Weekend Report!

The Staten Island 1/2 Marathon was AWESOME! I said it before and I'll say it again, I FREAKING LOVE RACES!!!! This was the perfect race for me to do just 2 weeks before my Marathon. It gave me so much confidence for my race! My plan was to run it at "training pace", not "race pace", but I think I've mentioned this before - I don't really have 2 paces yet (I'm working on that!), so i just went with the flow, stuck to my "Run 2 songs walk 1 minute" plan.

My very first Half that I did in September was pretty much a flat course on a crushed limestone trail (2:13), so I was very interested to see how I would do on "real roads" since that's what my marathon will be. Wait, totally forgetting something -
*Most of you have an idea of the relationship struggle I've been dealing with on and off since the beginning of this blog, and with that whole thing falling apart and making me question everything in my life, I "found" running. Well, that relationship and it's issues came to a boiling point on Friday. Bottom line, I couldn't sleep Friday night (maybe 3 hours), and then was so stressed on Saturday by Saturday night I was getting sick. My throat was killing me, and once again coule barely sleep (probably about 3 hours total again). I almost didn't go to the race. Then I thought - "F THAT! This is FOR ME! I rented that friggin car (around $110) and was looking forward to this until "THAT" happened, get your ASS UP and go!"

I am SOOOOOOO glad I went! I was figuring my time would be around 2:30 (given that I had'nt slept, my throat was killing me, and the roads / hills), and guess what??? I ended up finishing it in 2:18!!!! I was soooooo happy! The course was great, there were some crowds along the route, and the water / Gatorade stops were super organized! And they had this "New York Road Runners Finisher" thing that you could get your picture in front of!


I met up with the NY Team in Training Group before the start of the race, they were awesome! Their coach, Steve, was great! When he would see me out on the course he would say "Go Pittsburgh!!!", totally pumped me up!

I felt awesome pretty much the whole time, I don't think I ever stopped smiling. I ran with my Gu in one pocket and Chloraseptic lozenges in the other other pocket, they worked great!

Now, it's less than 2 weeks until the Marine Corps Marathon (seriously, my eyes are filling up as I type this), I can only imagaine what it is going to feel like. I have loved every minute of getting ready for this. This truly proves that the saying "It's not the destination, it's the journey", although I do know htat this destination is going to be equally life changing and mind blowing as the journey.

Now I just need to get rid of this cold, and I will be all set! It's Taper Time for me!
Thank you all again for the Good Luck Wishes!
PS- Sorry I am totally behind on everyone's blogs!!!! I will catch up today/tonight!
****Stay tuned, I will be announcing a CONTEST soon!!!! Oooohhh, aaaahhhhh prizes and everything!!!!

I've Been Tagged!

Teacherwoman and Run Girl Run both tagged me, thanks girlies!

Read below and Consider yourself TAGGED!
1. Hot Thick Chick
2. Runners Rambles
3. Chrisequious
4. JA Howie
5. Running Wild (NC Runner12)
6. POM
7. Beginning Running
8. Ramblings of a Running Addict

9. Steeve in a Speedo
10. Recast in Iron

So, here are my 6 random things......

1. I used to show horses competitively from the time I was about 9 up into college (rode on the University of Maryland Equestrian Team for 1 year until I decided that it was time for a break). I qualified for Nationals at the age of 15, which was pretty young. I did the hunters and jumpers, I would jump fences that were up to 4' tall and 3.5' wide.....now the idea of doing that scares the crap out of me!

2. I have broken quite a few bones and had random injuries (figure skating age 4 - broken leg, car accident 3rd grade - broken arm, horse flipped over on me age 13 - broken collar bone, horse smashed his face into mine 12th grade - broken nose, age 22 - stress fracture to sesamoid bone in left foot, that bone ended up pretty much "dead" and had to be removed age 27, trying to get sports bra off hurt shoulder age 29 - ended up tearing my shoulder "SLAP" lesion and needing surgery, and last but not least.....broke a rib running age 32).

3. I love all kinds of music, literally ALL KINDS!

4. I have ALWAYS been a "Dog Person", not that I didn't like cats, I always liked them, but I was just a "Dog Person". I got my English Mastiff, "Mister Man" while I was in college, he was "my boy". This past December I came across these 2 kittens at the ARL...they had just come to the shelter, they were both gray, one had long hair and a short tail and had thrown up all over himself, the other one had short hair and a normal tail. They kept looking at me. And looking at me. And looking at me. The next day I went back and got them, and they became best friends with my Mister Man, they learned how to act like a "cat-dog" from him. About 5 months later I lost my Mister Man at the age of 9 years and 9 months. I think those kittens were a gift from Mister, he knew there would never be another "like him", so now I have my 2 "cat-dogs" that greet me at the door, roll onto their back to get their tummy rubbed, and wait outside my bedroom door, just like Mister did. They have been amazing buddies through a rough year. I am now a "Cat-Dog Person"!

5. I believe that unfortunately some broken hearts never heal, and that sometimes all the time in the world won't fix it.

6. Once I believe in you....getting me to stop is nearly impossible.

Staten Island 1/2, Here I Come!!!!

I'm so excited that our running coach agreed that the Staten Island 1/2 would be a good idea! He said to remember to not get caught up in the race, use it as a training run, use it as a test run for my Marathon strategey.....THIS IS SO EXCITING!!!! Wow, I can't believe this is all happening!!

My plan is to rent a car on Saturday, then drive to Staten Island on Sunday morning. According to the directions to the start it looks like parking is about 2.5 miles away from the start, so it says that you can take the "city bus" from the parking area to the starting point, that should be good.

I'm a little nervous about going "by myself" (meaning there won't be an extra person to hold something or deal with my nerves of figuring out where to go), but it will be a great adventure!!!


Here we go again with questions.....anyone ever done the Staten Island Half??? I'm hoping "The Laminator" will chime in here!!! Tell me what it's like, how's parking? The "city bus"? Looks like there are plenty of water stops, so maybe no need to use my fuel belt? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

As always, thanks in advance for your input!!!

19 Days 'til Marine Corps Marathon!!!

I'm at the airport waiting for my plane back to "The Burgh"! Dallas was good, lots of good food (note: that does not help in the "get this fat off my a$$ before the marathon plan!!!)!
Thank you everyone for your comments on my 20 miler!!!
Blister Update - It's popped and drained for the most part, still sort of black/purple looking (gross), but feeling pretty good.
Rib Update - Feeling really good, I think I'm pretty much healed! AMEN!!! My obliques on that side are still sore, but I think that will just take some time. Overall it is 1,000,000 times better than it was last week!!!

Sorry that I haven't been able to get back to everyone that has posted lately, being "on the road" has really cut into my blogging time (damn that job)!!!!! I promise I will catch up soon!!!

Here's where I stand on the rest of my time until "The Big Day" (which I know for most girls my age usually means their wedding, this is my version of "The Big Day")!
My TNT Running Coach was really happy with how my 20 miler went! Originally there was another 20 scheduled for the weekend of the 12th. I am going to be in NY/NJ that weekend, so I was hoping I wouldn't have to do that there. He said that since the 20 went so well (yipee!) I don't have to worry about getting in another 20 (THANK GOD!)! So here's the proposed plan -
Thursday the 9th: do 12-15 Miles
Friday 10th: Leave for NY/NJ
Saturday or Sunday 12th: 8 Miles
Come Home Sunday night
Tuesday 14th: 10 Miles
Then continue with taper plan (pretty much standard plan).

However, I just saw that there is the Staten Island Half Marathon on Sunday....that is about 40 minutes away from where I'll be staying. I'm wondering if I could just do 8miles on Thursday, then Sunday do the Half, and then on Tuesday do 8-10 miles?
What do you guys think? I wouldn't do the Half at "Race Pace", I would use it as a regular run. My hesitation to doing the 8 miles on Sat or Sun is that I'm not sure where I'll run in New Jersey (Meadowlands area), and I don't know that it's worth getting all the way into Central Park on Saturday morning to run with the TNT group for 8 miles. I am supposed to be working on Saturday and Sunday in NJ, with Saturday being the most important day....if I had to skip out for a chunk of the day that would be ok, but better if I didn't have to. It just seems like doing the Half would be so much easier in a way.
And let me just be completely honest with you.....I just think it would be cool to do another Half, and in Staten Island on top of that, what other time would I ever do that?
As always, I'll take any and all input/advice/encouragement!!!!
Looks like it's almost time to get on the plane, can't wait to get home!

20 Miles...CHECK!!!!

Wooooooooo hooooooooo!!! We did it!!! Who is "We" you might ask...that would be me, my Dad, and all of you bloggers! I couldn't have done it without you guys and your support/suggestions, or without my Dad meeting me at various points on my run! Although I am totally in pain right now, I am still smiling, I can't believe that I did it! I'm not kidding you when I say that back in May the furthest I had ever run was about 4 miles, and that was monumental to me then!

So, here's how it went...I got in the truck to drive to the trail and noticed that the trail was 17.2 miles away....I was going to run FURTHER than I was driving?????? I must be crazy! When I got to the trail it was totally raining and my Dad was running late. So I hopped out of the truck and got in a mile and a half to figure out if I was going to need my jacket thingy (it was about 48 degrees), quickly realized I would be too hot, so stopped back at truck and dropped it off, called Dad, still not close. Decided to sit in truck and wait. Good thing I did, he had taken a wrong turn and got there about an hour late, which ended up being perfect because the rain stopped!!! From there I took off and knew I would be meeting my dad at this little ball field about 6 miles away. I decided to stick with my "Run 2 Songs Walk 1 Minute Plan" (very scientific!). My Dad was wearing a bright red Maryland sweatshirt (Go Terps!!! Love that my Dad was fully supporting me, rockin my college sweatshirt and all!), at about 5 miles(actually, I have no idea how far away I was from the tunnel, I suck at guessing that stuff) I could see the tunnel that I would run through and right in front of it I could see a tiny red dot...I wondered if that could be my Dad??? As I got closer I could see it was him, I was so excited that he was there!
He went through the tunnel with me and then we were at the ball filed (Mile 8). I stopped there to refill my Powerade and Water and eat a couple bites of a cliff bar and took off again. I ran up to 10, turned around and saw my Dad again at 12. Took a port-a-john break, and made plans with my Dad to meet at the next point where he could get to the trail (which ended up being Mile 14). At Mile 13 my time was 2:12, so I was 1 minute faster than my Half Marathon time from a couple weeks ago, yippee!

Here is a picture at Mile 14...

From there I headed on down the trail and knew I would see my Dad one more time around Mile 17, that was just a brief passing, we waved and I told him that I was getting considerably slower and not to worry if it took me a really long time to get back to our starting place!! From this point on my walking time increased to about 1.5 - 2 minutes, and my running decreased to about 1.5 songs.

When I got back to our starting point I still had about 2 miles to go (forgot about the extra miles I did in the beginning...duh!!). So I went past the start point, then turned around. When i got to my Dad's truck I was 19.3 Miles,uuugggghhhh!!! I could not run anymore, so my Dad hopped out of the truck and Powerwalked the last part with me until we heard the sweet sound of the Garmin beeping!!! 20 Miles, Holy Shit!!!!!!

Final Time - 3:37:11, I am BEYOND THRILLED!!!!

I did stop my Garmin a few times when "chatted" with my dad for a while, but I wouldn't say that it would any more than 7 minutes to my time.

So, now I'm home, icing the hell out of my knees, feet and left shin. I did get a nasty battlewound on my right big toe....

After the run we went to Bob Evans to eat, so freaking good!!! Now I'm ready for round 2 of food, and then off to bed! Oh yeah, I still need to pack for Dallas....oh well!

Thanks again for everything!!! I hope you all have a great weekend!!!

Getting Ready!

Just wanted to post a quick update, I'm meeting my Dad at 9am for my 20 miler! Looks like I'll have to do at least some of my run in the rain....oh well, at least I'll be able to test out my new hat!
I'll post later on today when I get home!

Seriously, you all are the best!!!

First off, thank you to everyone for their advice!!! I totally appreciate it! The trash bag idea makes sense, and I love JA Howie's idea about the knee socks (and what I love even more is that just from reading my blog, he knows that "cuteness" is still important)!!!
So, I've decided what I'm going to do for the 20 miler.......I'm doing it "by myself" on Friday. After much thought and talk with my TNT Mentor, she felt that the deal breaker for Saturday was that I'd have to be on a plane for about 4 hours afterward and that was not a good thing. So, luckily my Dad has totally stepped up and will be joining me at different points on the trail. He's even thinking about riding my bike for part of the time! Too bad you can't have horses on this trail, my Dad does Team Roping....maybe he could have ridden behind me and tried to lasso me!!! That would be freaking classic!!!!
I think what I'll do is start at 8am and have my Dad's first meeting time at 9:15-9:20, that should put me somewhere between 7-8 miles.
He can bike with me from 7-10 and then back for 10 -13 (I think he can handle 6 miles...it's pretty flat). Then he'll be back to where he parked the truck and can put the bike back in and drive down to 16, then hopefully finish the final 4 miles with me. From there we can throw the bike into my truck and drive back to his.
My Dad will be equipped with fluids and what not (knowing him he'll have some really great snacks too), so that should be pretty good.
Any thoughts on my plan?

Another Marathon Question: This question also relates to the weather. I haven't run much in the rain (been pretty lucky all summer), and when I have it's been "hot summer rain" so my gear needs didn't change. Any thoughts on the "cold fall rain" that we can get and what to wear? Obvious answer is some type of rain parka, I just imagine myself sweating to death. Or do you just run in it with nothing extra? Thanks in advance!!