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Wordless Wednesday No. 31
September 26, 2012 by · 3 Comments
Tour des Fleurs 10K
September 19, 2012 by · 9 Comments
Well, as we said in our pre-race post this was Beth’s 5th time and Teal’s 3rd time to run TDF. It’s just a fun race! You park off site of the Dallas Arboretum (or we do because we don’t want to pay the ridiculous parking package to park on premise) and get shuttled there. Once there you get to walk through the grounds a little bit to see some of the arboretum which is usually already full of pumpkins in preparation for Fall, however, this year some of the Chihuly exhibit is taking over so the pumpkins had to share their space.
Who is Dale Chihuly? He is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur. Have you ever been in the Bellagio in Vegas? Well then chances are you’ve seen the amazing glass ceiling Chihuly did in their lobby. Here is an additional picture of one of his installations we took on Saturday. There will be another one later on too. 🙂
And now we give you our races from each of our perspectives –
Teal: Friday was an insane day and I was home super late, then after my cake ball disaster I managed to get like 4 hours of sleep and I really as not feeling this race! As a matter of fact, I had really had it with life by 5:30 am Saturday. I was really just ready to go back to bed. I kept saying to myself, Thank GOD we did not sign up for the 20k, because I would have probably broken down and cried. I was somewhat nervous because I wanted to run a good race because we had decided to really use this as our base time for marathon training. We are going to use the Run Less Run Faster theory and it is based around your 10k time. In my head I wondered, do I just run a good steady race or just race it for real?! I decided I would make that call within a mile. Our friend Veronica asked our pace before the race and I responded “Oh somewhere between 9 and 11 minutes.” Ha, I really had no clue and really have had no clue about pace lately anyway.
Veronice, Teal, Beth & Bitner
Beth: Before we started the race we were hanging out down by the stage where bands play and where we had told people we would be if they wanted to come say hi since we had to live right after the race. We got see our fellow NTX Runner, Brian and finally meet @runreadrant a.k.a. Caron before they started their 20K race 30 minutes before us. Brian had told us we were going to do our 10K in 55 minutes. I’m not sure how Teal felt about that, but in my mind I was going, yah, right! Or could I pull that time out?? I have to run this smart! Oh gooooooddd!
Teal: We started the race and I really felt fine! I had committed to racing for sure by 3 miles. All miles were well under 9 minutes so I knew it was going well. We all hung in with each other which was an awesome way to keep pace!
Beth: I always forget it can be kind of a cluster at the start of this race. I know, I know, what race isn’t? Well this path is even more narrow to start so it can be hard to get around some people. I wasn’t really sure what this meant in terms of Teal and I staying together for the race, but before I knew it we were reunited on the course. Even Friday night I’d been thinking about Brian’s comment to us about running it in 55 minutes since he mentioned that to us somewhere on the internet that day. I didn’t want to start out too fast and not be able to make it the last few miles. So my thoughts started with – ok, if I run the first mile in 9:30 then start to speed up from there. Plus 8:30 is 18 minutes. Another 8:30 is 26:30…..At some point in the 3 miles Teal and I had joined up with Bitner and we were running together which was really fun! I was kind of paying attention to my runkeeper but not totally and wouldn’t allow myself to think much about a PR until I got to the last couple of miles.
We are going to probably buy this pic so for now we don’t feel bad for putting it up here like this. Photo courtesy of Your Sporting Image
Teal: At around mile 4, I started to feel it and ran a tad bit slower. I moved back from Beth around here and had actually threw up a little bit, which is totally disgusting, but I was really kind of tired. I really didn’t know where I was in terms of race time and PRing but I just said, you need to pick it up, there are only 2 miles left! I increased my pace by about 20 seconds and just said, keep moving. Beth was out of my site by the 5 mile mark but I could still see Bitner. My goal was to keep him in sight. I ended up losing him in all the turns around 5.5.
Beth: All, I remember from the past 10K’s of TDF that we’ve run is there is one hill that I hate. Well, I got to it, ran it and it didn’t feel so bad. I thought we were all set from there and it would be flat from here on out. Uhh, wrong. There were some added little hills in there and not to mention concrete that was cracked, had crevices and holes. I was kind of nervous about twisting an ankle or something. When we hit mile 4 I knew I had some more in me and I wanted to dig deep and get ‘er done. Early on I’d wanted to slow down some and save some reserve for later in the race, but since I was running with Teal and Bit I just kept going. It was in mile 4 that I thought, yah, I am running this race and doing the work, but I’m not sure I’d have made it where I was then if it wasn’t for Teal and Bit’s pacing.
Teal: It was a little past this point that I was literally clipped in the elbow by a biker! (not bad but I felt her) I had to throw my arm up to make sure she didn’t hit the rest of me. I looked over and a spectator was shaking his head at her. I can’t believe how close she came. And yes maybe at that point my elbows were wide, but she was way too close!! Most of the time, if you are in a bikers way they tell you, I had my headphones on but low enough to where I could hear around me because there were so many bikers out, I wanted to make sure it was fine.
Beth: During my last two miles I remember thinking in years past – when is this ever going to end?? I had a good laugh at myself as the amount of halfs I have run have dramatically increased even from last year. When I ran TDF 2010 I ran it as a race in my training and TDF 2011 we did the 20K for training for our first marathon (plus some additional miles after the race). This was the first time I’d really run TDF with all the long miles I’ve put in to running. Somewhere in the 5 mile range I was passing a fellow lady runner who turned to me and said “you got this!” At that point I had no words and wanted to try and find her after the race to tell her thank you.
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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.
Tasty Tuesday: Bridal Shower Foods
September 18, 2012 by · 7 Comments
You might have seen yesterday, that this weekend was Beth’s bridal shower thrown by the bridesmaids and since I’m a bridesmaid (highly doubt you would have missed that by now) I had a job to do. I volunteered to do the dessert part of our spread.
Kate (Beth’s sister) had us all pick what we wanted to do so I chose Cake balls and Oreo cookie balls. I’m on Pinterest so I totally thought it would be doable. I am going to give you the recipes and the how to make said cake balls, and even a few pointers of what they do when they completely fail at 10pm the night before the shower and a race you have to wake up at 5 o’clock to get to!
Kate is also blogging today about the other shower snacks! You can find that information over on her blog! You should totally check it out for any future snacking you would like to partake in and/or some other awesome recipes!
Oreo Cake Balls
1 package of oreos
1 8 oz package of cream cheese softened
White melting chocolate (for your sanity DO NOT buy this kind )
You really should probably buy this kind instead (trust me!)
How to:
Crush the Oreos in a blender, or if you are angry at the world you could pound them with a hammer. Just make sure they are as small as you can get it.
Mix in the entire package of cream cheese. It will end up being a ball of cookie mush.
Ball the mixture into the size you would like and then place in the refrigerator. I would recommend freezing them over night because when they are not hard enough they fall through the sticks and it is a holy annoying mess. You could also just never put them on sticks and life might be easier.
So you might guess, the next step is to place them on sticks and dip them in the melting chocolate and you are done.
Hint: Keep refrigerated until you are ready to serve if they are on sticks they won’t stay!
Cakeballs
Cake Mix
Icing
Melting chocolate (again use the candy melts not the other one)
How to:
Bake the cake using the regular directions. Once baked, let cool and crumble the cake into the smallest pieces that you can.
Mix in the icing- the original way I saw this was to use the entire jar of icing, I think this was part of the reason that these bad boys didn’t work, sooooo in the future I will probably use about half so that they are not as moist (eww I hate that word)!
Once mixed, ball the cake and freeze. Once frozen dip in the melted chocolate and you are done!
Hint: too much icing in the mix, not freezing and only refrigerating, and using the wrong chocolate will give you a holy mess that looks much like the picture! While my cake balls failed miserably, I did figure out how to fix them by using the hints above.
If all else fails you could always get your husband on the phone with every Starbucks that will wait for you to get there before they close and ask them for all their cake balls. Then you can buy melting chocolate and cover them in whatever color you need. See! No one would ever know!
I figured I would include some extra pics of the shower just because it was so cute! Beth also has a super crafty Sister in law (She blogs too- Shocking, I know) Tiffany made tons of cute decoration pieces and snacks as well!
So there you have it! The showering aspect of our weekend! 🙂 Please be advised we are not claiming cake balls are healthy….we are sharing the recipe and parts of our lives right now with you. Ha. Tomorrow we’ll finally let you know ALLLL about Tour des Fleurs! 🙂
Oh, and additionally it should be noted that Teal’s Oreo cakeballs were WAY BETTER than Starbucks! Sorry Starbucks! We know we are already kind of a traitor to you with our Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf obsession! Only 10 more days until a CBTL opens in Dallas! 🙂 Ok, that’s all from us for real now.
Racing & Showering!
September 17, 2012 by · 5 Comments
Yes, our weekend included a little bit of both of those things! 🙂 Our race this weekend took us to the Dallas Arboretum where there is currently a Chihuly exhibit, so we got to see a few of his installations there.
Us with our friend Bitner waiting around for the 10K part of Tour des Fleurs to start.
After the race we all rushed back to Beth’s house to get showered and cleaned up for a wedding shower hosted by the Bridesmaids. Just one of the MANY cute decorations at the shower.
We clean up nice don’t we?? 🙂
How was your weekend? Did you race? Get in a training run? Or just take it easy?
The Hottest Half
August 15, 2012 by · 10 Comments
Well, we survived The Hottest Half, but it was not pretty. That idea of “you race like you trained” definitely comes to mind here. As you might have read, we have been in a lull for a while. Our last half was in April and we have been fairly inconsistent since then and very inconsistent the past month or so. With that said, this race was in fact our slowest EVER. On top of that we both did pre-race things we normally don’t do like enjoy an adult beverage or two, and oh you know, hang out on the lake all day water tubing. Water tubing also caused a very stiff, cramped like right calf for Teal. That was fun for 13 miles. Neither make for a rested body, and it definitely does not aid in a body that is already NOT in half marathon shape. Then we really started to wonder if we are supposed to run because Beth’s car keys were left in her sister’s car in Austin on Saturday, and our race bibs were locked in her car in Plano. We had to get replacements bibs, which has never happened before. Whoops! Luckily with such as small race it was super easy. Also for some odd reason we both ran this entire race sans music. Beth’s headphones were in the locked car and Teal just forgot to get them out of the car. Notice our trend of excuses? Ugh! Must fix!
Our replacement bibs
Our original bibs and shirts
We honestly can’t really blame it on the heat, it honestly was hot but not that hot. We had discussed during the week somewhat of a strategy to get the race over with. We had to make it to the finish line. Run-walk came to mind… ugh…but with Teal’s cramped calf and how our running had been we had to play it by ear out on the course. We both knew 13.1 straight was not going to happen. We started out the race and we are pretty sure neither wanted to say it was time for a break first. We made it to the 4 mile mark, ha, impressive right? Then ran what felt like 2-2.5 at a time, until we were down to resting every water station. (Wow- typing this is not fun!) As we got towards the end we really just wanted to get home without stopping and to pass up a women that was clearly twice our age. We both ended up beating her, thank god, but did not finish together.
The race was not all bad, we had a few highlights. We got to see our friend Jesus from our running group (North Texas Runners), he was well ahead of us and he passed us coming back from the turnaround. Our friend Lesley was at the turn around waiting for her Racing It Off ladies so we got to say hi to her, and again towards the end of the race! Always love to have smiley, happy runners around when you are ready to get the heck off of a course.
Teal about to finish the last .1 of the race
Beth about to finish the last .1 of the race
(Thanks to Jesus for the pictures of us running!!)
A couple things worth noting from the race. We did in fact run the entire hill that put us at the 5 mile mark on the course! A hill we come in contact with a lot since the Hottest Half had us running around White Rock Lake and so many Dallas races like to include at least a portion of the lake in them. On the way back to that hill where we’d be running the decline Beth noticed a girl squatting off to the side close to the lake. I wonder if she’s ok? Beth was so close to checking on her, did a double take, ooohhhhh, she just has her shorts pulled down going the bathroom. HA! Sometimes when you want to help someone on the course be sure to look twice before it becomes an awkward situation!
So there you have it. Our Hottest Half race…Gross. We have Disneyland Half in a few weeks and we plan on having very different results. We are totally getting back into the swing of things and have a long list of races ahead of us. The inconsistency of our running must get better or these crappy race recap blogs are going to become very difficult to write and we are sure you won’t want to read them. At least we are in this together right?
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?
DRC Bloomin’ 4 Mile Race
June 5, 2012 by · 6 Comments
Yep, you see that right, 4 miles. This was definitely a first for me in terms of race distance. I was slightly nervous because the last 5k we ran, we both wanted/did vomit so I had no real idea about how hard or fast to run 4 miles. I didn’t set any goals, no need. It’s a free race if you are a DRC member and I figured it would be super low key and fun.
Beth ended up getting some kind of stomach bug and was out of work for two days so she decided Saturday morning to sit this one out too. I don’t blame her at all. She texted me early to make sure I knew and was fine. I was nervous because I have never been to a race completely alone before. Eeek! Had to be a big girl and go alone.
Luckily as soon as I got there I saw a familiar face! Jesus, who runs a lot of the hill work with us and is a fellow NTX Runner was in the parking lot getting his stuff ready for a warm-up! While Jesus went out for a warm-up I just hung out in my car. I was way too early. I was there at 7 for an 8 o’clock race because I was worried about my bib. No need, DRC had everything out, organized, and easy to get to!
Eight o’clock sharp the race started. I had decided that I would figure out my pace after I saw how I felt. Mile one was great! Mile 2 felt the same, 3 was ehhh, and 4 was awesome. Here are my splits!
The course was super flat, except for one small area in the middle, but that was nothing compared to our hill work. The weather was awesome in Texas. The sun was fortunately still hiding behind the clouds and there was a slight breeze!
Overall results:
8th in age group
169/497 overall
| Gun: | Chip: | Name | City |
| 0:34:29 | 0:33:55 | Teal Perez | Carrollton |
Jesus snapped these pics at the end! Thanks Jesus!! I actually felt really good, surprisingly good. I haven’t really felt that way in a long time, running lately has been hard for me, I haven’t felt like doing it, and it hasn’t seemed to be coming easy at all, so I was very happy with this race! Hope that feeling continues!
Have you ever run a 4 mile race? What is the craziest distance you have ever run before for a race?
We’re Running in the Rain, Just Running in the Rain
April 17, 2012 by · 17 Comments
Should we get out of the car now? Or wait a few more minutes?
Well, Saturday afternoon the winds started picking up here in Dallas. It never really rained in our neck of the woods that day and even when we went to bed that night it was still dry. By the time we both woke up think the rain hadn’t fully started until it was time to actually drive down to Fair Park. But enough about that let’s just cut to the chase. Here’s how Big D Half went for each of us…
Miles 1-3
Teal: Ugh! Where is a water station when you need it? These first few miles were HOT! I think I had more sweat in these 3 miles then I did during any other stretch of the race. It was hot and humid and the air was seriously thick! I kept coughing because it honestly felt like something was stuck in my throat. I start looking to the sky and thinking where is the rain we’ve been hearing about and if it doesn’t rain I am going to be pissed because I decided to forego buying new shoes because I felt like that would be a dumb idea to run in new shoes in the rain and then feel like they were ruined after one time.
Beth: I didn’t really have a goal in mind for this race because I knew I needed to see how the weather would play out so my goal would be determined out on the course. Somewhere in mile 1 a man asked where the water stops were and I told him I had heard they were few and far between out here. In these miles I saw a man who is a regular with me in spin class and talks to me about my running. He asked me why I wasn’t further up and I told him I was trying! Ha. Teal and I had decided we needed to take advantage of each water stop since we wouldn’t know how the weather would be throughout the race. At the second water station we had to stop and wait for water to be poured in a cup for us.
Miles 4-6
Teal: Not bad but I was worried about being too hot as there was still no sign of rain and I was like, I’m not in the mood to deal with this heat and decided to slow down. Not based on total need just based on me really only going to do what makes me happy right now and that is not run fast in the heat. Happy also meant eating all my gummi bears, which I did! At this point, I was thinking, just do what you feel like, just be happy, and who really cares about the rest. At mile 6.5 the air started to cool and you could see darkening clouds! I kept crossing my fingers!
Beth: I forget when exactly now, but somewhere around 3 or 4 miles I’d seen the 2 hour pacer pass and thought welp, there goes that, but if it’s going to end up being hot this whole time I can live with that. Still have yet to get many runs in while it’s just been HOT outside. At some point running along White Rock Lake a breeze was coming through periodically so I started to feel good and knew I could pick up my game some but that there where still hills to conquer! Even though I had my Runkeeper app going I wasn’t fully aware of where I stood to finish this thing at the pace I was at, but I knew if I wanted it I could possibly bust out another sub two half. Just as we were leaving the lake we had pretty much switched over into a new climate. It was cool! I let out a woohoo!! And the people around me said yes! This feels good! This next part I mention only because it gave me a laugh out there but shortly after this I’m coming up on this muscular guy running without his shirt on and then I see him raise one arm, flex and admire his bicep. Ha! Then I passed him. Ha!
Miles 7-10
Teal: Sweet RELIEF!! The rain hit at 7 and I could not have been happier. Had the crazy humidity kept up it would have been a different story. Everyone around me literally started to cheer! Most people put their hands in the air and you could just tell we all wanted that rain. This excitement died shortly after, and honestly I got a little worried. I didn’t want to deal with lightening or anything and decided to speed it back up and just get off the course. It pretty much rained consistently during these miles!
Beth: After the rain hit in the beginning of mile 7 I knew a sub two half was mine that day I just had work to do to in this last half! The rain was completely exhilarating to me and from there on out I was running happy! I thanked as many police officers and volunteers as I could. I also high fived as many little kids as I could! I just felt awesome so I picked up the pace! Go time!
Miles 11-13.1
Teal: Not bad at all. Not too tired, didn’t feel great but didn’t feel bad. Just wanted dry clothes. I usually count when I run but instead of counting as pace keeping I just decided to repeat the phrase “ dry clothes, dry clothes” as motivation to get this over with! I saw Beth at 13 and she ran a few steps with me and then it was over!
Beth: To me some of this last half truly runs together because I was happy. I was constantly thinking you got this! Let’s get it done! It was also somewhere in here I spotted the 2 hour pace and eventually passed him! YES! Running through numbers in my head and somewhere in here I thought, wait a second, could I get a new PR today?! So I kept pushing. When mile 12 came I knew I’d put in a ton of work and my body could only take so much more pushing. I knew if I did PR it would be a close one and I thought if I don’t I don’t care. I’ve run a strong race and I am so proud of myself! It was kind of nice that Teal and I happened to walk by the 13 mile marker that morning as we made our way to the start and knew just where the finish was.
Teal: Not my best run and not my worst run. I can honestly say I am excited for the break. I have not expected a PR or anything in a while for the simple fact that I have not been training at all. I have done a couple hill work outs and nothing over 2-3 miles randomly besides the hills. I am ready to have time to train, change things up and use the second half of the year to work getting faster and stronger. Continually just running races and using them as “training” is no bueno and does not make you faster! I’m healed now and ready to go. Can’t wait until August when I feel better about doing actual training work and regaining the confidence that I have worked on speed! The break is needed because I really have not felt that huge desire to push!
Beth: I didn’t stop my Runkeeper app right away, but I’d gotten across the start fast and when I crossed the finish line I knew I was in the 1:57 range. I missed my half PR by 34 seconds meaning 34 seconds faster and I would have hit my same exact PR so 35 seconds faster and I’d have a new PR barely. But I didn’t care! I had a good race! Overall, I finished 22 in my age group and 326th in the race. The past few months I had put in a lot of hill work and with just the two short stadium workouts my trainer Johnny has had me do in the last two weeks I had that push in me during the race. Yes, we are taking a few months off from running halfs and I’m excited to take this opportunity to get stronger! I know that I’ll come back in the Fall making sure I conquer my overall goal of having mostly sub two half marathon races.
Once the race was over we wanted to try and see a few people who were running the marathon. After the marathoners hit the mile 26 marker they had to keep running up this road that takes them along the gate of Fair Park and we stationed ourselves where they’d make their last turn into the park. We cheered for a good two hours out there! Ultimately we ended up missing the people we knew, but we managed to see Army Amy as she was closing out her marathon! We still haven’t met you in real life, but it was good to see you out there! You were looking strong, lady! So there you have it our Big D race recap and if you’d asked us 4 months ago after White Rock Marathon if we would ever be grateful to run in the rain again we both would have probably yelled NO!! But the rain made this race bearable!
ZOOMA Zoom Zoom & a Boom Boom!
April 4, 2012 by · 9 Comments
Perhaps if we believed in signs we would have seen this weekend’s madness coming but alas we did not…..
As you may know we had a race this weekend in Austin, the ZOOMA’s [women geared yet men are welcome!] race series half marathon. Because we live in North Dallas we were not able to make the expo so we had to have our bibs mailed, and due to uncontrolled matters Beth did not receive her bib. We were a little worried/stressed but we were able to get that solved [thanks to Tricia for helping us out!]. Teal, worried about chaffing as usual and really wanted to stop at Lululemon for a running skirt. So much so she was willing to try anything (and yes, body glide is not totally working). We stopped, shopped, and then sat down and ate dinner. We actually didn’t leave North Texas until after 8. Whoops?? We arrived in Austin to literally crawl in bed to wake up in less than 6 hours.
We got up, realized we hadn’t prepared food wise for the race and basically were like – Whelp, what can we do? Not a good sign here for us. We had PB sandwiches and shared some Swedish fish left over from our Rock ‘n’ Roll race weekend. Haha.
The race started right on time and it is clear that neither of were really paying all that much attention because as soon as we crossed the start line we had to run up our first of MANY hills.
This one was not too bad, but we kind of looked at each other in a “oh lord, is this a sign of things to come?” way. We knew the race was a “challenging course” per the website, but we really had NO CLUE what we were about to get into, we hadn’t seen or maybe missed an elevation map. So we were completely clueless!!
As you know we both had just come off of pretty successful half’s the week before at RnR Dallas, and it was clear within a mile that our legs were not feeling it. Teal looked at Beth and was said “I feel like a brick” Beth agreed. Crap! We kept running along, Beth decided for fun to keep track of the hills we ran because it was that crazy. After mile two, we had counted 9 hills. We are not talking little ant hills, these things were insane. We started walking up the 9th hill at mile 2. NINTH! Oh crap. We have 11.1 miles left. 13.1 had never seemed so long before to us.
We continued this, “run down, walk up,” business that we are both very sad to admit happened. Because for us, it’s just personal preference for the two of us, but we aren’t run/walkers. There was just no way! We can honestly say that we checked out mentally and our bodies were not there physically, which made matters worse. Oh and maybe we can pour a little salt on the wound with this screen shot of our weather.
Stinking spring humidity in Texas is no joke. There was a breeze but yuck, thick air.
We decided that we would basically not let the 2:20 pacer pass up. 2:20! Good lord! What was happening?? The hills literally just kept coming. Some were so steep that EVERYONE around us walked. We honestly think crawling them would have worked just as well. After the race our trust Runkeeper app informed us that this was our highest elevation EVER. We have used Runkeeper for going on almost a year and a half now.
We had no clue where the course went but luckily we ran (haha!) into this lady in front of us who was running this course for the 4th time. We give her uber props! She said we had about 2 miles out and back then around the golf course on the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines resort. Ok! How bad could that be? Yah, bad. We made it down the 2 miles out and still just felt blah, we walked a little, ran a little, ran up a few hills, but then we were just both so mentally checked out that pushing anything was just terrible.
Beth had miscounted (yep, did we mention mentally checked out??) and thought we had 3 left just as we hit 9. She looks at Teal and was like 5k left. Right? Nope 4. We walked. That is deflating!
We hit the golf course at around 11. This is a mental issue too. We had to do a little “trail” running. We had to run on this mulch stuff that takes every ounce of bounce out of your legs. Teal looked at Beth and said “ I do NOT want to finish.” Luckily, Beth in her logic was like, “you don’t have to, but you’ll still have to go back that way.” UGH. Might as well finish at this point.
We did some more walking. Grrr!! and managed to run it in right around 2:20ish. This marks our worst half marathon to date for each of us. It was bound to happen, we know, but we were still a little blah about the entire thing. This marked our 10th half marathon but really you wouldn’t know it by how it went for us.
We hung out after and were luckily able to grab a glass of wine from the Barefoot Wine garden and met some nice ladies out there! Fun hearing other ladies’ running stories, but ultimately we decided to just get home to Dallas!
Oh, but wait, we consulted the twitterverse as to where in Austin we should get lunch so with the recommendation of a twitter friend we stopped off at Moonshine for lunch. If you are ever in need of a place to eat when you are visiting Austin then store Moonshine in your memory bank! And uhhh, we HAD to stop by an Austin Lululemon and uhhh, we were in Austin we HAD to stop by The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf! Y’all, have we told you we love that place??
We pretty much passed the time in the car singing along to and every CD that Beth had in her car. There might have been some dancing too….
