I'm Back, Baby!

I am officially BACK.  On Sunday, along with several dozen of my friends and thousands of strangers, I ran the "Donna" Breast Cancer Half Marathon.  This was my redemption race post-hysterectomy, and I came back with a bang!

Donna is a race my friends and I have been doing for the last four years because it's awesome - it's a 13.1 mile party with amazing spectators, lots of "beverages" and fun times to be had by all, so I can't think of a better race to make my return to racing.

We flew into Jacksonville on Friday, and Mel and I got to meet our "running guru," Jeff Galloway and chat with him for a few minutes!  He claims to remember us from several events he's done with the Dallas PGL's, but he's also a really nice guy and would probably say that anyway.

Mel & me with Jeff!

Saturday was a bum around the beach kind of day with lots of time with good friends, good food, and good drinks.  We relaxed, walked in the surf, and prepped for the run the next day.

Friends!

View from our balcony

Booze!

                       

Sunday morning, race morning, dawned foggy and slightly chilly (for Florida).  We welcomed the overcast skies as the forecast was for a warm and clear day, which makes for rough running conditions.  The good news is that we weren't taking the race seriously - we were all about the fun, with planned picture, "beverage," and snack stops along the route.

My awesome group of friends pre-race

I'd been training using an interval of 15 second run / 45 second walk, so the plan was just to continue with that and see how it was going.  We had a ton of fun running, and met friends old and new along the course.  

Old friends!

New friends (left) we met on course!

Friendly strangers!

The tough spot is always the last few boring miles heading to the Mayo Clinic, over a huge causeway bridge, but we kept up my run/walk intervals the whole way to the top and stopped to take a quick picture at the crest of the hill.

Mile 12 at the top of the bridge!

We finished strong with a 3:20, which was an over 30 minute course PR for me!

Texas ladies together!

Finished!

 

Then we continued our tradition of using the Atlantic Ocean as a post-race ice bath and consuming even more "beverages," lol. 

Bayou Rum punch bucket!

Ocean ice bath!

10th anniversary medal

I am SO happy to be back to racing and really looking forward to my upcoming spring full of great races and what I know will be more great times with friends!

Photo Recap of the Double Weekend

FIRST ...  SPRINGFIELD, IL

The group in front of Lincoln's Home.

BFF & me with the Lincoln statue at the Illinois Capitol Building

Lincoln group pre-race (It was freezing that morning!)

RP, Nikki, and me finishing Lincoln.

Lincoln group post-race in front of the old state capitol building.

Nikki and me, post-race in Springfield.

Lincoln medal! 

AND NOW...ST. LOUIS!

"Holy Hill" on the Go! St. Louis course means you get a sprinkling of holy water from a priest at the beginning of the ~2 mile hill!

RP, Nikki, and me post-race in St. Louis.

St. Louis group post-race.

Go! St. Louis medal.

The two races together.

Being touristy - going to see the Gateway Arch!

 Going up in the arch!

Building our version of the arch at the St. Louis Science Center.

PRAGUE!!!!

24 days until I leave for PRAGUE (and somebody gets left behind)!!!!!!!!!  Wuhooooo!!!!

Photo Credit HERE.

The Fun of Friendships

Last Saturday was the Baltimore Half Marathon.  Chip time 3:38:33.  Eh.  Not my worst time ever, but a far cry from my best.  The race itself was pretty unremarkable - it was mild but humid, hilly, and just not that great of a race for me   Except for one thing - the group of friends I was running with.  They are pretty darn amazing.

BFF, C!

Whole group

This year my goal was to "find the fun" again.  I have not concentrated on time, speed, etc. much at all, I've just kept looking for the elusive joy that running used to bring.  I'm still searching for that magic that the running itself brings, but I have at least found the motivation to keep on moving on...my running friends.

My training group, my running friends, and my race partners - all of you are the reason I take that first step on every run and onto every race course.  And I can't thank you guys enough!!!  Huge HUGS from me to y'all!

There are, of course, as always, still the secondary benefits, which are pretty awesome, too:  Medals & Post-Race Food!

Done!

Post-race crabcake!

Hard cider distillery!

Group spoils from the Maryland wine trail

#12 in the Books!

At some point I hope to get a race report up, but I'm so far behind on recaps it's not even funny.  So for now a picture will have to be worth a thousand words!  This one was a little harder than even I anticipated - hilly and it warmed up quickly (surprising in Seattle!).  But I had a fun time running with a friend, and I always love new bling - especially bling that depicts the city I visited!

Don't Worry, They Took Out the Big Hill

The R'n'R Seattle Half is just around the corner - literally - it's this weekend!  Emails are flying around with last-minute race instructions from the race director, and frantic group planning of dinners/meet-ups/etc is going on.

So...maybe it's finally time to really study the course, right?  Now, I will freely admit that I'm not "racing" this one - I'm just there to have fun, enjoy the scenery, and bask in the cooler temperatures of the pacific northwest.  And I'd had a few friends tell me "don't worry - they changed the course and took out the big hill," so that seemed encouraging.  And then I saw this:

And then the math nerd in me took over and needed to crunch some numbers... According to the elevation profile above, that hill just before mile 9 looks like this:

8.69mi = 57ft el.

8.82mi = 270ft el.

213ft el. gain in 0.13mi  = 31% grade

Wowsah!!!

Well, good thing I didn't have any big plans for the course, LOL!  And while that hill may be a bugger, I'm still really looking forward to this race.

As most of you know from reading previous posts, I've purposefully taken a more relaxed approach to racing this spring in order to "find the fun" again.  And I think it's working!

Excuses...and Planning!

credit: http://lifelivedfully.com

Wow.  Life has been crazy lately!  Sorry about the lack of posts - too much to do!  Also, there's a distinct lack of wanting to do anything at all when I do find myself with an odd moment of free time...oops.  Work is busy, group training's in full swing, and I'm in the middle of a big project for a friend's wedding gift.  As a result, my house looks like I've had squatters living in it for weeks (no joke - it's embarrassing - no one's allowed over to visit right now).

But, it's an exciting time!  Looking past my mile-long "to-do" list and fuller-than-usual calendar, there's a light at the end of this tunnel!  Rock'n'Roll Seattle is fewer than two weeks away at this point.  Woot!

Saturday was my last long run for this race, so now I'm in full taper mode.  My co-PGL (pace group leader) has been awesomely accommodating by helping me get in some extra mileage the last few weeks, so I've been able to stay on track with my long runs.  Even though I only got up to 10 miles this time around, I had a very strong progression up, so I'm feeling good about my training overall (especially since this one's a "go and have fun" race as opposed to a "goal" race).

Adding to the chaos, BFF and I are in full planning mode for the trip, too.  Emails, texts, and FB messages are flying fast and furiously between cities!  We have quite a few running friends from around the country converging on Seattle with us, as well as an old college friend who lives there that we're meeting up with, so planning's a bit wonky, but it's going to be a great weekend!

So I'm offering all of this up as an excuse for why I'll probably still be skimping on posts for the next few weeks...except the "Thoughtful Thursday" posts - those will continue - I hope y'all are enjoying them as much as I am!  

Good news, however - I can report that although posting on the blog has suffered the past few weeks, I've not let myself drop my weekday runs like I typically have in the past when life got crazy, so I'm super proud of that - and I know it's one of the big reasons why my weekend long runs have been going so well.  So yay for that!

Q4U:  When life gets crazy busy, what do you let drop?  Are runs sometimes one of those things, or is running a "must-do" for you?

Finishing Last is Not the Worst!

You may remember the post I did back in January about RunDisney celebrating everyone.  Turns out they're not the only race that does it, and they are by far not the only race that does it with a certain amount of pomp and circumstance!

My friend David (who some of you might remember meeting in my blog post about my very first Marathon - at DisneyWorld) ran the Rome Marathon last weekend.  He just happened to have finished last. But he was greeted and treated like the winner!  And they have it all on video!  Check out this quick clip of his finish and short interview after.  Complete and total awesomeness.  Plus, the video's gone a bit viral online - how cool is that?

credit: http://video.ilmessaggero.it/index.jsp?videoId=5322&sectionId=13&t=l-ultimo-attleta-che-taglia-il-traguardo

Marine Corps = Hard Core!

I finished the Marine Corps Marathon!  It was incredibly hard, but incredibly awesome.  My friend Janice and I barely made it through the gauntlet, and only beat the bridge with a couple minutes to spare, but we made it!  A full race recap will be up soon (hopefully), but I wanted to share that I finished!  I have this picture from after the finish to tide you over until I am able to post again.

Janice (left) & me (right) in front of the Marine Corps Memorial after finishing MCM.

Also, yes, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, I did get stuck in D.C. until Wednesday at noon, but finally made it home safe and sound and unscathed!

Wait, HOW Long 'Til We're There?

 

HOW many days???

141 DAYS!!!

After dozens and dozens of phone calls, endless minutes on hold, and with the help of several friends, by the end of the day on Monday I had a secured a dinner reservation at the yet-to-be-opened Be Our Guest restaurant in the newly expanded Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World for the Monday night after the marathon!

 

In what has become my family's post-Disney-race-tradition, we will spend the Monday after the WDW Marathon at the Magic Kingdom, showing off our medals and soaking in a little Disney "magic."  We usually indulge in a "splurge" meal at one of the table-service restaurants in the park that day as well, and in recent years that restaurant has been The Crystal Palace.  But this year we figured what better way to celebrate earning our newest Disney medals than in Disney's newest restaurant?  There has been so much media surrounding the new Fantasyland Expansion that my excitement has been building for years.  Can't wait to experience the new Beauty and the Beast restaurant ourselves!

 

As the fervor of excitement over actually getting the reservation on the day and time we wanted waned, it led to thoughts of the next trip...and checking countdown...the next visit to the mouse isn't for another 141 DAYS!!!  Sadness.  No real time for sadness, however!  There's lots going on between now and then.  And I know that our next awesome Disney trip will be here before we know it!

 

 

Do you have any destination-race traditions?  Something you have to do or someplace you have to go pre- or post-race when you're running out of town?

Where to Begin?

I have so many things I'm excited about right now, I don't even know where to begin!

First, RunDisney revealed the new 20th Anniversary WDW Marathon medal today!  It's in color, it spins, and it has two great Walt Disney quotes etched into it.  I CANNOT wait to get my hands on this thing!  I'm already anticipating bawling like a baby when I cross the finish line and receive the medal.  So many of my ROTE friends are running Mickey this year, too, so we're basically planning one big rolling party at the "back of the pack."  It's going to be epic.  Only 152 days to go!

 As an additional bonus, they also updated the RunDisney website - go check it out!  The new pages are much better organized and intuitive, with all the info you could want/need within a few easy clicks!

Second, Marine Corps is now only 75 days away.  10 weeks from this Sunday.  I have to admit that my excitement over this one is definitely heightened by fear.  The time requirement is still scaring the bejeezus out of me...  But when I start freaking out about it, I try to calm myself down by repeating the mantra of the marines "Earned Never Given."  And I know that if I can stand in front of a marine at that finish line then that will be a defining moment in my life.  That knowledge makes me excited for a weekend that also terrifies me - oxymoronic, I know, but hey - that's pretty typical me.

Third, my online running group, Running of the Ears, just made a "gear" order, and I bought a new tech shirt, a tech tank, and a logo Tshirt.  They look so great!  I took the new tech shirt on a 9 mile test run on Saturday and it felt comfortable and wicked wonderfully!  Looking forward to being part of the "sea of red" that ROTE promises to be at all the Disney races this year! 

Lastly, I still have a little bit of a "happy hangover" from San Francisco.  Rather than hanging up my two half medals and the "Half It All Challenge" medal on my medal rack, they are still sitting out on my kitchen counter, where I can see them and smile every day.  I'll even pick up the challenge medal and spin it a bit and it gives me the warm fuzzies.  Can't believe it's been two and a half weeks already!  And yes, I know I still need to do a race report - I'm using waiting on pics from my mom as an excuse.

And, oh yeah!  Training's still going well.  Nine miles last Saturday morning (should've been 8.5 per the map, but we missed a turn and had to backtrack a bit...ooops).  Last week I got in 3 bootcamp strength training sessions, my two short runs, and my long run.  This week I seem to be on track for another successful completion of my weekday training plan.  And...Saturday has a 19-20 miler on tap.  Whew.  That'll be a big hurdle to get over!

Anticipating Destination Racing

While I'm waiting for my motivation to return (yes, it's still MIA), I've had plenty of time to think about my upcoming races - especially those that I'm really looking forward to.  Sure, I've got a half here in Dallas next weekend, and a half in San Antonio this fall, but what's got me positively giddy with excitement?  It's my destination racing schedule for 2012:

• Run For the Dream Patriot's Challenge - Williamsburg, VA
• San Francisco 2nd Half Marathon  - San Francisco, CA
• Marine Corps Marathon - Washington D.C.
  
  

Very cool, no?  And the best part is that I have friends and/or family running each race, so not only do I get the excitement of traveling to a fun location, but I can hang out and run with people I have fun with!  Sure, I'm worried about time limits on San Francisco (just like last year) and MCM, but I know that with some serious training and help from friends along the way I can get there.

The Patriot's Challenge race combo is just going to be a fun "girl's weekend" with some awesome ladies from one of my running groups - no pressure, just a good time and a special medal for running both races.  San Francisco is the 2nd half of the course that I started last year, and I get to run with a friend and get a special medal for completing the Half It All Challenge (noticing a trend?).  Lastly, MCM is a race I've wanted to do from the minute I first heard about it - it's known as "the people's marathon" and is supposed to be incredible - I can't wait to run with yet another friend and experience it together!

I appreciate the help y'all have given me with the motivation issue - I'm hoping it'll show back up fairly soon.  But for now, I am keeping the dream alive by eagerly anticipating and planning for these great races that I have on the schedule!

Psst - I actually got a 3 mile run in on the treadmill this evening!  A mid-week run!  That's practically a miracle these days...  Of course, it helps that I ordered a new SparkleSkirt and HAD to try it out.  If that's what it takes to get my rear going, then I might just have to sacrifice and get myself some cute new skirts as motivation...hehehehe.