Challenge DAY 7 - One Week In & A Reminder

Today is Day 7 of the Run Halfway December 2012 Challenge!  We are one week in, and everyone is doing GREAT!  Keep going strong!!!

Just a reminder - it's a DAILY Challenge!  For those of you that have had to skip a day, I appreciate the intent behind "making up" mileage, but remember that the point is to get out there every day in December.  If you've missed one day, don't give up - start the streak anew and see how many days in a row you can get - hopefully you can keep going until the end of the month!  Keep posting on the event FB page, just re-start your day count with whatever your first day back was!

I'm so impressed and encouraged by y'alls participation.  Seeing everyone's accomplishments each day is awesome and I'm so glad we're all on this journey together!

Once you've logged your mile on DAY 7 of the challenge, this Accomplishment Badge is yours, and it will be available to share on both FB and Twitter!

• Get your Facebook Accomplishment Badge HERE.
• Tweet this badge and your accomplishment using #RunHalfwayChallenge!

My Medal Tree

The idea of Christmas "Medal Trees" has really boomed this year, but I attribute my first knowledge of the trees to my friends Steph and Dana, who have been doing their own medal trees for a while now.  I really wanted to create my own last year, but didn't have enough medals to cover the tree.  This year, thanks to the "Year of Bonus Bling" I had the amount I needed.  

I also ended up supplementing the medals with 4"x4" bib ornaments that I made out of my 20 favorite race bibs.  I think it turned out really well, and I'm so proud of it that I had to share!

In placing each medal on the tree, I realized that there's not a huge variety of race locations represented by these medals, and that I should probably branch out a bit (pardon the tree-related pun):

• 6 Texas medals
• 6 Florida medals
• 5 California medals
• 4 Virginia medals
• 1 virtual race medal

Looking at my race calendar for next year, I'll be adding 2 more Florida medals, 1 California "medallion," 1 Washington State medal, and 1 Maryland medal.  Apparently I have a "thing" for racing on the coasts if I'm not racing at home.

Believe! 2012 Race Recap

When my grandma accepted my invitation to come visit me the weekend after Thanksgiving, I knew I needed to find some kind of fun run or walking event we could do together so that she could really get the feel of what my running life is like.  I found the Believe! 2012 event in a nearby city, which included a 1 Mile fun walk on Saturday morning - it was perfect!  So I registered us both and picked up our packets early that week.

Looking at the weather forecast on Friday evening, we realized it was going to be much colder than my grandma had expected, so I loaned her quite a few of my cold weather gear running items (including my compression pants that fit her like normal pants - she's tiny!) to layer underneath and on top of her outfit for the next morning as well as a scarf and hat set.  After watching Spirit of the Marathon, we both headed to bed early because it had been a long day of traveling and we needed to get up early the next morning for the race.

Saturday morning dawned clear and cold at 29°!  We headed out about 7am, and after parking a few blocks away in a designated lot, Grandma and I walked to the City Square where the start & finish lines were.  There was quite a bit of activity for a relatively small race, and the race mascot was out taking pictures with everyone, so of course we grabbed a quick pic with him.  We cheered on the 10K runners as they started their race and watched the kids to the Santa Chase, then lined up behind the 5K runners to start our walk.

While we waited at the start, Grandma kept telling me that if I wanted to take off and run then I should, but I reassured her that I wanted to do the race with her, and we'd go at whatever pace she felt comfortable.  So off we went and we were quickly left in the dust at the back of the pack with the families with kids walking, which actually made for a great race.  None of us realized that it was actually quite a hilly course - with one monster hill (for our area) on both the out-and-back portions!  Just as we were finishing the 1 Mile, the speediest 10K finishers were coming through, so that was fun to see and cheer them on to their finish.

We didn't stick around very long after we finished because even though it had warmed up considerably with the sun rising, it was still cold!  So we walked back through the square and stopped in at a small cafe we'd seen earlier to grab some breakfast and coffee to "refuel" after the race and warm up.  Grandma was a fast believer in splurging on a  post-race breakfast!

It was a fun and well-organized race and next year I think I'll do one of the longer distances - I'll just need to remember to train for those hills!