Run Like a Turkey 50K

Yep, that's right - a 50K.  I had made the suggestion that we sign up for this race.  It is the first ultramarathon for Toledo, and it's just right down the road from our house.  Granted it was only 3 weeks after the Columbus marathon, but I figured we would be all healed up by the time it arrived.  I was mostly correct - except both Alan and I had done very little running since Columbus to avoid injury and to heal up a little more.  I am still having a pain in my glute and he is battling plantar fasciitis.  

Which brings us to the day.. the BIG day... the 50K.  The thought of running 31 miles would have been unheard of for me a few years ago, or maybe even last year, but I was feeling adventurous this year and wanted to end the running season on a high note.   

Our race was limited to only 62 people.  Here are the lucky few at the start of the race.  As you can see, the weather was ideal - 48 degrees at the start.  We set our watches for a pace of 10:30, which would get is in around 5 1/2 hours.  Sounded very do-able.

 Here we are leading the pack!  haha, ok, here we are, but certainly not in the front of any large number of people.  I seemed to be the 10:30 pace group for quite a while, but eventually we thinned out to the point that we could not see any runner in front of us, or even behind us.

 Most of the course looked like this - just a few flags pointing out the correct course, but most of it covered completely in leaves.  Although it made it quite serene, it also made it impossible for you to take your eyes off the ground for any amount of time for fear of running into something like a tree root.

 Speaking of tree roots, both Alan and I took 3 falls each, which ended up being total face plants due to those hidden dangers.  The second fall made me start crying - not so much because it hurt, but because I was so darn frustrated and tired.  Not good since that was only around mile 12.  I had those three falls between the miles of 8 and 13 miles.
Here is one of the aid stations.  Those were really nicely stocked - with oranges, water, gatorade, GU gels, and most importantly, clean Porta-potties!!  Trail running was quite different from road races because people actually stopped at the aid stations and hung around for a few minutes without worries.

Here are some shots of Alan and I going into the half way loop of the trail.  We finished half (15 1/2 miles) in 2:44.  Not too shabby!

I think it was a bit after the half way mark when things started going downhill.  My glute started feeling like it was on fire.  Ouch!  Some walking was needed.  After many more miles, the ache in my glute was actually starting to go numb, and my knees started causing a lot of pain.  Lots more walking was needed.  I even started walking downhill backwards to avoid pain in my knees.

Here is a shot of the trail.  Less leaves, but more ruts in the ground. 

Cool looking wasteland portion of the race course. 

 After 3 1/2 hours it was obvious we were not going to hit that 5:30 finish time.  In fact, the 6 hour finish time slipped away too!  Oh well, we were doing the best we could do (actually Alan could have been running faster, but I was giving it my best!).
FINALLY, we approached the finish line.  Didn't seem like that was ever going to happen!  Our finish time was 6:25.  We weren't the first ones in, but we certainly weren't the last ones either.

This is a funny turkey sign they had at the finish line.  Outside of a chipmunk, butterfly, and bug in my eye, we didn't see any wildlife!  Well, really there could have been dancing elephants in the woods, but I didn't dare stop staring at the ground for fear of falling again!!

We got these cool finisher medals.  The yellow arrow looks just like the trail markers. 

The winners of the race got these shiny platters.  It was nice because even though we were so far behind the winners (3:45), there were still people hanging out at the end, cooking burgers and chatting.  We made some new friends, enjoying some beers and scarfed down some delicious cookies.

Ahhhh, a cold celebratory beer!  So happy to be done. And still able to walk!  :)  So glad Alan was there with me for this race.  Without him I probably would have called it quits at the 20 mile aid station!!

Last camping trip of the year - Hocking Hills

Even though it was a chilly weekend, we decided to take one last camping trip to Hocking Hills Ohio.  It seemed like we haven't been on many camping trips this year.  I'm guessing because it was so hot this past summer.  The kids had school off, so we made it an extra long weekend taking both Friday and Monday off.  We drove down on Friday and made it down there early enough to go exploring in Old Mans Cave.

 After hiking for a while we checked out the wildlife in the nature center.  This possum was not impressed with Alan's attack!

 Sydney didn't quite scare the little dude either :)

Here is our campsite (#61).  I was surprised that they did not have any sort of burning restrictions in effect since there were so many leaves on the ground.  We really liked this site because past the fire ring was the woods and the kids loved running around down there.

 On Saturday we went to Cantwell Cliffs.

Next stop was Rock House.  That cave is so cool.  Just a beautiful display of nature! 

 Our hiking excursions involved lots of walking up and down stairs.

Ash Cave was simply stunning.  Very secluded and serene.

Well, it was serene until the people in period costumes gave us a demonstration of their cannon!  The kids wanted nothing to do with that and ran up the hill to hide until it went off.

 It took 2 tries, but finally it exploded. Wow, it was loud!!

The kids found many uses for their walking sticks.

The camper was chilly at night, but certainly not bad.  We have 3 heaters in it, so it was quite toasty with those things cranked all night.

On Sunday we went back to Old Mans Cave to explore some more.  We wore our boots, hats, and gloves for our morning excursion.

The kids really enjoyed this trip.  So did we!

Happy Fall Pictures!

I have gotten so far behind on mostly everything around my house.  My updating of our finances (oops, haven't updated Quicken completely since around July!).  My housekeeping (gotta schedule that carpet cleaning!).  And mostly my photos.  I am setting a goal of cleaning off the memory cards in my camera tonight.  

As I was checking my DSLR I saw this cute pic.  Of course my family just mentioned that Sydney's head was cut off, but no one noticed the artistic quality of it.. look there is a very happy smile!  I think it's just perfect.

Happy Halloween!!

It's that time again!... Halloween is here.  Although it means a huge bag of candy, it also means the holiday season is just a month away!  In fact, I just made our reservations for the Nutcracker tonight.  For tonight though, I am enjoying make believe and lots of orange and spooks.

We had some pretty artistic pumpkins this year.  First up is Alan's pumpkin, and mine (with the angry eyebrows!).

Zack and Sydney's silly design came out relly good also.

 I left work early today, but still I was rushing around like crazy getting everything ready for trick or treating tonight.  I was putting Zack's zombie makeup on 5 minutes before it was time to go!

 Here is our zombie and devil girl.

Grandpa looks like he is ready to scare some kids!!  haha

 The weather tonight was less than desirable - around 45 degrees and drizzly.  boo!  But that didn't stop the kids from running from house to house.

I have to give myself a pat on the back - this zombie looked pretty awesome!!

After trick or treating, the kids dumped out their bags and sorted everything out.

 Next it was time to make candy-me's!

After all that, Zack still had to take a shower to de-zombie-fy himself.  They got to bed late.  I have a feeling Zack might still be having those dark circles under his eyes tomorrow!!

Note to myself for future reference: we used up one huge bag of candy from Sam's club, and then a second huge bag was opened.  We have about 90% of the second bag left, so probably better to get a couple smaller bags next time, in case we want to return the left overs!

You've been Booed!

As Halloween grows closer, the kids have been mentioning that we haven't been Booed yet.  Mostly Sydney saying "I can't wait until we get Booed!  When is someone going to Boo us??".  The Booing tradition started several years ago in our neighborhood and it's a fun way to surprise your friends and neighbors.  The doorbell rings, and a little bag of treats is waiting for you!    Well, it usually happens that way.  Last year we had some trickster drop off a bag of junk.  Boo indeed!  Luckily the real treats also did arrive, but not until later.

Guess what... it happened again!  While we were eating dinner our doorbell rang and Alan caught a glimpse of kid running away.  Much to our surprise there was a brown paper bag with the words "You've been booed" scrawled on it.  Inside was a hamburger bun, soy sauce packet, tea bag and a few other worthless treasures.  We all got a pretty good laugh out of that, especially the hamburger bun.

 

 

After dinner we settled in for a movie and about half way through the movie, the doorbell rang again.  This time, there really was a treat waiting for the kids (thank goodness!).  The people who Boo us are really quite generous and I'm always impressed with the selections.  This year was no different.  They got some candy and fun Halloween toys.   I did catch a glimpse of the vehicle as it was parking by our neighbors driveway, but didn't think anything of it at the time.  Darn I didn't pay closer attention to see who it was :)

 

With just one more day before Halloween, we've gathered up some treats for our friends and are delivering them tonight.  I'm not even sure who we are Booing yet!

Happy Boo to You too!

Columbus marathon - 2012

Hello blog, it's been awhile!  :)  Today's update will be all about the Columbus marathon.  The kids did not go to this event, they stayed at Grandma & Grandpa's house.  It was a date weekend!
We got to Columbus around 2pm and went straight to the expo.  The expo was super well organized this year and we got our bibs and shirts.  I had to upgrade my corral letter, because I was still in "D" and my goal was to get a Boston qualifying time, which would put me in the B corral.  We got to say Hi to Matt Folk and wish him well on his race this year.  He won last year at at time of 2:19.
After the expo we checked out our parking garage.  We prepaid and wanted to make sure we knew where we were going.  Last year we arrived late due to traffic congestion and were super rushed.  So stressful!  Our parking garage was right next to the finish line.  Perfect!
We met some friends for dinner at Bravo.  There were about a dozen people from the Runners World forum.  Nice to see everyone again - I had met them last year and see them posting all year long.  Of the group I am definitely the slow poke as these people are all Boston runners many times over.  In my defense, I am also not as dedicated.  Or maybe I'm just slow!  haha  ok, I'm probably just slow.

After dinner we stopped at Meijers for some treats and also to solve a fashion dilemma - what to wear for tomorrow!  We knew it was going to be around 40 degrees at the start of the race, and in the 50s at the end.  Normally I would wear a tank top and shorts for a 50 degree race, but Alan had me thinking that I should have brought along a short sleeve t-shirt (which I did not).  Problem solved - we got some over-the-knee socks and cut the feet off.  Viola!  Instant arm warmers!  A great solution since the arm warmers at the expo were $20!

Stylish, affordable, AND disposable!  The funniest part was that we bought a pair for Alan too (the same socks!).  He looked hilarious in his.  In the end he decided not to wear his.  Darn!

Surprisingly I slept very well that night, and we even had to time to watch our favorite running movie Run Fatboy, Run.  It is a pre-marathon tradition that we always look forward to.

I did wake up before the alarm on Sunday, at 4:45am.  This year I was determined not to be rushing around before the race.  We left the hotel at 6am, and got downtown with NO traffic.  We were at the parking garage by 6:20, and into the corral area by 6:45.  The corrals were supposed to close at 7am, so we were right on time.  While I was waiting in the corral there was a guy with a loud horn.  That thing was beyond annoying!!  I asked him if he was going to be blowing that thing for the whole race.  He replied "yes!!".  Then he told me he would be running 9 minute miles.  Since my goal pace was 8:54, I quickly relocated myself far away from him.

The race started at 7:30am.  By mile 2 I got rid of my long sleeve "junk shirt".  I kept my headband/ear warmers on until about mile 6.  The first half of the race was awesome!  The cool weather was perfect for running and I averaged 8:43 miles.  That was ahead of my plan as I was supposed to run the first 17 miles at 8:51.  I felt good though, and didn't feel like I was pushing it.  My plan was to run the first 17 at that faster pace, and then allow myself to fade and slow down a little at the end, which I knew would happen anyways. 

After the half marathoners left, we went down High street into the OSU campus.  Well really it was UP High street because it was a slight incline. That was when my time started slowing down.  I felt OK because I knew it was uphill.  Mile 13 ended up at 9:00 mins.  Still OK because I had banked 1:30 ahead of my pacer.  By the time we hit mile 17, it felt like we kept going uphill and down.  Those slight "uphills" really sucked my energy.  My miles were now hitting 9:16.  bummer.  Off plan.  I realized at this point I was not going to make a BQ time.  oh well.  That was a super ambitious goal anyways and I still had other, more attainable goals.  My next goal was a sub 4 hr.  That would be huge since I did 4:14 last year.  I did finally peel off those arm warmers around mile 14 also.  Goodbye good friends!

We ran into the OSU stadium this year.  That sounded great, but we needed to go over a bridge (uphill) to get there, and then down a steep ramp - which of course meant UP a steep ramp. Oh, and then over that darn bridge again.  Ugggh.  It was killing me.  Then came the true uphill area of the course.  Around mile 22 I felt like just stopping.  I was making a few longer steps through the water stops now.  That felt OK to slow, but it felt twice as bad to start running again.  And I was getting a full belly feeling since I normally drink very little when I run.  So the plan was to now continue to run continuously, and the course was reaching the "downhill" portion.  Even though it was downhill I still felt like my legs weren't able to carry me any farther  :(  

 

I did get inspiration during my race from some sound clips that Alan had recorded for me.  He asked the kids to come up with motivational comments, and they did a great job.  So sweet!  Around mile 20 when I was really hurting, this one came from Zachary and it brought tears to my eyes: Zachary's words.

At mile 24, the 4 hr pace group came up right next to me.  Ugggh, what a total heartbreaker.  It felt like they were running so fast, and I couldn't keep up.  I knew I only had 2 miles to go, but it was killing me.  But I dug down hard and used all that I had in me to push a little bit ahead of the pace group.  Also to my dismay the loud horn guy caught up with me right about that time and kept tooting away.  Insult to injury!!  Luckily he ended up being a bit faster than me and he disappeared.  I kept the 4hr pace group at bay, and sure enough at mile 25 Alan appeared!!  He told me he would see me around mile 24 at the earliest and I was starting to wonder where he was.  He was limping along but he was determined to run with me.  

I was in such a cranky mood I just stuck my hand in his face and said "I don't want to talk!".  Geez, sorry about that Alan, it really was hard at that point!  Anyhow, I was watching my time and I only had 4 minutes left when Alan told me that we were down to the 1/2 mile marker.  I really did not think I was going to make it.  What a terrible feeling :(  As soon as we reached the corner, it was all downhill - the finish line.  I ran as hard as I could and crossed the finish line at 3:59:34.  Alan also crossed again (without his timing chip).  As soon as I crossed the line he hugged me and I buried my head in his chest and bawled!!  Racing is so emotional for me, and just drains me... and with that close finish I couldn't hold back.  So nice to have him there with me.  xoxo

We got a couple of finish line pictures taken and then I collapsed in the lawn with my space blanket and food.  I was so drained my lips were purple and I was shaking uncontrollably!  It took me about a half hour of resting in the lawn to finally get to the point were I could to walk to the car.  Thank god that garage was so close.  We both looked like the walking dead, barely able to move.

Alan finished in 3:12:16, which was 2 minutes faster than his PR.  Woohoo!!

After a shower at Urban Active we met up with our racing fans again to have a beer over race war stories.  Almost everyone got a PR at this race.  One of the girls even came in 9th in the womens group for the 1/2 marathon.  Dang, she is fast!  Of course she is only 27 years old :)  Those burgers and beer were so delicious.  It was fun to hear everyone's version of the race.

Great race day indeed!!

 

Women's Series 5K

We had an exciting morning today - Sydney ran her first official 5K! I say "official" because she has run in 5K's before, but they have only been Toledo Roadrunner club events. Although they are timed events, they are not quite the same as running under that inflatable finish line arch, wearing a number, and putting that D Tag on your shoe!
In the fall we had run in a club event. She did a great job then - running the first mile and half, and then taking several walking breaks as needed. Unfortunately they had measured that course incorrectly and she ran an extra half mile, but we figured she would be running around 40 minutes on this 5K.
We started out at a pretty good pace - I let her decide how fast to go the whole time. We surprised the boys, who were working at the first water stop, by coming in way earlier than they expected. We took a few steps through the 2nd water stop (at my request - I don't like choking down water at a race!), but other than that, we ran the whole thing.
We headed down the main strip of the mall, and the finish line was up ahead. I could see that the clock still hadn't hit 30 minutes yet, but Sydney got a side stitch that was just killing her. I know exactly how she felt as I have been getting a few of those lately myself. Poor kid, she was almost in tears from the pain. So I told her to walk a few steps to work it out. She did, and then when I mentioned there was only 30 seconds left until the clock hit 30 minutes, she took off in a sprint that I could hardly keep up with!! Our official finish time was 29:50. We are all so proud of her great race!!
I would say the only bad thing about this race is that we were judged in a "Mother/minor Daugher team" category which had no other age breakdowns. So we got beat by some teams with 15 year old daughters on them! Oh well, we still kicked some butt. :)



My little models...

If I had all the money in the world I would just spend my take taking pictures (and hanging them around all of my vacation homes!).  But I don't, so every once in a while I make the kids humor me and let me take their pictures.  This year it was quite hot at Wildwood when I took these (what, 90+ degrees in July??  unheard of!).  At least they were well behaved- and if they weren't, I made Alan go along with me to be my kid wrangler and keep them entertained and in line.  I took a gazillion shots, and these were my favorites....

This is a re-creation of a shot I took many years ago of the kids.  They've grown so much!!

I took along some bubbles as a prop.  The bubbles were a special kind that hardened up in the air, and one got stuck on Sydney's face! 

Aren't they cutie pies??  :)