Warrior Dash 06.05.11 - Logan, OH

Seeing as how this was my second Warrior Dash, I was totally prepared this time. Totally.

Yeah, right.

This race came three weeks after the Rite Aid Cleveland Half-Marathon and I hadn't run at all during those three weeks. I could barely walk, let alone run!

I met TK & SM at TK's house and we carpooled from there. It was a little over three hours south of here, so ROADTRIP! Polar Pops in hand, we hit the road and made it in good time. Found a great place to park (right next to the bus pickup/dropoff location) and hopped on the bus. The Warrior Dash was held in a park... if you could say that. More like a nature preserve or something. The mud smelled so bad - it was sulfur mud and it was like standing around in a barrel of rotten eggs. Ugh. The weather cooperated - it was overcast and maybe 80F, so not too hot, not too sunny. We were scheduled to run in the 530pm Sunday wave - which means the course had been torn up sufficiently, and, due to the torrential downpour the night before, was muddier than all get out. Which, while fun, wasn't the easiest to find purchase when trying to climb the hills...

Before we got muddy:


When it was our turn to hit the track, we shot off at a good clip. This wasn't a race for time, it was a race for fun. Even though I had the advantage of having done the Dash before, I knew it was much more fun to do it WITH someone, so we kept together. The first mile or so of the course was pretty much all straight up hill - straight up mud, too. Slipping and sliding for everyone. But me... I was wearing my Vibram Five Fingers and was able to bend my foot sufficiently to grab roots and stuff with my toes! Woot! Mud, mud, slide down the hill, more mud, run as fast as you can down the hill to avoid falling, swim through the log lake, climb over the cars, run through the tires, more cars, climb another hill, go through the spider web, go down more mudslides, go thru the tunnel (which I didn't do - claustrophobia got the best of me), slide down the hill some more, traverse the creek, climb the cargo net, climb the 12-foot wall, cross the plank, cross a horizontal cargo net, more running and then the finale...


FIRE!!!!

After the fire was the mud bog. Gross.


Team KA:


Warriors!


It was a good time. Finished in 48:xx - definitely could've done it faster, but that's not the point of this, now is it?

Cleveland Half-Marathon Recap...

So yeah, I've been remiss about this whole blog thing. Excuses, excuses. So much to do, so little time, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Here's how the Rite Aid Cleveland Half-Marathon went down for me:

It was cold and drizzling - which was perfect weather for running! We left Akron around quarter after five. The information packet said to be downtown no later than six because the roads would be closed, etc. With a quick pit-stop in Brecksville for my nervous gut, we made it to Cleveland right around 6am. Found a parking spot over by E 4th street and proceeded to make our way down to the starting area (Browns Stadium). P was a trouper - she insisted on walking the whole way (as opposed to being worn by daddy - ah, but that carrier would definitely come in handy as they waited for me...).

Before the race:

(I was wearing the headband at the insistence of P. I don't normally wear those.)

From the time the starting gun went off, it took almost eight minutes to get to the starting line. My goal for the race was to finish vertically, but there was a time goal (I know, I know... bad T) I wanted to accomplish: 2:30:00. In order to make that goal I knew I needed to line up in the 5:00:00 pace group. The crowd was so big and the starting line so unorganized (really, they should have started in waves) that I couldn't get close to the 5-hr pace group. I was ahead of the 5.30 group - and could still see the sign for the 5-hr pacers, so I grudgingly accepted my spot and started on my way.

The first three miles went by so quickly. Even though I was wearing my earbuds, I did NOT listen to music. I had them on only to hear the mile markers and time from my runtastic app. I couldn't believe how many people were in line for port-a-potties so close to the start line. I guess I could, though, really, because when I'm not in a race and just running for fun, I usually have to facilitize somewhere around mile 2.5. (I seem to have a nervous gullet for race-day and always manage to get that out of the way beforehand!)

Around mile 4 my right IT band started hurting. Not so bad that I was going to stop. I was making good time (for me, anyway, I was averaging a 10:12 mile). I kept plodding along, happy with how things were going.

Halfway point:


Yes, I really was feeling good! Sore knee, but all was well.

Until mile 10.5. I sidestepped a safety cone that had been put in the most inadvertent place and when I did that, my kneecap decided to jump track and start rubbing against the cartilage. Yeah, that hurt. Slowed my progress significantly. Up until that point, my 2.5 hour half was totally doable. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. I started walking... and walking... I walked for about a mile and half until I decided it hurt just as bad to walk as it did to run, so I might as well get this over with as soon as possible.

As I rounded the corner for the sprint to the finish, the hubby was there with his trusty camera.



Finish line ahead:


As I was coming in for my finish, apparently so was the female winner of the FULL marathon! Yes, she ran the entire course in the time it took me to do half of it. *sigh* Oh well - at least there was a ton of excitement as I was crossing the finish line.

After finishing and collecting my medal, banana and chocolate milk, I wandered around trying to coordinate meeting up with the hubby. I was cranky and in pain, so it wasn't exactly the runner's high that's so promised.

We trudged uphill back to the car (another mile) and stopped to take pictures of P.




After it was all said and done, I have my medal:


...and I have my sticker:


... and then I went and ate the most disgustingly fattening thing I could think of: Strawberry-smothered french toast. It was delicious!

The aftermath of my feet. (SFW, just not safe for the squeamish). Believe it or not, they didn't hurt. Or maybe they did, but the pain in my knee was so much that I didn't notice the feet hurting.

Oh, and that 2:30:00 goal? Missed it by that much. My official time was 2:35:22. So close...

Five month recap. So Much, Sew Little.

After leaving off at Christmas time, so much has happened. But then again, not really.

January was spent being cold and miserable. Not much on the running front, not much on the sewing front. I did the Warrior Dash at the end of the month with my brother down in Florida. It was fun, but not nearly as difficult as it should have been. I ended up with nasty blisters on the back of my heels from my crappy shoes. Lesson learned - wear shoes that fit properly. My time wasn't great due to the blisters - I had blood in my shoe by the one-mile mark. So that stung. Near the end as I was approaching the cargo net climb, I was actually heckled by some drunks. They yelled at me for walking. I responded "I have blood in my shoes and I'm a pussy. Bite me." Yeah, good manners were not on the course that day.

It was nice to spend time with my brother, though, so there's that. And I looked FIERCE!

February brought NO running, but a little sewing. Why no running? The blisters on my heels became holes. I couldn't wear shoes that touched them in any way, so I spent the month wearing Uggs. Yeah, I know they're ugly, but at least they didn't hurt my heels. Anyway, to the sewing:

A pair of overalls for P:

Her Valentines dress:

A pair of hedgehog mittens:

Hubby and P went down to Columbus to protest SB5. My hippies!

In March, training for the Rite Aid Cleveland Half-Marathon started in earnest. I joined the Y and hit the treadmill. I culled the internet for a training plan and made one up that worked for me. It had me running three days a week - two short, one long. I didn't do intervals or speed work, which I suppose might've been to my detriment. But alas, I'm still okay with how my training went. I ran the numbers today and all in all it was 157.93 Miles Run (appx 32 hours), 139.12 Miles Biked (appx 9.5 hours), 11 hrs 35 mins Cross Training (Weights/Elliptical). No wonder I'm so tired! Heh. More on the Half-mary in a minute...

I think I only sewed one thing in March. P said to me "I want a Dopey coat!" She's like EF Hutton - when she speaks, I listen. My first completely self-drafted item:

April was just training. It seems all I did during April was run, bike and work out with weights. We did get down to Charleston, WV to see Huey Lewis & The News, though, so that was cool.

I also started taking a yoga class. I don't like it so much. :(

Oh, I did sew one thing in April - P's Easter dress!

The first two weeks of May were pretty much devoted to the Half-Marathon. Which I will get into in my next post... (stay tuned)

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was exhausting and I can truly say I'm glad it's over. Now we still have to tear down the decorations, so it still feels like Xmas in the house, but as far as I'm concerned, my Ho Ho Ho has become oh oh oh! Let the cleaning commence.

I was a lazy runner this week: nary a run over three miles. One day I couldn't muster more than 15 minutes. To my credit I did give blood the night before, so there's that. I didn't run either Xmas eve or Xmas day and I'm really feeling the laziness. I'm cranky, tired and just want to be left alone. Not so festive. Oh well. Back to the grindstone tomorrow.

As far as holiday gifts go, the girl got lots of toys, hubby got a few things (yes, I actually spent much less on him than he did on me - but I had to buy/make all the family gifts, so he's still on the hook for less $$ than I am). He got a book, a watch and two lenses for his iPhone. He gave me a jogbra, compression socks, tire pump, waterproof earbuds, and a jogging stroller! I guess now I have NO excuses, right?

My father is up visiting from Georgia and I gave him a Garmin GPS and a Wahl clipper set. He also got the annual Miss P picture book. The in-laws received the same book, the DVD set of The Planet Earth, and Grammy got an infinity scarf that I made Friday morning. Miss p's cousins got giftcards for food and pictures of their mother that hubby found negatives of and made prints.

We are very fortunate, no doubt.

Public Relations Win

The day before the Reindeer Run in Lakewood I had to go pick up my race packet in Rocky River. It was a Friday night, so we ended up looking for someplace different to have dinner in Rocky River. We ended up at The Pub on Detroit Ave.

The Pub is an English Pub that is situated in an old movie theatre. In our party was P, Dave and me. It was early, maybe 6-ish and there wasn't a line or a wait or anything. We entered and were ushered out to the patio. Yes, the patio. Which at any other establishment I probably wouldn't have cared, but we went to an English Pub to enjoy the atmosphere as well as the food. So much for atmosphere. At least they had heaters so it wasn't too cold. I did not, however, take my coat off because it wasn't THAT warm. I assumed we were banished to the patio due to having a child in-tow on a Friday night. Whatever.

Our service was crappy, the food was eh. I made my displeasure known to the waiter, reassuring him that I wasn't looking for anything comped, but that I thought he should know that we weren't happy. This was after dinner, but before dessert. We still ordered dessert because, hey, bread pudding! With the dessert order we also ordered coffee. On top of all the other crappy stuff that happened over the course of the meal, the coffee didn't come to the table until almost 10 minutes AFTER we finished the bread pudding. Major fail.

I would've totally given them a pass based solely on the bread pudding (it was really, really good), but then the coffee incident. And nary an apology.

So when I got home that night, I posted on their FB page about the service. (If you want to read it, check out "The Pub" Rocky River on FB).  That was on Friday night.

Monday morning I received a FB message from the marketing / PR person asking for contact info so the manager could talk to me about my experience.

I received a call from "Matt" the next morning. He apologized for the service, offered to comp us a meal, etc. I assured him it was not necessary, but he insisted that he didn't want to lose a customer and that he would send out a gift card so I could give them another chance. So I gave him my address.

Two weeks later I still had not received the gift card, so I sent a Facebook message to the marketing / PR person who contacted me initially that said essentially that while I should be surprised at the lack of follow through, I really wasn't.

Within 15 minutes I received a phone call from the PR person. She apologized profusely, said that that blunder was her fault, not the restaurant's and that she thought they were sending the card and that they thought she was sending the card, blah, blah, blah, apology-cakes. She promised that she would send out the gift card immediately. This was yesterday morning.

Last night around 6pm the manager from The Pub appeared on my doorstep with a takeout of bread pudding and $100 gift card.

I think I'll give them another try.

They'd better not screw it up.

:)

Christmas Dress

The Christmas Dress in-progress.

Vogue 8593, view C.

I still need to attach sleeves, hem and make a belt.

Teacher Gifts

Because I'm a total slacker, I completely forgot about gifts for P's teachers until yesterday. Which wouldn't be a problem except that today is the last day of school until January! So I decided to make something I've never made before. Why not, right?

I stopped at Starbucks on the way home to pick up giftcards and to steal a coffee sleeve to use as a pattern. It only took a couple of hours, but I made tea wallets and cup cozies for them. Added in a tea bag and the gift card and voilà - instant teacher gifts!

Hope they like them!