I think I CAN!

I think the breast cancer marathon is one of the best organized most woman friendly marathon I’ve ever been to.  There are potties and water at every stop.  There is also more gu offered more often on the race course then you can imagine.  The post race amenities are fantastic.

I ran the half marathon as I’m a bit burned out on marathons at the moment.  My old running buddies from VA were t here and brought a new lady with them.  She was running her first race so we paired up together.  The poor thing had to listen to me rattle on all race. J

The race is mostly an out and back.  The half marathoner s spend  1.5-2 miles running on the beach.  I’m still undecided if I like that.  The breeze was nice and the view was beautiful.  Alas, it added nearly 30 seconds per half mile according my Garmin.

After the beach stretch the half marathoners turn around and head back on the streets.  The fan support is amazing.  Folks are lined up all over the streets cheering their hearts out.  It was odd but I really didn’t want the race to end. 

There is a bridge overpass on the way back to the finish line.  By  this time several people are doing the death march.  I realized that doing a half marathon instead of the full left me with plenty of energy to pass folks and make it look easy.  Sort of the way Nevels looped me at the MIBM race last  summer. J

We finished the race and headed to the runners area for a beer.  As it was getting warm we decided to take a picture of us drinking a beer and text it out to our friends still running the marathon.  The caption read, “Ha  ha, you are still running”.  Isn’t it amazing what a beer will make you do?

Our track club started their first track session in my neck of the woods.  Sweet.  Today’s workout:

1 mile warm up

6 x 30 second striders

2 x 800 repeats

2 x 1200 repeats

1 x 1600

1 mile cool down.

Holy cow, how can something be both really fun AND really awful at the same time??!!??  All I know is that I’m looking forward to doing it again next Tuesday.

5:30 AM at 22 degrees.  Carolyn in CO how in the world do you do that?  It is cold and EARLY!!!

I told my neighbor that I'd run with  her....even if it did mean early mornings.  We did our hilly route for 4.25 miles.  It was a really good run even if it was chilly!

I took my daughter to a 5K today.  It was one of those very well publicized races with just under 2000 people.  I had picked up our race packet the day before.  This was actually a really good thing as she dragged her feet in the morning and we got to the race start line just as the gun went off. 

All was going good until 1/10 of a mile into it.  She realizes that the silly rubberband thingy  on her wrist was gone.  She begins to freak out on me.  She tells me she wants to go back to the start line and find it.  Well being mean mommy I let  her know that we are in a race and we do NOT go backwards for a silly rubberband thingy.  The next mile and a half goes like this: whine, cry, angry outburst, more whine, more whine, more whine.  Finally a water stop.  This gives me a 25 seconds of silence as she drank her water. 

I took this opportunity to speed her up some as all that whine really killed our pace.  Funny enough, you can't gripe when you are panting and sucking wind.  Did I mention I'm mean mommy?

Somewhere after mile 2 she gets into race mode.  She buckles down and focuses on passing people.  This is our best mile of the race.  We come to the finish  line and there are several hundered people on each side of the road cheering.  My daughter breaks into a full sprint and finally crosses the finish line and runs straight to the goodies table for cookies, chips, and soda.  Wow, she really is a chip off the old block.