR!! It’s not happening today! Either way I knew I just need to keep going. Then I saw Brian E. in here, yelled at him but you know just to get his attention not in angry way and was glad to see a familiar face right then and there! Thanks for being out there Brian!

Miles 11-13

Teal: Just really wanted to be done. I really had no desire to keep going except I just wanted to be done. I think my shoes are too big too… I’m running this stretch just thinking of stupid things like “ I want to eat at El Fenix, can I actually ride the escalator at Ross Perot, can I have a mimosa when I’m done, how close are we, if I was a snake my feet wouldn’t hurt, why am I not Harry Potter or Meb, or a super speedy runner, what am I going to eat for lunch next week.” I just kept thinking of the dumbest stuff to make the time go. Also, while I do *think* I like this course, it has a lot of uphill, I clearly was on another planet for the down hills because I don’t remember them. Dallas is a big city, I hated the little loopy out and back thing we did between 12 and 13, there is plenty of room to not do that, it was such a tease too, because you could see the finish line and you still had to run up and around for about .70 of a mile. Lame.

photo courtesy of Brian L.

Beth: It should also be noted that my thought process was kind of similar to Teal’s here – what is this new restaurant next to El Fenix? I wonder if it’s good?? We should try it sometime! Anyway, and then here’s where we make our back into downtown. Here’s where I start thinking, man, I didn’t actually give the course map a good lookin’ at, did I? Surely they wouldn’t give us a hill right here before the mile 12 marker? But we are coming into downtown from this side it’s pretty much inevitable there WILL be a hill right here. And I’m kind of glad I figured that out so I could back off my pace a little and make it to the top of that hill alive. The out and back thing was miserable and I kept wondering if people would just cut it? Haha. It was also in this stretch I saw a runner laying on the ground and being worked on by EMTs. I have no idea what the outcome of that was but in that moment it made my heart heavy for sure!

13.1

Teal: Done and I stayed under 2:10. Not bad and really in retrospect pretty good for my week’s work itself. Not disappointed in time because that is about average for me. I am more disappointed in the feel of it, how labored it was, and the fact that my knee proceeded to be in throbbing pain for well over an hour after and then just dull pain even as I type this a day later. Damn knee…. Anyone want to trade??

Beth: Somehow, someway I had a last little kick to give at the end. You better believe I crossed that finish line with my arms up in the air. I knew I was teetering the line because I’d heard my Runkeeper tell me I’d hit the 1:55 mark however many yards back. So I immediately got out my phone, got on twitter to look up Brent’s twitter (I’d set his to tweet my time) and saw that I had PR’d by 11 seconds!!!! Holy crap! Later that day I looked online at the official results which put my time at a 12 second PR. WHOOP! I had opted to wear my Aggie ring to this race and try and take some of good juju that was out there from Johnny Football winning the Heisman!

We did it! Half marathon no. 15 for the two of us and two years of racing under out belts!

with MK! We are so awesome that we are standing in number and height order!

Us with Melvin! We can't even tell you how much his encouragement and support means to su!

Us with Melvin! We can’t even tell you how much his encouragement and support means to us!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: Aggie Ring, Bachelorette Party, Belmont Hotel, Dallas, Dallas Marathon, downtown Dallas, Half Marathon, Harry Potter, Heisman, Johnny Football, large Marge, LiAR, Marathon, Margaret Hunt Hill bridge, Meb, Old Red, races, Ross Perot museum, running, Shepard Fairey, Turkey Trot, twitter

Turkey’s Done!

November 29, 2012 by Life is a Run · 6 Comments

Some races just get complicated by life events. We know some of you out there know what we are saying! This Thanksgiving brought some firsts for both of us.

For Beth it was the first time that she and Brent actually spent Thanksgiving together, so we were finally forced to figure out how we would get time with each of our families. We spent it with his family and they start earlier than my family does and my family had Thanksgiving at the house I lived in for the past 3 years so doing a race and getting ready for family was no big deal. This year I had barely any time. And why does the Turkey Trot start at 9 a.m.?! I didn’t remember it starting so late. I vote we go with 8 a.m. next year! OK? OK! And isn’t it cute how in my world 9 a.m. is now late? Haha

For Teal, well, we will just share with you the lists of things that includes firsts and therefore annoyances with Thanksgiving.

1. My dad did not come from Maryland (like he was going to) and I had to make a turkey (instead of my dad making it).

2. I had to get up at 5am to deal with stuffing a turkey, which I don’t know how to do so I was automatically stressed. Oh and I had the words of Michael’s cousin in my head, who was being playful but said “Don’t ruin the turkey, you will ruin Thanksgiving” Great.

3. The neck of a raw turkey is absolutely GROSS and I almost gagged and then the intestines bag had a hole and I had to touch the liver. Gag, again.

4. I turned the turkey roasting pan on and I thought it was going to catch on fire, smoke everywhere! Had to send my husband to Wal-Mart to get a new one, and for those of you who may not know I don’t like that place and once pushed one of their front doors off the track. I don’t go there!

5. I felt bad for waking him up, making him go to that dreaded place, being annoying, and oh, by the way Happy Anniversary, sorry I suck and can’t cook or read directions… see 6….

6. Turns out it wasn’t actually going to catch on fire, perhaps, read the directions first?

7. I didn’t know what to wear. I know, #firstworldproblems

8. I was going to be late and was afraid Beth would kill me, so then I worried (not that she ever would, but a girl can worry, we are people pleasers)

9. Ohhhh, you need to eat before a race?? I didn’t have any food so I ate Oreos, 2 of them to be exact, and I should have eaten 12.

10. I was starving, that starving where you want to throw up starving.

11. It cost me more money to take money out of the ATM then it actually cost to park.

12. The original $3 parking lot machine wasn’t working, so we couldn’t park there.

13. We drove to $5 lot and it was full. Full as in the car in front of us got the last spot.

14. I HATE PARKING!

There. I feel much better. WOOOSSSAAAA.

Ok, so after surviving all of that, the two of us and Chase (Beth’s cousin) made it over to the race start. We all three got hooked up with VIP wristbands so we got to use some nice port-a-potties with a not so ridiculous line. Ohhh, the little things that make racers happy!

After that it was pretty much time to get lined up to start the race, but oh, yah…they put up a fence that makes it impossible to enter the racing area. How quickly we forget these things after multiple years of running the same race. Ha!

Mile 1 to 5K Split

Teal: This is like a fun game of “let’s try not to run any children over, kick a dog, elbow an elderly person, trip over a fire extinguisher, speed bump, or sidewalk, have to come to a screeching halt every 5 seconds.” It’s sooooo fun. So needless to say, the first part of this race is a complete and total pain, if you would like to run, but I still managed to keep a somewhat decent pace. And just a disclaimer, I know this, and have known this, and still run because I like this race, and will always like this race, it’s just kind of a pain to do. AND I don’t think it will change, so this is more of a statement and not so much a complaint, although I am not sure maybe it’s both! I knew I would not PR at this point and was letting my list of 14 annoying things get to me. I wanted to take the 5k turn off, just wait for Beth and Chase and be done with it all but I didn’t. Just run the stinking race, and get happy.

The sea of people before the start of the race

Beth: Maybe I’m a jerk for saying this, but while the 3 of were trying to get into the starting area I made probably the comment I make every year “why don’t they let the timed racers start in the front? or why don’t they start the 5K and 8 mile in waves?” This man next to me informed me that “the mat will pick up your time when you cross it!” WHAT?! It will?? Haha, bless his heart. I am pretty sure that every year in the first about 2.5ish miles of this race I ask myself why am I running this race?? I hate this! I’m fairly use to going out and running around White Rock Lake and hearing cyclist say “on your left” so I just decided to use that with the walkers. Man the people that come out to the Turkey Trot spa-read themselves out on those streets! This race always makes me think that people need to go through a Common Courtesies of Race Course before they can embark on their first race. Not that that will ever happen.

5K Split to Finish

Teal: LESS CROWDS! We lost half the race to the 5k turn off! Yippee!! I actually got in a better mood, ran a lot faster and didn’t feel as pissed. This is the best reason to run! They changed the course and I liked the change in the long run, but not as it was happening. It was way hillier than it was last year, but we didn’t have to run through a very boring part of Dallas. This change made the race feel fast at the end. I really was trying to pick up my pace to overcome the first 2.5 but I just felt like it was not going to happen. I ended up being annoyed (theme of the day) with this women who kept on running at my shoulder up the hills and would then linger back to keep doing it again. I was determined to make her go away so my last 2 miles were about and 8ish to 8:30 minute pace, where I had been running more at a 9:30 min pace. My last mile was 8:03, which is fast for me, mainly to be done and away from the lady.

Overall it was not bad and I am glad I ran and I am still very proud of my time. It was not a PR and it was not as bad as 3 years ago so there! That’s a win in my book. And despite everything, I would and will still run this again, BUT I will not cook a Turkey, which will then make me less stressed and annoyed. MARK MY WORDS PEOPLE!

The sea of people after the race and a little bit of downtown Dallas

Beth: Ahhhh, this is why I run this race! It is amazing how much a 5K split can change things! Not long after the split off we ran by where Brent and I got married which put a big smile on my face! I had started noticing some small changes in course and was really hopeful that this one area would be cut out. It was! I remember thinking the last few years on the last few miles being like when is this going to be over? But this year it just seemed like it was over in no time. That was when I remembered the trickster finish line they have! Haha, you see the start line and think, almost there! You aren’t your going to fork to the right, go up a small but long incline then keeeeeep going even though you already started your last minute sprint to the end and then BAM! you’re done. According to my runkeeper I had an overall pace of 8:35 for the race. Also according to my runkeeper I ran 8.36 miles which makes me wonder how much of that is extra mileage from my dodging at the beginning, and then there is always one area in downtown where the GPS gets off. Don’t start telling me how GPS systems are not always 100% accurate because I know! And please don’t start talking to me about running tangents because, again, I know. And I”m also admitting that the dodging of people in the beginning was me probably adding on some extra mileage. Pretty much like Teal said this is a race where you get frustrated in the beginning, but ultimately the annoyances get overpowered by the last two thirds of the race roughly. It is a great race and great that it brings so many people out together to get some activity in before a full day of eating far too much!

So, Capital One Bank Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot (that is a mouthful), we will see you again next year!

Results:

Teal: 1:15:33, finished 73rd in age group and 1,850 overall

Beth: 1:11:36, finished 66th in my age group and 1,396 over all

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: 5k, 8 mile, Capital One Bank Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot, GPS, Oreos, race, runkeeper, running, tangents, Thanksgiving, Turkey, Turkey Trot

Ft. Worth Marathon But You Know Only the Half

November 13, 2012 by Life is a Run · 5 Comments

Perhaps it was the mix of activities for Beth’s wedding or the fact that both of our houses have been a complete disaster, or that we didn’t see each other for a week, or any number of other things but let’s just say this half definitely snuck up on us. We didn’t even do a pre-race post! Whoops?? Perhaps just another bit of proof of our not preparedness.

We double bagged our phones in case it really did rain during the race

Because we were driving to Ft. Worth we wanted to make sure we got to the race in time and especially since we had to get our packets that day! Teal wasn’t even actually sure she had registered and the guy couldn’t find her name on the list… Oh, he was looking at the list for the marathon, but it was rather hilarious that we really couldn’t remember. So by the time we finished picking them up we had about an hour and a half to kill before our race started. The different distances at this race are staggered by 30 minutes, so it was a 7:30 a.m. start for the marathon, 8:00 a.m. start for the 20 miler and a 8:30 a.m. start for the half.

Look at how long this race shirt is?!

Miles 1-5

Teal: We talked to Caron before the race and she had mentioned taking it 5 miles at a time. In my head that sounded like a good plan, I hadn’t fully registered that she was running the 20 mile when I decided that sounded great, and it sorta works for a ½ so I went with that. 1-5 seemed to take forever and I couldn’t really figure out why. I am usually done with a mile in about 3ish songs and by mile one I had heard 5. This was not registering with me. Apparently not being prepared also causes my brain to not work. The course was flat for the most part which made me happy! It was too windy to deal with hills too. The wind at points was rather ridiculous.

Beth: I really didn’t have a game plan in my head AT ALL about this race. I knew I needed to not start too fast considering the month of October I let my marathon training and mileage be all over the place. Plus Thursday night I was hit with a 24 hour stomach bug. So I thought I’d just kind of play it by ear! Soon after we started and I had turned on my runkeeper there was no music coming from it. Then I remembered how I had turned the music option off in the app while I was in Hawaii, so I just tried to turn on some music. When I did it was a slow song, so then I remembered how Thursday night I’d just put my music on shuffle during my stairmaster workout. To make things even more fun I’d turn down the brightness on my iPhone to help save some battery life which means I couldn’t see through the two plastic bags I had my phone in to turn on a playlist. My music during this race consisted of almost every slow song on my phone and Christmas music. Ha.

Miles 6-8

Teal: Still not bad but super freaking windy. I was ready to get to the turn around. Not to mentioned this women that had thrown her water on Beth was about to get my foot up her toosh! ( I mean I really would never do that) but she was that much on my nerves. She kept cutting me off for no reason, or running right next to me within like breathing distance. Sometimes Beth and I run like that next to each other but that is because we are LONG TIME RUNNING BUDDIES!! Back up off lady! At 8 I finally was annoyed at how long this seemed to be taking and the time not adding up so I asked Beth what we were really at. She said 7.96! Sweet! I had us at 7.41, so apparently my trusty little Garmin was also not prepared for the day! I actually felt a little energy

Beth: Um, yes to the freaking windy! Do you remember how at the Taco Run there was a guy that messed with my head for the last few miles of the race? Guess who was here at this race? Did you say the Mind Messer Man then you are correct! I forget when but at one point we caught him and passed him a teeny tiny little bit, but don’t worry, y’all, he surged and he passed us! There was just this nice stretch of me being annoyed that he was there and with the lady who dumped the whole cup of water on me. It’s one of those things where I get that you don’t want to STOP and walk with your water, but for the love, at least slow down a little. Her technique of trying to grab a small cup of water at full speed was not affective. At one water station where I didn’t even get water I was excited because she behind me so no water on me! Wrong, she spilled a cup on my feet. We should also mention that I for one ran more than 13.1 on this race course. Yes, I know tangents, we wrote a blog that included that in it. There were a couple parts of the course where it split and was either a gravel/dirt path or a paved path and there were no markers to say stay this or what not. I just don’t like courses when it makes me wonder if I’m on the intended path or not?

Miles 9-13.1

Teal: My energy from that .6ish mile increase made me happy and until 10 I was happy. Then at like 10.1 I wanted to die. I had dropped a little behind Beth but just at the perfect timing she slowed to let me catch her! We stayed together until about 11 again and then it was just get home to the finish line. I could see the storm coming in and was just ready to be done mentally but my body just said, Nope you are staying at this pace. I managed to get in and done but was ready to die. My legs hurt and I was pretty shaky and actually a little dizzy. I think the fact that the running was off and 10 mile long runs missed made this difficult. Overall however, I am not disappointed! I finished with a clock time of 2:07 something and really wanted to find out the real time! I am not disappointed with that as it is still pretty quick for me!!

Beth: I was going back and forth on how I was doing and telling myself when you get to 10 it’s just going to be another 5k. I kind of got pumped at one point and was like LET’S DO THIS!!! Then at 10 I told myself to take a chill pill. I was pushing myself too much too fast. I was coming off inconsistent running and being stick with a stomach bug (a.k.a. not holding food down). So I stopped to find Teal because I was pretty sure if I didn’t chill out and run with her I was not going to make it. When we were about 2 miles out from the finish line I knew I could do this and pushed a little bit harder and at some point in here I passed Mind Messer Man when he stopped to get water. YES! All, I had to do was keep him behind me now! And I did! We actually talked briefly after he crossed the finish line. He was all – weren’t you at the Taco Run? Considering how the last month has been and being sick I am dang proud of this race, but now I got some work to do! We have another half coming up that if I don’t PR at it I better be dang near close!

Results:

Teal: 2:06:27, finished 17th in her age group

Beth: 2:05:15, finished 16th in her age group

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: 20 miler, 5k, course, Ft Worth Marathon, Ft. Worth, Half Marathon, health, healthy-living, Marathon, PR, races, running, running buddies, running the tangents, stairmaster, tangents, training, water station

PR’ing All Over September

October 2, 2012 by Life is a Run · 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!

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: 10 miler, 10k, Dallas, Half Marathon, health, Katy Trail, pace, PR, race, runkeeper, running, start line, tacos, The Great Taco Run, Tour des Fleurs, training, White Rock Marathon

Tour des Fleurs 10K

September 19, 2012 by Life is a Run · 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.

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: 10k, 20k, age group, arboretum, artist, Bellagio, Cake balls, Chihuly, Dallas, Dallas Arboretum, glass installations, glass sculptor, healthy-living, NTX Runners, PR, race, race course, run, runkeeper, running, sports, Tour des Fleurs, training, Vegas

The Happiest Race on Earth Weekend [Part Two]

September 5, 2012 by Life is a Run · 7 Comments

Like we mentioned in our post yesterday, Disneyland Half started bright and early at 5:45 a.m., and we had about a twenty to twenty-five minute drive into Anaheim that morning. We made it out the door by 4:10 a.m. – if only we’d asked Chris to refresh our memories of the directions he gave us last year to get to Disneyland. We did not get there, parked and in the corral with that much time to spare, but thankfully we did make it into the corral before the race started. We were actually able to make a quick port-a-pottie trip and even able to snap a picture. Kind of laughing because this guy had just offered to take a picture of the lady taking our picture with us then he realized “ohh, you aren’t wearing a matching outfit like them!”

That guy and his two buddies with him all had on matching knee high yellow socks. They started being all chatting and the main thing that stuck with us was one of them saying “what’s your goal for today? 1:45? 1:30?” We responded with “we’ve kind of been slacking because we are starting marathon training soon so…..no, not a 1:45 or 1:30” Not to mention neither of us has ever run a half anywhere near that fast! We then overheard them talking out a plan for the race ” let’s start out at an 8:45 pace til mile….then at mile…we’ll go down to a 8:15” And next thing we know the announcers are sending us on our way!

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We had really been hoping to see Lisa before the race since we were all in corral A, but we had just gotten there too late for that to happen! We would have held out hope to see her at the end, but we didn’t need to as she found us very quickly after the start! From here we give our race recap from our own perspectives –

Miles 1-3

Teal: I was overall very scared of what would happen during this race given that 2 weeks earlier I wanted to die after 4 miles and really had one of the worst races ever. I do not feel in shape right now so I worried big time. Running in California and the weather there proves to be the biggest God send in racing! It’s SOOOO much different than Texas madness and my body just does a complete 180 in terms of how it feels. Miles 1-3 felt awesome! The crowd is amazing; going through the park is so fun. We had a few changes this year at the beginning! The colored lights in the water and a run through cars world made it awesome. I think at one point I looked at Beth and said “yea this race is soo much better than Disneyworld” and really I mean so much better than most races period. It’s just so different in terms of the atmosphere, the Disney staff really comes out to support and there is never a dull moment.

Beth: I had not set any goals for this race and last year we had both run it at the 2:00-ish mark, so that and my want to run more sub 2:00 halfs than not in 2012 was all lingering in the back of my mind. BUT my performance at Hottest Half and just running this summer didn’t give me that faith in myself to pull through this race with a satisfying to me time. The first few miles of this race were really fun! We ran through California Adventures and got to see the cool water/light show at Paradise Pier (wish I could have snapped a not blurry picture there) and see the new Cars area of the park! I knew my nephew Wesley would LOVE it if I had taken a picture with Tow-Mater and/or Lightning McQueen and shown it to him, but no, I didn’t want to stop. Sorry, Wesley! Plus, I didn’t want to lose Teal and Lisa so early on in the race!

photo by Michael Huey

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Miles 4-8

Teal: I am still doing really well body wise here. I just keep giving myself a mile goal every time I hit the Disney sign. I knew my runkeeper was off because I started it too early. I just kept saying, one mile at a time and get there under X time frame. This worked well and I really felt good. I think I slowed down slightly from Beth and Lisa around 6.5 or 7 but I still felt ok, just not like I could keep that pace up for the entire race. I knew once I got to 8 it would be ok, but closer to mile 8 I really got that “ I’m not in shape chest pressure feel” if anyone knows what that really is, it was just hard to breathe for no other reason than I was tiring. I knew Angel’s stadium was around 9 miles from last year and really focused on getting there! I should also add that this stretch of the race was lame because the sun was literally right in your eyes and you could almost not even see all the things they had lining the streets! This section had tons of both vintage and modern cars that you just couldn’t see because of the glare.

Beth: We’ve just left Disneyland and are out running on the streets of Anaheim. This is the part where Disney does a fabulous job of not leaving us all our there alone. With all the cheer squads, bands and different dancers (Hawaiian and mariachi) you can’t help but stay pumped up. I was trying to take it mile by mile and see how I felt. The beginning of this section, I believe, was where there is the on big incline (bridge) to run over and I was excited when it didn’t take a whole lot out of me. It was somewhere between mile 6 and 7 that I kind of evaluated how I felt as I had been waiting to reach the halfway-ish point for that. I giggled a little when I heard to other runners discussing where the half way point was and that it would be at 6.55 miles. I knew we’d kept our pace under 9:30/mile, so I decided to just go for it. See what all I had to give. It was also at this point the sun was in my eyes, so I just put my head down and went for it. I knew that exciting times were ahead of me based on running this race last year and reaching the Honda Center in mile. So I knew that Angels Stadium was up after that and I just kept thinking “did they change it this year? Do we still get to go through the stadium?! Please let us still go through the stadium!!”

Miles 9-13.1

Teal: Home stretch!! Thank god. I also love everyone’s reaction going into the stadium. This women next to me literally starting yelling “ This is so cool, this is amazing, are we really going in there!?” It’s just so freaking cool. I wish Dallas ( wink wink ) would do something like that! Hello, both Rangers and the Dallas Cowboys Stadium are right next to each other! The last 5 miles of this race were a test. I was very tired but I knew I wanted to just keep running and get it over with. After running through Angel’s stadium you really get a burst of energy. At about 10 miles my true test came. I don’t know if I was running very tight in my upper body or what, but my entire chest from like mid chest all the way to mid back felt strained, like muscle strained (it actually still hurts now, 4 days later) so something was up. That coupled with my “out of shape feeling” from before was extremely painful. I just kept taking deeper breathes and kept going. At around 12 I ended up passing one of our yellow sock boys from the beginning. He was too far away for me to get the energy to run over to, but he was completely stopped stretching his calf muscles! It might be evil but in my head that made me so happy to beat him, given their predictions at the beginning of the race! Shortly after, around 12.5 this kid running in front of me literally lost his breakfast! I had to jump over it as to not run in it. I still was pretty close to him at the finish and he threw up again. I keep laughing because you can even see him do it in the Disney video of the finish!! Gross! That is the first time I have come that close to someone throwing up ON me.

Beth: As I got closer I knew we were in fact going into Angels Stadium again and I was SO excited! The energy in there is incredible! It was also going into the stadium that there was a Clif Station where they were passing out gels. I was so glad because I’d actually forgotten to get my Hammer gel out of my purse that morning. Anyway, back to the stadium, the energy just came upon you immediately! I did my best to high five as many boy scouts, girl scouts and other little kids that were front row. What a high! I had kind of forgotten that just shortly after leaving the stadium we would hit the 10 mile mark! And shortly after that was when I saw one of the yellow socks guys. Pretty positive a grin probably spread across my face seeing him stopped and stretching his calf out. Evil? Yes, I probably am, especially since I went and hit him on the arm and said “let’s go yellow socks!” He ran with me for a minute and I told him “We just have a 5K left let’s do this” and I might have followed that up with “you can’t let me beat you across the finish line!” He said he accepted the challenge and then a minute later was stopped again. Another little burst of energy from knowing that they had been talking a big game in the corral, but I’d finish ahead of him. From here until the end all I was thinking was “can I make this in under two hours?? Can I really pull this off?! It is going to be so freakin’ close if I do!” Just kept digging deep and I’d also like to say that I really felt the impact of my bleacher Tuesday workouts through this race. I feel like that really did have a huge part of my performance at this race! I got to mile 12 and knew I needed to play it safe. If I push too hard here I won’t make it across that finish line without throwing up, but I also didn’t want to play it too safe and regret not pushing a little bit harder. I heard someone say to me as I was leaving Angels Stadium, “you’re still running this with a smile on your face!” Yah, it totally disappeared in mile 12. Ha! I got closer to the finish line and again knew I was teetering the two hour mark, tried to push a little harder, and no, there’s the need to vomit. I held it in until I got to the trash can just on the other side of the finish line (my video at the finish line you can actually see me throw up – ha!). Done! But did I make it in under 2 hours? I didn’t think so, I was pretty convinced I had run a 2:00:10 half. The official race photographers actually captured a picture of me where I have the I am going to vomit look on my face ! Ha.

We also think it is cool to see what a difference even 2 weeks makes! Just look at these splits (even though they are slightly embarrassing) This is improvement and we totally feel like progress is being made from this slump in running lately! Yea!

Teal:

Beth:

Regardless, we DID IT!! We completed our two Disney races and earned our Coast to Coast Challenge medal! Teal actually overheard someone after receiving their Coast to Coast medal say “this cost me $2,000.” Which is why we need to say a BIG thank you to Chris for allowing us to stay with him and drive his car this past weekend! We canNOT thank you enough and we both look forward to seeing you next month at Beth’s wedding!! It is such a pretty, shiny medal though!

If we did not express it enough earlier, we would like to take the opportunity to say this is a fabulous race! The course is awesome for multiple reasons – the water stations are fabulous, wonderful volunteers, so much course entertainment and so many awesome course sights to see! We highly, HIGHLY recommend you take the opportunity to plan a trip to Disneyland over Labor Day weekend and experience this awesome race! This race might not see us again for awhile or at all, but it truly is a once in a lifetime experience (we were just lucky enough to experience it twice). We hope to hear of more running friends going out to Anaheim and enjoying it! We wanna read your recaps and live vicariously through you!!

Overall Results

Teal: 2:08:12, finished 2,720th out of 14,829 finishers, 1,053rd female and 198th in age group

Beth: 1:59:58, finished 1,779th out of 14,829 finishers, 585th female and 97th in age group

To see more pictures from our Disneyland Half race weekend please checkout the Life is a Run Facebook Page

What is your absolute favorite race you’ve run so far??

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: Anaheim, Angels Stadium, bands, California Adventures, Cars, cheer squad, Coast to Coast challenge, Coast to Coast medal, corral, course, Cowboy Stadium, Dallas, dancers, Disneyland, Disneyland Half, entertainment, Half Marathon, Honda Center, Hottest Half, Labor Day Weekend, Lightning McQueen, medal, Paradise Pier, races, Rangers Stadium, runkeeper, running, Tow-Mater, volunteers

The Happiest Race on Earth Weekend [Part One]

September 3, 2012 by Life is a Run · 9 Comments

Our labor day weekend slash Disneyland Half weekend started out with the two of us not getting to sit together on our flight out to Orange County. You might remember from previous posts that Teal isn’t the biggest fan of flying, but as you can tell we made it there in one piece! Hooray!

Thanks to Beth’s friend Chris for picking us up from the airport and then grilling up a delicious meal for us. Once Saturday morning rolled around we were texting each other from our rooms to see if it was time for us to make our first trip to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Ha!

We should probably mention what ridiculous creatures of habit we are – Teal definitely brought a snack bag on the trip. We were both prepared with single servings of Shakeology and Beth brought servings of oatmeal for breakfast each day. Don’t worry we also made a trip to the grocery store for almond milk, fruit and nail polish remover. We told you we have an obsession! We did paint our fingernails twice while on this trip.

Later that day Chris took us to The Habit for lunch. Tasty salads and we love trying places that we don’t have in Texas! We did make it to a beach for about two minutes that afternoon too.

Then it was expo time! This year we didn’t really spend that much time here. We, of course, got our bibs. We got our Coast to Coast Challenge wristbands! Eeeee!!

We got our race shirts.

And then we HAD to have a pic or two with the finish line. You know just in case we didn’t actually make it across the next day! Chris also had some fun at the finish line too.

Shortly after that we were off to meet LISA!!! Or as you might know her on the twitterverse – @runlikeacoyote. We all decided to meet up at the Irvine Spectrum and hung out over dinner at the Yard House. Lisa, thank you again SO much for treating us to dinner! That was so sweet of you! It was so great to finally get to meet Lisa! She is an incredible running inspiration and we love following along in all of her running adventures. We are forever grateful to her for all of her support of us as well! Such an encouraging woman! We are lucky to know for sure!

After that it was off to bed since our half marathon had a 5:45 a.m. start time. Thankfully we were still on Texas time so we were both ready for bed pretty much immediately after getting back to Chris’ house. We had to keep reminding ourselves when it was 8pm it was OK that we were tired and ready to sleep because it was getting late in Texas especially when you include all of our early mornings leading up to and during the weekend.

You will have to wait for our race recap until tomorrow! [we don’t wanna make you read such a looooooong post – thank us later ;)]

After the race our friend Monica took us out for brunch at El Torito. Let us just say, a brunch that includes sparkling wine is a brunch you can never go wrong with, or at least in our books! It was the perfect celebration to completing our 13th half marathon. Then Monica arranged for us to all drink some wine with Claire much like we had done this time last year.

We had a ton of fun hanging out with you, Monica & Claire! Thank you for sharing some fabulous wine with us! There is never a dull moment with these fun ladies!

And with that our weekend was pretty much over! It went by so fast and was full of so much fun we both will probably be recovering from it for a few days!

We got to sit together on the plane ride back! We made our seatmate’s day by telling her she could have the window seat we wanted to sit next to each other instead of having her in the middle of us.

Check back with us tomorrow for our full race report! We hope all of you had a fun and safe holiday weekend!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: bibs, brunch, Coast to Coast challenge, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Disneyland, El Torito, Half Marathon, Labor Day, Orange County, race shirts, running, Shakeology, sparkling wine, The Habit, The Spectrum

Sugar Land Half

The Texas Half

The Louisiana Marathon

Happy Half-a-versary to LiAR

Turkey’s Done!

Ft. Worth Marathon But You Know Only the Half

PR’ing All Over September

Tour des Fleurs 10K

The Happiest Race on Earth Weekend [Part Two]

The Happiest Race on Earth Weekend [Part One]

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