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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

A Little of This and a Little of That...


We celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary this past week! I can't believe how the time flies. We both have a few more wrinkles and a couple of gray hairs (well, he does..I don't have any yet, must be the genes..thanks Mom!) 
I really am so grateful to be married to such an awesome man...Isn't he cute?




We have had a lot of good times over the years, but I think our lives together really started about 7 1/2 years ago with the birth of our son, Ethan, Isabelle was born 2 1/2 years ago. Being parents has been so rewarding...and challenging at times. But it has been wonderful! My family is the most important thing in my life and I am truly grateful for them!


I ran 6 miles this morning and I put on an old playlist of 80's music...we are talking high school days..isn't it amazing how music brings back so many memories? Anyway, I have a trivial question for you, internet...Is Van Halen (the band) Sammy Hagaar or David Lee Roth?? Leave your opinion below...I am really curious to know which you are. ( :

I will be running with my running group in the morning, Christmas Eve, 8-10 miles. I love burning calories before the feast! 

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and get everything you want from Santa...Happy running! 

Sunday, December 14, 2008

1500...

I was inspired by Blyfinn and RunnerMom to add up my mileage for the year.  I have really never given it a second thought, but I have been curious, so I added up my miles for the year, I am at 1404! There is a new goal somewhere in this....I will be at 1500 by December 31. (I only had to add in about 12 miles). Woot Woot! 

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Hitting the Wall


I got a comment from someone, which I have to say, I totally appreciated, saying that my nausea at mile 18 in the marathon was caused because I had hit the wall. 
Hmmm... I didn't run out of energy, I was mentally still "there," no fuzziness in my brain, my legs didn't feel like lead...I was just nauseated. I have hit the wall before! And the wall was not being hit last weekend. I have been in races where I was completely DONE, physically and emotionally. But, I started thinking, maybe I don't know what it feels like to hit the wall, so I googled it...Nope, I know what it feels like.  

Of hitting the wall, Dick Beardsley said,"It felt like an elephant jumped out of a tree onto my shoulders and was making me carry it the rest of the way in."

George Ringler said, "At around mile 23, I was beginning to feel like the anchor was out."

"The Wall." It evades easy definition, but to borrow from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous definition of obscenity, you know it when you see it--or rather, hit it. It usually happens around mile 20, give or take a couple of miles. Your pace slows, sometimes considerably. Some runners say that it feels as though their legs had been filled with lead quail shot, like the stomach of Mark Twain's unfortunate jumping frog of Calaveras County. Others can't feel their feet at all. Thought processes become a little fuzzy. (Mile 22, again? I thought I just passed mile 22!") Muscle coordination goes out the window, and self-doubt casts a deep shadow over the soul.  (This was taken from an article written by Sara Latta called "Hitting "The Wall")

What it all boils down to is that "Hitting The Wall" is basically about running out of energy!

Apparently, it is a common occurrence in distance runners to have nausea, either during or after the race. (I get it during and after, a lot of the time for the rest of the day, yeah me!). It can be caused by the sugars in the gatorade or Gu, which, I use both. I have tried pretzels and fig newtons, real food, but I still get nauseated. I read eating a packet of salt before and during the race can help. Has anyone tried that before? What about ginger? What are your rituals before, during and after a race?

Monday, December 8, 2008

Viva Las Vegas ~ The Recap

One of the ladies I went to Vegas with has a cousin who owns a condo just right off of the LV Strip. This was only small part of the view from my room!

We had an amazing panoramic view of the city, and it only cost me $10 ~ my portion of the cleaning fee...

Vegas is a very interesting place...no, we didn't do any gambling, in fact, we didn't even step foot into a casino, I know this probably disappoints some of you, but I did see some fascinating people...I will just leave it at that. 

Getting to the starting line was a little tricky with ALL the road closures, but we finally found a way through and got a parking spot and ran over just in time to visit the port a potties and have the gun go off. They shot off the fireworks over the strip, which was such a cool thing to see. 

As we started inching our way across the start line, I got a little weepy, I was so excited to be running another marathon (this was #11), and with the fireworks and Elvis singing Viva Las Vegas it was just cool.  There were about 15 thousand runners (full & half marathoners combined).  
                                       
The first 4 miles were really crowded with walkers and so I was having to dodge in and out of them, but once the half marathoners split off it was wide open. 

There was a run through wedding chapel at mile 6-ish and just after that was a line of about 10 Elvis' on the sideline, which was a total energy boost, seeing so many in one place. Of course, all along the course there was someone running as Elvis...

The weather was great! It wasn't too cold, there was a nice cloud covering, and not a lot of wind, it was a perfect day for running a marathon! I was feeling good and running strong and it just felt fabulous to be out there.
 
I started getting nauseated at about mile 18, but I stayed strong and just tried to run through it. Does anyone else have this nausea problem?? What do you do to keep it at bay? 


That last stretch before the finish line was the frontage road of I-15. There were more spectators than I had anticipated, which was really nice. As I turned to go around Mandalay Bay to the finish line I started getting weepy, I do that EVERY time...but as I crossed the finish line, there was Clara, it was so nice to see a friendly face and I cried, of course! 

I went into this race with no expectations and was pleasantly surprised, they had an aid station at every mile, with port a potties at each, and they also had a potty at every half mile as well. They took tons of pictures, MarathonFoto was everywhere. They didn't run out of cups at mile 22...it was mile 25! I was glad I brought my own post race food because there was NO post race food, not one morsel. They had water, gatorade, regular & chocolate milk and orange punch..that was it! Next year that won't be an issue since Rock & Roll bought the LV Marathon! Yeah!  All in all it was a fabulous weekend and a fabulous race. I finished in 4:33. Viva Las Vegas!

Friday, December 5, 2008

I am heading...

off to Vegas a little later today and getting very excited. My goals for this race are pretty much the same as every race:

*Finish in 4:30 (but 4:12 would be awesome!)
*Enjoy the journey
*Have fun
*Remember to RUN STRONG

I am going into this race with NO expectations. It is after all a Divine Sports race. I will be bringing my own post race food, I can't stomach hot dogs/hamburgers/taquitos after running 26.2 miles!! And I am hoping they don't run out of cups at mile 22 like they did the last time I ran it. But I am excited to run. I love the excitement and anticipation among all the runners before a race starts! I loaded a new playlist on my ipod and I am ready to run! 

I love FrayedLaces' quote:
"There will be a day when you can no longer do this. Today is NOT that day!"

Hope you all have a great weekend! Good luck to all of you who will be racing.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

I'm Going to Vegas, Baby

I'm getting really excited for the Vegas Marathon this weekend! I haven't felt any pre-race jitters...yet.  Although I do have that cleaning bug I seem to get, all the extra energy, I guess. I am also excited because I will be driving down with some friends from my running group, which is totally awesome, since the original plan was to drive down on my own...

Hope I don't feel like these people next Monday!!

                               s

Monday, December 1, 2008

Santa Came Early

I am probably the last runner who didn't own a Garmin. 
My wonderful husband surprised me with this little guy last night, just in time for the LV Marathon! What a great man! I am so excited to try it out and reap the benefits of technology! ( :