The Final Countdown!!

7 days and counting until I toe the start line at the Cleveland Marathon! Today was my last long run prior to next Sunday's race. Aside from the wind, I felt pretty good today and managed to maintain a 9:03/mile pace during my run today. I am officially in taper mode. I will be running minimal mileage the rest of the week. It is my goal to go into the marathon next weekend with a fresh pair of legs, a clear mind, and a rested body. Seven months ago, while driving home from a PR performance at the Columbus 1/2 Marathon (1:54:14) with my running buddies Deb and Marilyn, I toyed with the idea of running a full marathon. By the time we got home from Columbus, Deb and Marilyn had almost convinced me to go for it. Prior to this conversation, Deb had decided she wanted to form a team for the Cleveland Marathon in honor of her ten year tumor free milestone. I do remember saying that maybe I would just try and improve on my 1/2 marathon time at Cleveland. I am pretty sure Deb shot back with an if I can run 13.1 miles, you can certainly 26.2. And so the challenge was on the table and the training began! I have to thank Deb for the countless times she took care of my children so I could get my training runs in! I also need to thank Deb and Marilyn for joining me at several different races during my 18 weeks of training. And a special thanks to "cuz" Michele for running two 1/2 marathons and a 22.2 mile training run with me!

On Sunday, May 16th I will be running for Deb. No matter what the clock says when I come to the end of my 26.2 mile journey, I will have won the greatest gift of all....the continued friendship of an amazing woman. Thank you Deb for your friendship, love, and support. I love you Deb and I am so proud of you!!

The motto for next week:
Curing Chordoma...
one mile at a time
Deb's our survivor
10 years tumor free

Deb and Marilyn

Deb and I

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!

Pittsburgh Half Marathon Race Report

Once again the kids and I headed to PA for the weekend. We spent Friday with family and friends enjoying the beautiful weather and having some pizza. Saturday afternoon I left the kiddos with my mom and stepdad and I headed to Cuz Michele's in Pittsburgh. After I got to her place we headed to the Convention Center to pick up our race packets. The expo was packed. Since I was running for a charity my packet pickup was in a different location than Michele's and I didn't have to wait in line at all. After I got my packet I went over to where Michele was standing and got in line with her. A few minutes later I realized I knew the girl in the line next to us. We grew up in the same area and we ran cross country together and against each other. After we collected all of our goodies we headed back to Michele's and watched some of the Kentucky Derby and made dinner. This time Michele made the same lemon caper chicken dish we had before our 22.2 miler and I made asparagus linguine. We also enjoyed salad with our dinner. After our delicious dinner we went and rented a movie. We watched Julie and Julia. It was a really cute movie. We headed to bed around 10:00 and hoped that we would wake up to dry weather. It wasn't raining when we woke up but the forecast was predicting rain between 8 and 9 AM. Michele and I ate our breakfast, got ready, and headed to the race. Michele had planned to park in a certain parking garage and we were shocked when we got there and the lot was closed. We spent the next 40 minutes trying to figure out where we were going to park...all of the roads were closing. Michele got out of the car and did a great job of negotiating (I think she may have even cried or at least pretended to cry) with the local city worker and he escorted us to Station Square where we finally parked around 7:15. The race started at 7:30 and we still had to get across the bridge to the starting area. Can you say stressed out much? We ended up running most of it and we literally got to the start line as the announcer said runners set, go. The start line was absolutely crowded and we had to do A LOT of zig zagging to get going. After about a half a mile or a mile it started pouring and it continued to rain the rest of the race. Cuz and I were running well together. Around mile 5 Cuz asked how I was doing and I mentioned that I was feeling a little tired. At this point we made a plan in regards to where we were going to meet if we go separated from each other. Shortly after this, I was no longer able to keep up with Cuz. I was experiencing awful stomach cramps. I think they were a result of drinking Gatorade on the course. I never drink sports drinks in training, only water. Yes, I know...never try something new on race day. Unfortunately, I was really in need of a drink and Gatorade was the first thing that was handed to me over the first several miles of the race. Around mile 8 I had to succumb to the stomach cramps and visit the porta potty. Without going into detail, my pace for that mile was 12 minutes. I continued to deal with the stomach pains for the remainder of the race. All things considered my time wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I crossed the line in 2:06:41. I did learn a valuable lesson today...steer clear of the sports drinks on marathon day. At least it happened to me today and not two weeks from today during my first full marathon.

Cuz and I had agreed to meet at the St. Jude's tent since I was running for them. While on the subject of St. Jude's I wanted to mention that I did raise $150.00 in memory of Sophie Quayle. I went to the tent at the finish line and realized that she was probably at the start line tent and tried to make my way over to that intersection however I was redirected by the police because a bomb had been found on the marathon course and the runners were being re-routed to the finish. At this point, I think I had been looking for Michele for over an hour. Once we finally reconnected I felt horrible because she was sure I had gotten injured. In fact she even asked at the medical tent. I felt so bad and I apologized to her several times and I will apologize again as I know she will read this blog...SORRY CUZ, I LOVE YOU!! Once we reconnected we walked back to the car and headed back to Michele's to pay a visit to our friend, the ice bath.

RACE PICTURES:

My post race medal photo

Me wrapped up shivering

Post race medal picture of Michele

Michele chilling in the ice bath

The awesome race shirts

The Bling

After the ice bath we had some lunch and then we exchanged our standard goodbye hug and said see you in two weeks when we toe the line at the Cleveland Marathon.

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!

Shopping, Dinner, and 22.2 in Pittsburgh

Friday evening the kids and I arrived in Pennsylvania. We spent the evening visiting with my family and friends. Saturday morning I got ready to head to Pittsburgh to spend some quality time with my cuz Michele. I left the kids in the very capable hands of their pop pop and grammy and I was on my way. I arrived at Michele's around noon and we headed to Panera to grab some lunch. We both had soup and salad which was very yummy! After lunch we headed out to do some shopping. I was in severe need of new summer clothes since I will be going on a cruise the week after the Cleveland Marathon and none of my summer clothes from last year fit due to my weight loss. The best part of shopping in Pennsylvania is the fact that there is no tax on clothes. I managed to do some major damage at the mall and walked out of there with 4 pair of shorts, 5 nice short sleeve t-shirts, 1 long sleeve shirt, and 1 three-quarter length sweater. After the mall we headed to Dunhams in search of new running shorts with a zipper pocket. No luck there so we headed to Dick's and sure enough the first pair of shorts Michele picks up are not only my size but they also have the zipper pocket. It was a great find by Michele and I had a coupon which made it even better. After we finished shopping Michele took me to the park we would be running at to show me the lay of the land. We headed back to Michele's around 5 o'clock to make dinner. Of course I took pictures of the action.

Michele reading the vegetable marinade recipe

Michele trimming the huge chicken breasts

The yummy pasta

Lemon caper chicken breast with baby spinach

Grilled eggplant and red peppers

Dinner was outstanding and we had great conversations about many things including our plans for our 20+ mile run. We decided we would plan to run at 7:30 AM. Since we wanted to get up around 5:45 AM so we could eat breakfast we headed to bed around 10:00 PM. We left around 7:15 AM and headed to the park near Michele's house. During our drive over we discussed our strategy. We decided to do the 8.5 mile loop (with the big hill) when our legs were fresh. I mentioned that my brother's friend recommended we run 22.2 instead of 20 because having 4 miles left would be less intimidating during the marathon. With that in mind we decided to go for it and added on three 4.5 mile loops (shortening the 5 mile loop by 1/2 mile eliminated the big hill which was fine by me!). We managed to get the other .2 miles in by running to the restrooms before we took off on our first loop. Running the loops made it possible for us to stop at the car after each loop to get some water and gu/sports beans when needed which worked out perfectly.

Michele before our run

Me before our run

We successfully completed all 22.2 miles. I think we were both a little delirious between miles 18.5 and 20. When we had a 1/2 mile left we kicked it up a notch and gave it our all. In fact, Michele's garmin had us running at a 7:45/mile pace. We hit 22.2 and stopped and we immediately hugged each other because we were so proud of what we had accomplished and simply because we were thrilled to be done with the run. We finished in 3:39 (9:51 avg/mile). Not too bad!
Michele and I after our run

We stopped to get ice and headed back to Michele's for the dreaded ice bath. It was really quite comical as we did our ice baths in a trash can outside! We both decided to leave on our running pants and socks because it was quite chilly out. We both decided that the ice bath definitely helped our legs.
Me getting in the cold ice bath

Me shivering

Not so bad after 5 minutes, how about 5 more

Michele entering the ice bath

Michele shivering

Not so bad, 5 more minutes to go

Once we completed our ice baths we headed back inside to get changed into warm clothes and then we had amazing chicken salads made with the leftovers from our dinner.

After finishing our yummy salads and having some vitamin water zero we exchanged hugs and said "see you in two weeks for Pittsburgh" and I headed back to get my kiddos. It was a great weekend!

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!

Pre-race preparation

Well, tomorrow is the Mill Creek 1/2 Marathon. Yesterday was my last workout before the race. I had a jewelry party for my step sister-in-law last night so by the time I got out the door to run it was 10 PM. I have never run outside that late but I didn't want to run on the treadmill . The air was brisk but not cold. I ended up running a mile loop in my development three times to get in my three miles. I chose to run the loop because the loop is covered with street light after street light. I ran very slow and easy. 29:09 for 3 miles (9:38, 9:32, 9:54).

Now I am packing and getting ready to head to Youngstown. My brother has been kind enough to give me and my "cuz" access to his apartment for the night. The best part of that is that he is about 10 minutes from the start line! You have to love that. Now the crazy thing is that my brother is single and lives alone so I can't rely on his cupboards and refrigerator to be stocked so not only am I packing my running gear, I am also packing my "go to" foods for pre and post race fueling.

"Cuz" and I are going to second sole this afternoon to pick up our packets. We may try and take a gander at the course after that and then finish up the night with carb loading at Olive Garden. I am so excited! I can't believe it is finally here!

Keep running, you're simply the best and you inspire me!!

Looking Ahead to the Mill Creek 1/2 Marathon Distance Classic

I am very excited to be participating in the Mill Creek 1/2 two weeks from tomorrow. Although, I think I am even more excited to be running it with a long time friend, running buddy, and "cuz". I was checking out the Cleveland Marathon's website last month and found a link to let you check registrations. I decided to put in Pittsburgh, PA since it is one of the bigger cities close to where I grew up. As I was scrolling down I saw a very familiar name..Michele. Of course Michele is a very common name. Now the Michele "Cuz" I know is 33 so I checked and sure enough the one registered is 33. I headed to facebook to see if any of my high school friends kept in touch with her (did I mention that we went to high school together and ran on the track and cross country teams?). As luck would have it, one of my friends was friends with her on myspace. I found Michele through myspace and sent her a message. I found out through her return message that she is in fact running the Cleveland Marathon. It is her first marathon (mine too) and she doesn't want to walk at all (me either) and ideally she would like to finish in 4 hours (me too)! So we had been emailing back and forth and I mentioned that I wanted to run the Mill Creek 1/2 but I really wanted someone to run it with. Without hesitation she said, "I'm free that weekend, I will run it with you". By the next morning we were both registered! Michele and I will both be getting into Youngstown early in the afternoon the day before the race. We plan to pick up our race packets, carb load (of course), and just catch up on say I don't know....the last 15 years or so. I honestly don't believe we have seen each other since she graduated from high school. I graduated in 1992 but would go back when I was free from college obligations and help coach/train the teams. It's funny how things work out, isn't it? Needless to say, I will be in Youngstown in two weeks, camera in hand, catching up with a great friend, runner, and "cuz" and of course enjoying 13.1!

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!