More Race Pictures!

Here are some more pictures from Saturday's Half Marathon!
Here I come....I'm in the pink behind the guy in burgundy...you can just see a little bit of me! I was so excited to see my Mom and Dad at the finish line, and couldn't believe how much "more" I could keep pushing across the finish line!

Here I am with my Mom! And here's Dad! On the left is my Marine Corps Marathon Teammate, Chrisie (in yellow), and on the right is another TNT Teammate that is doing the San Francisco Nike Marathon, Erin. This is some more of our Team in Training group, Nicole (doing San Fran I think) and Justin, he's one of the mentors.

And this is me after the race, apparently pointing to my truck...not sure what was going on here but I liked that you could see my number and the medal!!!
I'm still flying high today from the race! I can only imagine what it's going to be like after the Marathon!!!!
Thanks again to everyone for their good luck wishes! A special Shout Out to "NC RUNNER" for his comments/input on the whole run/walk thing!

Race Day!

The race was GREAT! I can officially say that I LOVE RACE DAY! The excitement, seeing everyone, the start, the finish...I love it all! One of my favorite parts of the race is when you are running a long, and then the really fast people have already made it to the turn around and are running towards you (at mile 5 on my side!!), it just makes you go faster!!!

So, for this race I decided that my strategy would be "Part Galloway" and "Part Margo", and I've decided to call it the "Margo Music Method"! Here's how it works, run for 2 songs then walk for 1 minute, repeat until you're done!!! Here's the breakdown (according to my Garmin)-
13.26 miles/2:13:29/10:04
1 - 9:26
2 - 9:44
3 - 10:05
4 - 9:49
5 - 10:12
6 - 9:55
7 - 9:52
8 - 9:57
9 - 10:11
10 - 10:28 (1:39 at 10 Miles)
11 - 9:47
12 - 10:36
13 - 11:08

Keep in mind that the course was 1 mile down hill, then relatively flat with 1 long-ish uphill grade leading up the turnaround, then flat the rest of the time, so I'm sure this was a little on the "faster side" than normal for me...none the less....it was way better than I thought I'd do and it felt GREAT!
I felt really great pretty much the whole time! I didn't start feeling any pain until the last 2-3 miles, then as you can tell from the last mile time I started to get a little slow (had to stretch a few times), but I was able to finish looking strong! My parents were waiting for me at the finish line and it was so great to see them, along with the rest of my teammates!!!

My "neighbor girls" couldn't make it to the race (they had soccer), but here are pictures of us after the race! I'll have more once I get them off the camera!

Now I'm just hanging out icing my knees and feet...they are pretty sore already! Tonight I'm going to go out for a good dinner...can't wait!

Night Before the Race

Well, here I am....it's 10:50 and I am ready to go to bed! I've got everything all set out...except my damn favorite sports bra! I have 2 of them, and I can't find either one...I have back ups, but I'm going to look for it one more time in the morning while I'm making my coffee. My plan is to get up around 5:30 and leave around 6:30, registration is open until 7:30 and the race starts at 8:00!
I haven't really talked about my goals for this race, mainly because of the hip trouble that I've been having I've just been focusing on running without hurting. I'm hoping to finish it around 2:25. I am going to do my run/walk intervals starting after mile 5. Most importantly, I just want to finish and feel "pretty good"!
Alright, time for me to catch some ZZZZZ's!

Friday Pic of the Day

I'm joining in with NikeMom and posting a picture every Friday...so here it is, one of my favorite T-shirts! Marcy is also doing the pic of the day, so check out her blog as well!!
*Thanks Melanie for help with the links!!

Best.Video.Ever.

This video is THE hottest thing! Travis Barker (from blink182) drumming to Soulja Boy...could he be any more intense????
Turn up the volume.....and enjoy!
PS-thanks to D10 for the help with posting this!

The Weekend is Almost Here!

Sooooooo glad this is a short work week, I'm ready for the weekend! Thank you to everyone for your input on my "marathon strategy", it was really helpful to hear all of your suggestions and experiences!
With all the excitement of THE Marathon, I feel like I've almost forgotten about the 1/2 Marathon that I'm doing THIS weekend! I'm really excited for it! I haven't done any races since 4th of July and I totally love the excitement of Race Day! A lot of my teammates are doing this race too, so it should be really fun.
I'm looking forward to trying out my strategy in a "real" race setting, hopefully it will go well!
I had physical therapy again today for my hips, they always feel so much better after I get stretched out really good. Oh, I also went to my FIRST Yoga Class last night! It was really good, I'll definitley be heading back for more. My plan will be to do that 1-2 times per week, it really felt good to relax and truly focus on stretching and feeling where my body was.
Keep the comments/suggestions coming on my "marathon strategy"!!!
I added a new gadget thingy (saw it on Marcy's blog and loved it)! See it...it's over there to the right..."Who's In?" So, add yourself and then that will be the link to your blog!
*Can anyone help me with adding a You Tube video to my blog post? I've been trying to figure it out all day....driving me crazy!!!

Weekend Recap

Hope you all had a fabulous Labor Day Weekend! On Saturday I made it through my 15 miler!!! Woooo hoooo! It looks like my "strategy" for the marathon is going to have to involve "scheduled walking", which I am not totally thrilled about, but I pretty much knew I would need to, but was hoping that I wouldn't have to. What I did on Saturday was the following -
Run miles 1-6
Starting at 6 miles I walked for 2 minutes then ran 2 miles. That didn't seem like the "magic mix", so I switched to run 15 minutes walk 3 minutes. That was good for a little bit, then it switched to run 10 minutes walk 3 minutes, finally by the time I got to mile 12-13 it was pretty sporadic (run 1 song, walk half a song, run 2 songs, walk half a song), basically anything to keep going. It's my damn hips (how old am I???????). The rest of my body could just keep on going, but my freaking hips would like to quit! However, this week was NO WHERE near as bad as the weekend that I did the 13 miles, so I think I'm making progress. Overall my time wasn't bad, I ended up averaging 11:32/mile.
So, here's my question to all of you (especially those of you that are "newer" to the running thing), did you ever go through this, or were you just able to run the whole time? PLEASE share your stories!!! Any advice???
After the run we had a DELICIOUS breakfast waiting for us!!! Eggs and potatos, but totally gourmet!! From there I went home and showered, then did the ice bath, then napped. I met up with my parents for dinner at Joe's Crab Shack where I ate a TON of shrimp and crab legs!!! Then I hit up Coldstone Creamery....absolutely sinful!!
I woke up on Sunday morning to find myself mighty "puffy" from my salty feast the night before....not good! On top of that the stiffness was sinking in big time!!! I just hung out the rest of the day and did some shopping.
Today was pretty productive, I splurged on a cleaning lady to get me back on track (best money ever spent!), so while she was doing house stuff, I got caught up on laundry. From there I headed to the pool with my neighbors and their 4 daughters, they are too much fun!
Now I'm just waiting to put some chicken on the grill and hang out!
Hope you all enjoyed the weekend and have a great week!