Run, Walk, Crawl, Finish

You only get to run your first ½ marathon once, and this is my experience.  It’s a LONG post, but enjoy!

On Sunday, December 4^th, 2011 I finished the La Porte by the Bay Half Marathon over and back the Fred Hartman Bridge in La Porte, TX.  You will remember my first 5k that I ran the entire way (I had always walked before) on my 29^th B-Day.  So only 5 months later I completed a ½ marathon. If I can do it, so can you!  One of my friends Krista ran it with me (she also ran my first 5K with me). I completed a ½ marathon and I ran the entire time except at water stations and once on top of the bridge for less than 100 feet. 

Let’s back up to the day before:

I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget anything so I made a checklist.  (Yes, I am O.C.D., how did you know?).  It was filled with the things I needed to bring like my bib, body glide (love that stuff), iPod, fuel, etc.  I am glad I made it because I needed all that stuff to succeed! J

My friend Shannon made me a shirt that said I <3 Sweat and blinged it out for me with my name on the back. I loved it!

My original plan for dinner was to make pasta with tomato sauce and chicken.  I made it for lunch and it didn’t turn out very well so we decided to go to CiCi’s pizza and carbo-load.  I ate lots of pizza!

For breakfast I ate my usual bagel with sunflower seed butter and a banana. 

When Mandy got to my house she made me a glitter sign and I made a sign for Krista and Nicky (who was unable to race do to illness-get well Nicky!)

Krista texted me these signs that she made.  Love them!

Me and Krista before the race.  We look determined to finish! 

Mandy, Brooklyn, Ginger, and Tyler all left to go to mile 3 and Krista and I went to the starting area where it started sprinkling.  They sang the national anthem and counted down.  We were off!

Miles 1- 3-Nothing to spectacular happened in miles 1-2, but each mile I started to chant only 12 miles to go, only 11 miles to go, only 10 miles to go! I saw Mandy, Brooklyn, Tyler, and Ginger at Mile 3 and took a Gu and some of my Nuun from my water bottle.  I loved my signs!  I really need to work on how to take good race photos…I looked horrible and this was only at mile 3! 

Mile 4 and 5-Mile 4 was right before the bridge and guess what?  It started raining!  Yep, rain.  Boo!  Mile 5 began the ascent onto the bridge.  It was a climb!   Yes, I did get out my phone and took a pic. J

Mile 8(ish)-After one side of the bridge you went around a loop and you go back up the bridge. On the loop I ate a pack of sports beans and had some water. At the end of the loop, guess who I saw?  Santa!!!! 

Mile 10-By Mile 10 I was soooo ready to be done.  I saw the sign right after I finished the bridge and told myself it’s only a 5k, you’ve done a ton of those!  At the water station I refilled two of my water bottles with Gatorade and kept going.  I also met someone that looked like she was about to pass out.  I chatted with her a bit and asked if she needed some Gu.  I was planning on taking it myself at around mile 11, but she looked like she needed it more.  I told myself that there were pickles and oranges in my bag at the finish line, in addition to other food, and to just wait.  It started raining again about this time…hard! 

Mile 12-Mile 12 is when it hit me that I was about to finish my first ½ marathon.  Wow!  You make a goal for yourself on a list months ago and you train (and train, and train) for this one goal for months and finally you get to see it happen.  It was emotional (I’m a nerd!) and I kind of got choked up. Makes you wonder what all you can accomplish if you work on it.

Mile 13.1-I turned the corner and could see that big green inflatable finish line and I was so excited.  WOW!  Mile 12 I knew I was going to finish, but I was secretly hoping that I wouldn’t trip or something (which happens a lot), but I knew if I did I would CRAWL to that finish line.  I didn’t have to though because I saw Mandy, Brooklyn, Ginger, and Tyler about 100 feet in front of the finish line holding the signs up for me and cheering me on.  A little bit further I saw Oscar and Erika cheering, and then I saw my Dad and Pie.  I heard the announcer call my name and city as I crossed the finish line and a volunteer placed my medal in my hand.  I earned that sucker!

Immediately after I crossed my legs and knees started hurting and cramping.  Pie kept telling me to keep walking and stretch my legs, but all I wanted was water, food and to see my friends/family.  Erika and Oscar came and said congrats then had to leave pretty much right after so Erika could finish some work stuff ß I am sad that I didn’t get a picture with them. L

Then we met back up with Mandy, Brooklyn, Tyler, Krista and Ginger and found food.  At first the line was too long so I ate one of my pickles (Brooklyn ate the other one!) and Pie got me a sausage on a stick. (Super yummy!).  Then the line got shorter and I had 2 pieces of pizza and another ½ of the sausage on a stick.  I tried to eat the rice and beans but they were not good.

My official time 2:53:29, a 13:08 minute per mile average.

Pie, Dad, Me.

The after…

The medal is now hanging up on my racing bulletin board.  I need more race stuff because it looks bare. 

The Recovery Process-How do you recover from a ½ Marathon?  Take the next day off to have a Massage, eat Mexican food, and drink margaritas of course!

I had bought a Groupon for a massage a few months ago and I used it on Monday.  It felt soooo nice, afterwards I went to a Mexican food restaurant and filed up on carbs Mexican food and a margarita.  Yummy.

Final Thoughts:  I cannot wait to run another one, they are addicting!  Yes, my legs hurt, and sometimes I complained that I didn’t want to do a long run on a Saturday morning, but nothing beats the feeling of finishing a huge race.  I did run the entire way except at water stops where I didn’t wan to choke on the water or get an air bubble in my stomach and once on the bridge for less than 100 feet. 

I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to these people for supporting me at the race:

Krista-OMG girl, you are awesome!  You have completed TWO big 30 under 30 items with me and I cannot be more grateful.  You are a ROCKSTAR my friend.  I loved <3ing Sweat with you and can’t wait to get our FULL marathon’ing on.  I will see you next at your 3^rd half marathon next month…you want a GLITTER sign right?

Ginger & Tyler-I know you mainly went support Krista, but it still means a lot to me that you cheered me on as well!  I can’t wait to cheer for YOU at the Houston ½ next month and I know you will do fantastic. 

Mandy and Brooklyn-I am so glad you came to stay with me on Saturday night and helped calm my nerves.  I loved the shopping, pizza eating, talking, and sign making that we got to do!  I know it was raining, but I hope you both had fun.  Next time I will choose one with no rain. J  Jabba says hello and can’t wait for you two to come back and visit with him (he says he promises not to be so crabby next time).

Dad and Pie-I loved seeing you out of the blue on mile 4 and mile 6.  I was expecting to see you on the other side of the bridge so it was a very nice surprise to see you when I did!  I still can’t believe that you got out of the car to cheer for me on TOP of the bridge with cars whizzing by. Lol.  Awesome.  Oh, and I loved the sign too and can’t wait to see the videos that you took.  It means the world to me that you were there!  Start planning a trip to NYC or Philly. 

Erika and Oscar-You are awesome for coming out to my first 5K and my first ½!  You guys are an awesome couple and I can’t wait to hear about your trip!  Dinner next week right?  Oh, and I forgot to order that soap!

Facebook friends-Thank you for all of your encouragement before/during/after the race.  I kept looking at my phone on the way seeking your kind words to give me encouragement before the race.  You all rock!

What’s next? Marathon baby!  That’s right!  I am going to start training for a marathon early next year and I have chosen either the Philadelphia Marathon or the New York City Marathon which are both in November of 2012.  The Philly marathon runs by some really cool landmarks including the Rocky steps (and his statue), but the NYC marathon is an epic marathon that would be awesome to race at.  The Philly marathon is where my heart is set at, but I can’t seem to get away from thinking about doing NYC.  My Aunt Tracy will be able to come to either of them (she lives in the Philly area) and my cousin Steven wants to do one with me also.  Only time will tell which one I get into!  Wish me luck. ;)

Puzzles Pieces

***This was finished in late September, but I haven't had a chance to upload the pics til now....naughty blogger!

Look at what I did!!!!  It’s a 1,000 piece puzzle that I completed ALL BY MYSELF!  Yep, #22 is done!

You might remember this post about me starting my 1,000 puzzle piece journey back in July.  Well, it might have taken me awhile…but I did it!  At first my goal was to put together 5 pieces a day, but that didn’t quite happen.  So days and weeks went by and I didn’t work on it at all.  Then I would make myself work on it until I got all of the people done, then all of the yellow done.  Then I would work on the gray part.  Ugh!  Finally, this past week I sat down almost every night to work on it.

The first night I decided that I wouldn’t go to bed until I had the entire border finished.

Then I got done with all the people!  I think it's about 50% done.

99% done

6 pieces left!

Me, so excited to be almost done!

The last piece!  I decided to write the day and time that I finished it (9/28/11 at 11:46 pm)

Putting the last piece in!

Completed.  What a journey.

 

Question of the day:  Have you ever completed at 1,000 piece puzzle all by yourself?

Beach Palooza-Galveston, Texas

This post is also waayyy old!  I am a slacker since it should have been uploaded in August!

Beach Palooza was a blast!  That was my first ever obstacle course 5K and it turned out to be super cool.  My friend from highschool Michelle drove all the way from Spring to run the race with me.  You might remember Michelle from the Outriggers 5K in August.

First things first…What to bring?!   Two towels, change of clothes, deodorant, flamingo bag, flip flops, sunscreen, brush, hand sanitizer, and face wipes.

We got our pineapple hats that came free with registration!!!!

The first leg of the race was a lot of running.  Running on sand is difficult!  The first half is all sand running, then after htat we came to our first obstacle.  I actually didn’t get to get a picture of it, but it was a lot of walls that you have to maneuver yourself over.  Taller and shorter ones (about 10 total) lined the sand and you just hopped/jumped/crawled your way over it.  I didn't get a picture of it though. :/ sorry!

The second obstacle was going through walls.  They had cut outs and you had to duck down to get through them.

Noodles!  There were at least 100 noodles hanging and you had to run through them and also bungee cords.  Easy.

Bungee cords.  Go through a maze of bungee cords.  Easy.

Balance Bridge-This was too difficult, we just basically had to crawl across the bridge.

Rope bridge.  I don’t know what to call this thing so we will just call it a rope bridge, K?  You have to climb up the rope to the top and back down again.

Mud hills and Water-basically this is going over a sand hill and through a water pit .

Beach balls-By the time we got to this one half of the beach balls were all over the place.  You could easily get around them. 

Balance beam was by far the easiest for me!  Michelle didn’t like it though.  Michelle was ahead of me at this obstacle, but I was ahead and waited for her at the end. I ran up and down it with no problem, but Michelle was really afraid of this one. 

Wobbly platform.  They had about 6 platforms that you jumped to from the one before.  This wouldn’t have been to difficult except, 1.  It was wobbly! 2.  They were far about and my legs don’t jump that far that easily.

 Next is FIRE AND ICE!!!!! Ohhhh, FIRE!!!  I couldn’t get a closer shot of this one, but you can tell it’s just a small flame of fire that you have to jump over.

The. Ice. Plunge. Bath. Was. So. Cold. 

Look at the medal we got at the finish!!

Food!  More specficially, bananas!

Mike’s Hard Lemonade was an official sponsor for the event so everyone that was over 21 got a free drink!  Whoo hoo!

Before you can get your free drink, you must have your ID checked and you get a snazzy bracelet.

I got the black cherry Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavor.  Blah!  I didn’t really like the flavor.  I liked how cold it was though!  Me and my free drink.   This shot was taken right before I gave it to Michelle so she could have it (she didn’t end up drinking much of hers either-we mainly wanted the ice!)

This is the after shot.  Scary!

SFA Homecoming 2011

****This post is WAAAY late.  Should have been posted at the end of October.  I am such a slacker!



Over the weekend SFA held the annual homecoming weekend and I had a blast as usual.  I couldn’t go up there until Saturday morning, but there were still so many events for us to attend.  Between the football game, Scare on the Square, pumpkin baking contests, Driving Jacks Alumni night, and keg stands, it was a  jam packed exciting weekend.

My plan was to get up early, workout, shower, clean a bit, and then leave by 7 am to make it to the parade in time.  Which of those things did I do?  Well, I woke up, but not early…does that count?

On the road by 8 am and I stopped at Dunn Bros. Coffee in Friendswood to get a pumpkin iced coffee and an egg and cheese bagel.  When I got to the car the lid on the coffee came undone and it spilled in my car.  Grr.  It’s ok though, it only slowed me down a few minutes…I was determined to get to my favorite town!

I got to Nacogdoches about 11 am and met up with Krista for lunch at Clearsprings.  Clearsprings is attached to Auntie Pasta’s and I had never been there in the 3 years I went to SFA and the 4 years that I have been an alum so it was time to go.  Krista and I had fish tacos and were stuffed.  Afterwards we drove around Nacogdoches seeing all of our old favorite places and how much everything had changed.

We even drove by my old apartment to see if there was anyone living there, and it looks like there was.

 

We took some photos by the new SFA sign.  Axes up!

We headed to the game to tailgate for a bit.  We met up with old friends and I saw some people that I hadn’t seen in years.  Fun times.

We decided  that we didn’t want to go to the football game because we really aren’t fans of football, and the Driving Jacks members weren’t sitting on the grass with their letters.  We decided to head back to the hotel to check in.

The hotel we stayed in was the LaQuinta…ok so it was a motel instead of hotel, but hotel sounds better so we will go with that.  Krista got a discount from her old job so we paid about $35 less than what we thought.  Score!  We settled in our hotel room and got ready for the pumpkin baking contest and pumpkin carving/decorating contest we were judging at Scare on the Square.

Read about our pumpkin judging fun adventure here!

At Scare on the Square we ran in to my friend Amber and her son Aiden.  Aiden was some sort of car driver man.  Even Amber wasn’t sure. 

After Scare on the Square we had to book it to the Driving Jacks Alumni night meeting.  The meeting was wonderful and we got great information from them about the progress of Driving Jacks.  When I graduated (and each of us who were officers in Driving Jacks) I was hesitant to let the organization go because it had been my baby for so many years, but each year I am grateful that God has put wonderful people in Driving Jacks to carry on Amy’s legacy.

We learned all about Driving Jacks, how they have grown, what has been happening, awards that they have won, cool visitors from other cities visiting them to start their own programs, etc.

They had a cool SFA giveaway and I won a water bottle!  I can’t wait to use it at my next run.
Spencer also won a water bottle and Matt won a SFA blanket.

They also gave us some old t-shirts from past events so we can show our DJ pride.

We all went out to the stairs and took pictures as a group.  Look at our handsome mugs.

Afterwards we got to see the new Driving Jacks office and take some photos.  This is all the past Mafia game Godfather’s of years past.  I have no idea how to play that game, but I hear it’s pretty intense and it goes on for an entire week.  People hid in mini vans and jump out to ‘kill’ you, you have really got to watch your back.  These peeps are the ultimate game players, beware.

While chatting in the office my 30 under 30 list came up and we talked about how I needed to do a keg stand.  Read about THAT super fun adventure here.

I had so much fun at this years SFA homecoming.  I cannot wait to go again in the future and see how much SFA and also Driving Jacks grows.  Thank you SFA for putting on an amazing event so we can all keep in touch as we grow older!

More pictures at http://www.flamingosandfun.smugmug.com/