Marine Corps Historic Half expo

Well tomorrow is the Marine Corps Historic Half.  It really is not my favorite half because of all of the hills.  If you haven't figured it out yet I hate hills!  I ran it last  year and hated all of the running up up up!  So hopefully this year since I know what to expect I will not be as crabby to those hills!  The nice thing is that the Marines always put on a great race, so I'm not expecting any horrid things to happen (like long lines for bag check, portapotties or anything of the like)  I do love the people dressed up in ye' old days and doing some colonial dancing in Historic Fredericksburg.   I mean who doesn't love a good colonial dance?  I'm hoping to finish this race with a smile on my face..that is my only goal.  I haven't been the greatest on my running this month...so I will take what I can get out of those hills.  I still have to look up my time from last year but if I recall it was horrible,so I guess I am hoping to beat that time too..we will see..

I headed down to Fredericksburg this morning to pick up my packet.

Drove in under the Finish Line!  

Drove out under the Starting Line!

Packet pickup was super easy and pretty quick.  I purchased a glass since I also got a glass last year and it has turned out to be the favorite for all of my drinks!  I did get some new body glide and some shot blocks.  Can't go wrong with those purchases.  The expo had many charities to see and some races to sign up for.  

I headed out of the expo and went to the mall to look around to see what they had.  Didn't really end up with much.  I got back in my car and headed home.  I before actually getting home I decided to stop at Five Guys to grab a burger.  I love protein the night before a race.  I normally will get a burger or steak for dinner.  Not sure how smart the Five Guys burger was but I guess I will see tomorrow.  I am not normally a greasy Five Guys kinda gal, but I wanted a burger.  

Hopefully the rain holds off for tomorrow and I get to run in semi dry clothes.

Color Me Rad

I have not fallen off of the end of the world..I'm still alive..I'm breathing..and all of that good stuff.  I have not posted or checked on blogs for two weeks..I'm going through withdrawal !!  It is rolling up to the end of the school year, which means busy, busy, busy!  Between trying to get stuff done and home..gardening and work..I've been coming home just exhausted.  Hopefully I'm now over it..we will see.  I'm back now though!

Two weeks ago I went down to see Kristi, Shawn and the nieces to run The Color Me Rad..it is a family tradition (who knew when we ran it for the first time last year it would then become a tradition!) I headed down on Saturday and enjoyed a fun filled day hanging out with everyone.  Kristi made lots of yummy food over the weekend.  We had some yummy baked ziti and some sangria to go with it.

After dinner we headed to packet pickup, which to my surprise was super easy this year!  Last year Shawn and I waited for over an hour to pick up our packet, Kristi and I walked right up and out this year.  I should have known from the ease of packet pick up that it was going to be a great run!

Last year I ran with Ali.  I ran with her because she just took off and I figured someone should keep up with the second grader..so we ran it together.  This year Ali was  bit disappointed to learn that everyone was going to run together..which meant that everyone also got to run with Aunt Pam!

Tori and Aunt Pam can't wait to start to run Color Me Rad

All clean

This year the kids wore goggles..no devil eyes for them!

If you remember from last year, I had the color get in my eye and my contact soaked it up...

Yep a bit of devil eyes..  Well the good news is that I did not get any color in my eyes.  I did run through the color with my hands covering the side of my sunglasses.  Because I did that I must have looked like I was a bit frightened of the color so I don't think that the volunteers put very much color on me..I'm sure they were thinking look at the crazy girl scared of some corn starch!  Although to be fair, they didn't get any of us as color soaked as last year.  Last year it was crazy how much color we came home with.  We were just a mess.  This year it seemed like the perfect amount of mess.  

We ended up all staying pretty much together.  I did realize that if I wanted to do sprints I need to take those little girls with me on a run.  It was like a bunch of jack rabbits!  Walk then sprint ahead..then walk and sprint ahead.  At one point Kate went flying past me and I commented to the five year old..your sister is fast..well Tori felt that was an invitation to see how fast she could run and yep..I was off on a sprint.  

Shawn and Kristi enjoying all of the color

Everyone had fun running!

Music, color cornstarch flying..time to dance!

 It was a great day for Color Me Rad!  We had no parking problems..it was a bit chilly to start with, but turned out to be perfect running weather.  No devil eyes.  Everyone ran together and had fun and lots of color on everyone.  Couldn't ask for a better running day!

After the run Kristi, Tori and myself headed over to the strawberry patch to pick some fresh strawberries.  Nothing beats some fresh picked strawberries!

It was a bit chilly but once you started to pick you were fine.  And the lovely donkey in the background didn't mind us picking strawberries either!

Next up Marine Corps Historic Half

April..glad you are gone and randomness

So looking at my running totals for April, it was not a great running month.  I ran the least amount during April.  Why?  Not really sure.  Could be because I was not feeling great for a week and my parents were here over a weekend which always throws off my running.  Who knows, but hopefully May will look a lot better.

I ran Sunday at Burke Lake with Becky.  It was a beautiful day for a run.  While we were running we past a girl and she ended up running with us most of the time.  The funny thing was that I know that Becky was hoping that she wouldn't pass us.  I knew Becky wanted to slow up a bit, but didn't want this girl to pass us so she kept up the faster pace.  Oh Becky!  Turns out that she was using us to help keep her pace.  We ended up chatting with her a bit and then dropped her off near where she started since she was a bit confused where she started out at the lake.  She was there with some friends who were walkers and she decided that she wanted to run some.  I guess it turned out that we were good for her and she was good for us too!  Great when you meet new people while running!

Tuesday was run club as usual.  I got there and figured I was the only one from our table running in the rain.  Yes I said rain, I was running in the rain.  I did tell Gary that I could easily be talked out of running since it was such a crappy night.  But I sucked it up and went for the run.  Turned out I had a pretty decent run.  Jen showed up as we were taking off, but she wasn't running since she banged up her knee at work that day.  Looks like I was on my own.  Well not really there were other runners, just nobody really running with me.

We took off and yikes!  One of the guys (I'm assuming it was the guys) really stunk!  Is it bad to say that?  I know we are runners and sometimes we are a bit nasty.  (Hello!  My group runs in 100 degree weather, sweats and heads into a bar to stink up the joint! ha!)  But really no reason for that kind of stank that was wafting towards me at the beginning of the run.  I can understand afterwards, but really we haven't run more than 50 feet.  So I decided to try and pass some people to get away from the odor.  The problem was that the two guys that I was convinced that one was the problem started passing people too.  Ugh!  Finally they went ahead and I had some fresh air.

I had a pretty good run.  I did realize that I run faster than a 6 month pregnant girl but also the same pace as some 80 year old men.  Yeah I have some serious speed!  Although I will say that normally the 6 month prego girl is usually super fast when she is not carrying around another life.

Got back to the bar and found out that I wasn't the only one from our table, people just decided to show up later.  Glad I wasn't sitting solo at the table. :)

This weekend I have Color Me Rad with the nieces and Kristi and Shawn.  Should be fun as long as I don't get the red eye like I did last year.  I am sure that I will have a great time!  Kristi has deemed it a new family tradition to run the Color Me Rad race.  How can you not when people are throwing color at you and you are surrounded by crazy people!

Real Whiticar returns

I met my friend Whiticar two years ago in June.  How do I remember when I met Whiticar?  Well pretty easy, we met while volunteering at the Northface Endurance Race.  Becky and Whiticar were partners in crime marking and keeping track of the marathon runners. Becky mentioned that he should come running at Run Club and voila! 

Whiticar is hanging out behind Becky

I guess he had so much fun hanging out with us that he decided to come to Run Club!

Whiticar started to become a regular runner at run club.  He is a great guy and we loved hanging out with him.  Some Tuesdays he would run a bit longer since he was training for his first Marine Corps Marathon.  

Well we couldn't let Whiticar run without cheering him on and making a sign for him at the Marine Corps Marathon!

He did great! Go Whiticar Go!!

Well turns out that Whiticar wasn't going to be such a regular at run club anymore.. he was getting deployed to Afghanistan!  We would miss our friend Whiticar!  

 So we had a farewell and good luck dinner/drinks to wish Whiticar well.  While he was gone, we made some flat Whiticars to run with.  This way that it will be like Whiticar is running with us.

Becky, Megan and myself all had our own Flat Whit to run races with.  It was a great way to keep in touch with real Whiticar.  We would post our running with Flat Whit to facebook and run some races with Flat Whit.  Flat Whit even became a flat Half Fanatic!  Yeah he had lots of races last year. :)

Well Flat Whit is now retired.  No more racing for him because look who is back!!!!

Yep, real Whit is back!  So great to see a friend come back to Run Club!  

Welcome Home Whiticar!

GW Parkway Classic Volunteers at your service!

This morning I woke up before dawn not to run a race, but to volunteer at a race.  Today was my first water stop volunteering job.  Sure I've marked bibs on endurance athletes,, handed out candy to marathon runners, but never have I handed a runner water. Runclub was volunteering at the GW Parkway Classic 10 miler.  So I decided to sign up for a job.  We showed up well before the first runner toed the start line.

Bill and Megan unloading the truck.

Becky on Garbage duty.

We set up tables and loaded up lots of cups with water and Gatorade.  Ah the sticky messy Gatorade..I was hoping not to deal with this product.  I can't stand the sticky mess.  I also hate to run through where Gatorade has been..my shoes always stick to the ground.  ugh!  Turns out this morning I dealt with the Gatorade with little problem.  

Lots of runners were out today.  It was fun handing out the Gatorade to them (yep that is what I handed out the drink I was trying to avoid).  We were so popular that our side of the road ran out of Gatorade.  

People were so jealous of my rake and my jacket.  When I stop teaching I think I may work on a road crew..the bright yellow really brings out the blonde in my hair.  

 It was wonderful seeing so many runners supporting Boston.  Lots of signs for Boston.  Runners are great! I also loved the fact that so many runners thanked us for volunteering! The water stop went by pretty quickly and before you know it I was raking up cups.

As I was raking look who I saw coming down the road....

 Yep the juggler is back!  Ugh...  I guess I don't have to worry about him now.

We loaded up the trucks and we were finished.  Poor Becky had a run in with a dolly and unfortunately the dolly won.  Came up and smacked her on her forehead.  So Megan and Becky were stopping off at Patient First to make sure she would survive.  Don't worry she has a hard noggin' :)  

So glad I spent this Sunday morning hanging with some of my running friends!  

On another note, I have my first runners tan going on.  I have a lovely red  V on my neck along with some red arms.  Next time I need to remember to wear some sunscreen.  

once again..

Once again I didn't eat properly the night before a longer run..grrr...I know! I know!  I said that I learned my lesson a few weeks ago about eating right the night before a run.  Sometimes it takes me a few times for the lesson to sink in.

Last night some of us headed over to a co-workers house for happy hour.  I wasn't planning on staying too long so I wasn't worried about food.  I had some cheese and crackers and chips and salsa.  Really the stuff that dinner is made of :)  And of course I washed it down with some beer..didn't want the crackers to get stuck in my throat! :)

I knew when I woke up this morning that I was in trouble.  I felt sluggish and just didn't want to head out the door to run.  I knew I should have eaten dinner last night.  Oh well, lesson learned again!  I headed out after lunch.  My legs felt heavy and tired.  It really was the first run after a few weeks of no real running.  (I'm not counting my 3 miles on Tuesday nights for run club)  I wanted to try out my new fuel belt that I purchased for  marathon running...I can't see me running 26.2 miles with a handheld.  Well turns out that the fuel belt and bottles are not that bad.  I was picturing a lot worse.  My main problem is getting the freakin' bottles off of the belt.  Guess you know what I will be practicing doing.  Then I also have problems with putting the bottle back in place too. It turned out to be rather funny.

I ended up getting in 6 1/2 miles of running.  Not bad considering that I was super tired during the run.  Note to self, eat dinner!

Tomorrow I will be volunteering at the GW Parkway 10 miler.  Should be fun!  It will be my first time working a water stop.  Love supporting Runners!

Good People

Tragedy can happen anywhere and at anytime.  Monday was supposed to be one of those days where you have to pinch yourself to remind yourself that it was real.  Marathon Monday!  Many people have this race on their bucket list.  Runners trained months to qualify for Boston and many were running for their first time.  Then the unthinkable happened.  I sat watching the coverage along with everyone else not quite able to wrap my head around what had happened.  How can you ruin people's perfect day?  How can you cause so much trauma to runner's support systems (family and friends) and in many cases to peoples legs.  The very thing that just carried them 26.2 miles!  It just baffles me!

As I was talking to different people on Tuesday, I realized that you can't focus on the bad things in life..but the good that comes out of life.  I know easier said than done since I wasn't there.  One co-worker asked me how the running community was feeling after Monday.  My answer, the same as most people, shocked, sad, angry.  Another co-worker told me how mad she was, to which I told her you can't focus on the bad.  Bad things happen and there is not much we can do.  What you need to focus on was the fact that it was amazing how quickly people responded.  How after running 26.2 miles a doctor turned around after he finished and dug deep to help where needed.  People came together Monday afternoon and helped each other out.  Shop keepers were giving runners orange juice as they were huddled on the sidewalk in shock. It was a great reminder of how awesome runners and people in general can be.  It is easy to focus on a bad decision we have made, or something bad that happened, but sometimes we just have to focus on the good. Sometimes we learn the most about ourselves and others when we are faced with the unexpected.  We have the opportunity to choose how we deal with both good and bad things that happen in life.  It is always easy to accept the praise and awards whether it is from a race well ran, a new PR or a job well done.  What may be a bit more difficult is to look for the good in a dark time.  Well, looks like many runners are looking for the good.  Tonight I went to run at run club.  We had a moment of silence before we took off.  I wore one of my many race t'shirt in honor of Boston.

There is something just great about hanging out with runners!  My friend Rob talked about how I shouldn't be nervous for my first full and that I will do great!  We also talked about how I'm not a hugger but I do hug at run club.  Something about friendly runners makes me more comfortable with hugs!

My friend David got his shirt from running 10 runs at run club!  He was very excited!

All of this reminds me that I am proud to call myself a runner!