The Anthem Richmond Marathon

So, since I can barely walk today I may as well get to blogging about this weekend! Aarik took off Friday so that we could leave early in the morning. We got started a little later than planned, but I had decided after the ridiculous week we had that we were going to avoid stress, and any outside responsibilities as much as possible. As worried as I was about the race we just didn't need any negativity or aggravation. The way that Sprint GPS took us was absolutely gorgeous. Mostly back roads & small highways. The first half of the trip we got to see lots of farm land, relax & listen to country music while Parker slept & the rest of us got to chat. Then Parker woke up & screamed the rest of the way, everyone had to go potty every 5 seconds & I got a barrage of poorly timed, non marathon weekend text messages. By the time we got to the expo we were all worn out, over being in the car and a little grumpy. Because of that, we were in and out of the expo very quickly and I never even got to see the medal I was hoping to earn the next day. I did however purchase a 26.2 magnet for the Jeep and said a quick prayer it wasn't a waste of money and we bumped into a new friend made on the Richmond marathon Facebook page who we had lots in common with. The expo was crazy crowded but looked to be very well organized, and had more than enough gear for anyone interested in spending money to help remember the event. There was ample parking outside of the convention center. They had booths specifically to answer questions for out of towners and had plenty of free maps on hand. The Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield booth even gave the kids all free cowbells to ring to help cheer the next day. Other than those things it was your typical race expo.
Our hotel was located in a pretty central spot, but let me say I was not impressed with it at all. The shower looked to have never been cleaned and the front desk girl that was there during check in & check out was one of the most rude people ever. I was thrilled, however, that there was a Denny's in the adjoining parking lot and we were happy to be able to walk over to dinner and be the only people there when we ate at 5:00. The kids, of course, love any excuse to have pancakes for dinner! Jennifer and Ray were kind enough to offer me a ride down the next morning which took a big stress off of Aarik,would let the kids get more sleep in the morning, and allow us to spend time together as a group. So Aarik and I tried to plan his route to get to the finish and signed him up to get live updates while I was running. Navigating Richmond and paying tolls every five minutes was another not so fun thing to plan around. When Aimee and I talked I found out we had broken $4000.00 and doubled out fundraising goal!! Inspiration and motivation!! We got the monkeys ready for bed, I laid out all of my race gear, we prayed & went to bed. The kids all slept great, thankfully, and I woke up every hour thinking I had overslept. At five I got up, ate a small bowl of Captain Crunch, got dressed and went downstairs to meet up with the Riska family. We spent less time than I expected looking for parking (not to say it was easy finding a place, just not as hard as anticipated). We got to watch the start of the half, go for a quick jog, found a nice warm place to go to the bathroom (if I run this race again we will stay at the host hotel. Complete opposite of where we stayed), and made it down just in time to have Ray snap a few pics, give hugs to Josh, Aimee & Callie & get in line for the start.

Jennifer and I started the race together and stayed together almost 16 miles.

I wore my hydration pack because I was concerned with all of the NY marathoners coming in at the last minute the race would run out of water & Powerade, especially if my leg gave me a fit and I was at the very back of the pack. {Sidenote: they never ran out of anything as long as I was on the course.} It was nice to be able to chat with Callie's grandma about running, our training, Callie, the course, books and anything else that came up along the way. As we ran together in our Team GSF jerseys we had lots of people yell out to us "That's right! Never Give Up!!" We were even called "The Never Give Ups" a few times. It was such an awesome reminder to us of why we were there. There was ton of course support, signs everywhere, people out with their kids & dogs. People sitting on their lawns with signs, shop owners doing their own water stops, people giving out Twizzlers, cheering... You name it! It was obvious why they call this "America's Friendliest Marathon". The most beautiful part was when we ran along the James River for a while. It was almost silent other than the sound of the water. After the water stop that we got seperated I decided to listen to music. I was really nervous about the Robert E. Lee bridge because I'd heard terrifying things about it, but it gave me no trouble at all. The wind that people talk about must have taken pity on us that day. It was where I saw people start to drop off though, some walking, hobbling, limping, some sitting down on the side. From then on out the race thinned out a good bit. When I came off the bridge one of the race volunteers said, "You've got this, if you did the bridge your fine, it's the hardest part!" How silly of me to believe her!  Truthfully, I did myself in because when I tried to walk through a water stop at mile 11 I realized if I tried to walk anymore I'd be in big trouble. For some reason at mile 20 I went against my decision from just nine miles before and decided to walk through a water stop so that I could call Aarik and let him know to start heading down to the finish area with the kids. Being the amazing man that he is, he was already in the car with them. But when I started running again it was SO painful that it slowed me down A LOT. I kept thinking about all of the people I love who I wanted to do this for, the support they had given me, and I would tell myself that I WAS going to finish this and it would end faster if I kept running and that in only "X" amount of miles I was going to finally be a marathoner. It worked, I kept running. Not running fast, but running. At mile 24 I picked up my pace again, but couldn't maintain it for the last two miles after going up an unexpected hill. When I got down to mile 26 I was searching for my family- people who knew me and loved me and would be cheering me on.

I was so happy to see Josh, Aimee, Callie and Aimee's two sisters off to the side.

Then I saw Ray, Callie's grandpa who was awesome enough to be cameraman &course support Team Callie for the weekend.

I kept looking for Aarik & the kids and then I spotted two Never Give Up shirts in the crowd and realized it was Hannah and David. Those shirts on on my two teammates gave me a little more fuel and I finished the race at the bottom of the hill. I stopped my Garmin and looked down to see 26.32 miles in 5:03:08. I'm not going to lie, over 5 hours was hard to swallow. I've always been a middle of the pack runner, but usually toward the front end, not the back end. But I reminded myself of all the trials I had overcome to get to the finish line, and how blessed I am to be able to run at all, and that at mile 21 when my legs felt like someone had set them on fire I had decided this was such an incredibly hard thing to finish this race I would be proud of my time no matter what it was. I also found comfort in the fact that I beat Katie Holmes' marathon time ;). Called Aarik, they had gotten lost and then couldn't find parking, but they were out of the car now and heading to the finish area. They found Josh and Aimee. We could meet there. Another few minutes of walking and I was given my medal. I saw bananas and bagels, but they made me gag even though I was starving. Picked up a piece of pizza and a Powerade nibbled the pizza, but then decided it wasn't a good idea and tossed it, made my way through a ton of people laying on the ground, asked a cop how to get back to the finish line, followed his directions, climbed entirely too many stairs to get to the bridge off of the island, realized the fence in the way would make it impossible for me to get back to where I'd seen everyone before, went up to the next street,walked up another big hill and finally got to see my family! My sweet kiddos started yelling "Go mommy go! Go mommy go!" And I made a controlled collapse to the curb. I found out Jennifer had crossed the finish line shortly after me & was so excited & proud for her. As we sat & waited for her to make the same confusing journey back to the family, Ray offered to take a picture of me with the family. It's my favorite one from the day.

I'm so grateful he was so thoughtful & helped preserve memories from the weekend, otherwise I wouldn't have a single picture. Unfortunately, there were tons of people with dogs around so within just a few minutes Mckenzie was screaming like a lunatic and even knocked Parker down causing him to slam his head on the road. I decided (in my not so coherent mind) that I couldn't handle anymore of the dog induced spasms, and we left. I wish that I'd been thinking more clearly for photo purposes, because I left before we'd gotten a picture of all four of us with our medals. But here are the others with theirs

They all did awesome!

I learned a lot from this race that I'd like to share. It was so much easier and harder then I thought it would be; and I definitely want to talk about the aftermath of it all, but this post is too long already, so... Next time!

It's Here

So I've been trying to figure out what to post for my "last post before the big weekend" post. I had decided not to do one because I'm not thinking clearly and wanted it to be meaningful. Then Aimee said something to me that made me really think and I woke up to an article written by Victoria Strong, and I realized what I would like to write about.
As part of my fundraising I've spent the past several months describing how this disease works. Telling everyone about all of the things these kids can NOT do because of SMA. Truth is that these kids, and their parents, are told every day what they can't, and won't and shouldn't do; then these amazing children, along with their courageous and supportive parents, go out and they DO. Their parents become innovators, inventors, and activists. They make friends with their physical therapist, neurologist & pediatrician and as a team they make things happen.  These kids DO. Some live past 6 months, some go to Kindergarten, or ballet classes, and they run distances that most adults  "can't". They teach. They are inspirations for those of us who say we can't to get up and do. Their bodies fail them daily but they don't write a blog post to complain about it, they find a way to work around it. They don't ask for pity, they ask for support. When they reach the finish line of their life, no matter what the distance they traveled, they have given it their all. They run the perfect race, finishing with nothing left in the tank because they leave it all on the course.  I hope if I happen to meet "the wall" tomorrow (it's more likely than not) that I can remember the lessons I've learned from observing these amazing people this year and push through it, keep running because I'm blessed to have a body that can run.
For tonight, we're in Richmond, exhausted from the crazy trip, pancakes in belly, wrestling a teething 1 year old  & hoping we can figure out a way to get to the start line through all of the closed, most direct roads! Prayers appreciated ;)

Trying to Catch Up

I need to. I need to try to catch up on blogging AND training. The month of September was so completely overwhelming that I chose not to blog about it and share all of the negativity I felt during that month. Suffice it to say we had way too much going on and I was also dealing with an injury. Between life and limb (the right leg to be exact) I missed three crucial weeks of running. Like, completely missed them. No running at all. For three weeks. When I started back just a couple of weeks ago I wasn't sure if I'd be able to run on my bum leg to catch up, or be able to make up the mileage since it would require finding my way back to the 13 I'd built up to AND adding on enough mileage to get in a few decent long runs before taper and race. My first week back I subbed for two classes at the Y, and since I taught four days of cycle in a row I couldn't get in any mid week runs. Frustrated, I went out for my long run that weekend not knowing if I'd run two or ten. Luckily, it went great and I ran nine with no problems. I stopped at nine to make sure it wasn't overkill leading to re injury after my time off. I was thrilled and renewed. I came up with a make shift training plan for the last few weeks to build up to what I feel will be an ok mileage and was looking forward to twelve the next week. The twelve went horribly. After only five miles my injured leg was screaming at me, and whatever bug my family had been passing around was nagging at me, so I decided to try the walk run method so many of the ladies in my FB Women's Marathoner group recommended. So I ran 20 minutes, walked 5, ran 15, walked 5... It was brutal, but I finished having run more than I walked. I felt defeated, and beat up and frustrated that so many things have gone wrong with this training period.  I decided to try my hardest to stay positive, any finish at any time was better than not doing this at all. I've always said I just wanted to finish. Run or walk, it's still 26.2 miles. I did a lot of praying and reminding myself that my husband has been very supportive and helpful. He totally thinks I can do this (insert nervous laughter here). So many people have contributed to the fundraising end of this deal. I thought about Callie, and her family. Again and again GSF's  "Never Give Up" on my wrist, my jeep, my t-shirt, running jersey, water bottle. After a few days I wasn't as sore, we had another busy week with no time for mid week mileage, sigh, and Friday morning I went out for my first ever fifteen mile run, worried that this type of crazy, thrown together training plan would back fire. While I was aware of my Achilles, it never went into full on pain. My knee did something weird the first mile, but eventually settled in. I spent most of the run praying in gratitude for each mile completed and asking for a few more. At mile eleven I had kept an easy, even pace the entire time and was feeling strong. At mile twelve I decided to take a quick walk break to check for pain, and was surprised that the worst pain I had was when I started running again. My pace did slow after the walk break, but I still managed to finish my 15 in just over two and a half hours. Not the pace I had envisioned a few months back, but one I'm happy with now. One i hope to be able to muster for as long as possible on November 10th. When hobbling home I had a few thoughts: a. It sucks not getting a medal for this. b. ouch and c. I hope I can add 11.2 more miles to this :-! My last long training run (18 unless i can magically bust out a 20) is this next weekend, then two weeks of taper and the race. I'm crazy nervous and terrified by the idea of being forced to walk 8-10 miles after running 16-18. Just starting to realize what I'm supposed to be doing in 26 days. I probably won't find much time to blog between now and then, but hope to at least once. I would appreciate any prayers on my behalf, or good running vibes sent out. Or donations! ;) this post is already super long & wordy so, I'll TRY to update after next week's run.

Official Richmond Training Gear

Officially two weeks into Richmond marathon training, and I get an email about official Richmond Marathon training gear. To buy, or not to buy? Kind of disappointed in the selection. When I ran the Cooper River 10k there was a HUGE selection of this stuff. Can't decide if either top is cute enough to buy... opinions? suggestions?

26.2 miles

OK, I may throw up. It's official, if all goes well with training, I will be running The 2012 Anthem Richmond Marathon on November 10th. "America's friendliest marathon". I signed up tonight. It was a last minute change from the marathon I've been planning to run for the last several months, (Callie's Uncle and Grandma had some things change on their end & we can all run this one together) but it looks awesome! If it's anything like the website makes it look and sound, then I know this was the best choice for my first marathon. It will be wonderful to share this experience with both my family and Callie's. They have all been so supportive, both the ones who are local and the ones across the country. Now I can start getting excited... right?!?!

This week, as I've been anticipating signing up for this, I've been a ball of nerves. The anxiety has been manifesting itself in every facet of my life from motherhood & being a wife, to cleaning, to running and back again. I'm hoping that since I now know for sure which race I'm signed up to run, and have already taken the plunge, that the nerves will ease up and the training can begin. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out, with Aarik's work schedule due to change twice between now and then, and the usual life with kids thing. It's comforting that this race is two weeks further away than the other, also. Two more weeks to train and save money for the trip. Anyone who likes to pray for others, feel free to add me to your list. I'm lacking the confidence I'd hoped to have at this point in the year, and hoping that the donations, and my running ability (and excitement) will pick up again. I'm so honored to be able to join "Team GSF" and help raise money for this wonderful charity that does SO much to help improve the lives of families living and dealing with SMA.

Thank you to all that have supported me in both my fundraising and running efforts. I'll try to post as often as possible about how training is going, and keep you updated on the kiddos and Aarik too! I'm excited to share this fun and physically demanding journey with whoever cares to read about it, but hope to always keep in mind the reason that I'm doing this in such a public way. I'd be perfectly happy keeping my shortcomings as a runner to myself, especially with such a big commitment, but it's worth putting it all on the line for people to learn a little about Spinal Muscular Atrophy and maybe support the cause too! Well, here we go...

The Divas Half

So this past weekend was the Divas Half Marathon in North Myrtle Beach.  Originally this was supposed to be a fun girls weekend getaway and race with my mom and a close friend. Then we found a few more girls to invite and one of them had a great place to stay close by on the cheap. It was a fun group of girls and sure to be a good time, PERFECT! I was thinking I'd be able to leave Parker by now and, just in case he wasn't ready, had made a back up plan to have my sister come along to help out on race day. Well, as plans some times will, our plans changed. Several times. All of them. My sister was asked to do a house sitting job and needed to take it, so I decided to bring the whole family along, mom and I found another place to stay, not as close, but just as cheap, the original friend who had planned the trip with me had lots of things pop up last minute and wasn't able to make it down.  The night before the trip I got an email changing something important to me, that I have worked hard on and put lots of effort into and I was feeling pretty crummy about that. By the time Friday rolled around I was feeling overwhelmed by packing for five and buying and planning food for five and... well you can imagine. But we all loaded up and drove down to North Myrtle ( a place I don't personally believe to be the most family friendly beach, especially during bike week, which it was). The kids rode down great, Aarik was a champ like always, we had a great time, everyone behaved. It actually turned into a much needed, fairly peaceful family mini vacation. While we were there mom was awesome enough to take some family pictures for us. You may have noticed some of them already plastered on here.  I'm SO excited about finally having pictures with all of us in them. Especially because I actually got to shower and get ready before we took them! So here are a few pics from the trip.

Now onto the race :) I've made it no secret that training for this race has been a struggle. This was my third half but my first time not being able to stick to a training schedule. It was frustrating and made me lose a lot of the excitement I normally feel looking forward to a race, but two things kept me plugging away (as best I could anyway) #1- I needed to build a base again after not running during the end of my pregnancy and before I start training for my full and #2- my mom. This year my mom will turn 50, she won't look it, but she will be it. Last year was a very hard year for her, which isn't unusual, but it was really hard. So several months back I suggested she do this race as a way to celebrate her 50th year. Honestly, running is my thing. The thing One of the things that makes my family think I'm crazy. I was able to get my husband to do it, there was no way I could convince anyone else, right?!? Well, bless my mama's heart, she signed up for the race, and then she started training. I gave her a training plan, and a little advice, we found her some good shoes (insert ASICS plug here :), and a few cute outfits and she hit the pavement. Early on the plan was for us to do it together, like, all of it. Training, fueling, and the race. Then we got busy and had to do our training separately. She would ask a question here and there, we would talk about what our mileage would be on Saturdays, but she was on her own a lot. It was up to her to be accountable for her training, and she was. She would get up earlier than I would on weekends and get in her long mileage. She would come home from work and juggling other people's schedules during the week and get her mid-weekers in.  She worked her rear off. Since I was running all of my mileage, I decided I would just run the half and then go back and meet her. But the closer it got to race day, the more that plan just didn't feel good. So a few weeks before I decided to go back to the original plan and do the race with my mom. This race was a blast! From the expo

All the way to the finish

I enjoyed it all. Being an all women's race made it a whole different experience. The expo was full of women dying to spend money on stuff they would only use once. Pink and sparkles and crazy costumes were everywhere on the morning of the race. I have to tell you it was so refreshing to approach a race differently. Instead of spending two hours pushing myself and freaking out about my time, I spent 3 hours and 15 minutes encouraging my mom and other ladies who had never done a half before, enjoying all the support and funny signs on the course, thanking the volunteers, laughing and chatting, posting pics of mom on Facebook, and yes, texting Aarik to see if Parker was screaming (he wasn't, in case you care :) It was my favorite half marathon experience. I stayed with her all the way until a quarter mile before the finish and then ran ahead to make sure she had at least one picture of herself crossing the finish line. I am SO proud of my mom. She walked and jogged that race like a champ. She didn't stop once. She was determined, and motivated, and she finished strong and got her blingin' medal. My mom is an inspiration.

I'm so grateful for this experience, and the memories we'll always share from it. Way to go mom!

In 10 days registration for the marathon will open. Every time I think about it my stomach knots up. I'm praying everything goes smoothly, the registration, the training, my foot, the race and most importantly the fundraising. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive so far. I was hoping to be at least half way to the goal by the time I registered for the full. There's still a little time to hope, right? If you haven't yet, please share the fundraising page. If you haven't yet, PLEASE donate or make plans to before the end of October! Every single dollar counts! Every donation will help us reach our fundraising goal and every single dollar will get us closer to a treatment and eventually a cure for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. We can help make sure that this disease doesn't continue to torture children and their families. That it doesn't continue to take children away from their families. With 1 in 40 people being a carrier of the SMA gene, you can't think you'll spend the rest of your life with out being affected by it. I am so proud to be raising money for The Gwendolyn Strong Foundation and I know that they will use every dollar to fight this terrible disease. 

If life is too crazy for blogging until then, I will definitely be letting you know once I am officially registered for the big race! Hope everyone has a great week!!

The Hospice 10k

This seems to be the year of glitches and frustrations. You guys know we've had lots going on so I won't go into all of that, but let's just say as of Friday night I was pretty sure there was no way I'd be running Saturday morning. But, when the alarm went off Saturday I got up and got ready and Aarik did the same and we headed over to the Hospice Run. Neither of us felt well, or well prepared, but we figured the distances we were running were short enough we could walk back if we needed to. They had a record turn out which is great for them and their fundraising efforts, a bit frustrating for some of the runners. Apparently, record turn out means they give your t shirt away to someone who registers the day of, and they start the race 45 minutes late, and they are "looking into" posting the results online so people who paid for timing can hopefully find out what their finishing times were.

Okay, to the positives- it was gorgeous weather! Couldn't have been more perfect for the distances we were running! Since they started the 5k thirty minutes before the 10k (???) Aarik was finished and rested enough to think about taking a picture with his cell phone when I finished. He never runs with his phone, so it's fun he did this time!

Hopefully the Hospice people got one of Aarik. We both ran the whole time, and finished somewhere around what our average times are for racing these distances( 54:33 for my 10k and Aarik said he thought his time was 25 something), nothing too shiny. The course was crazy hilly and so it always makes you feel good to finish something challenging; my legs are paying the price today. There wasn't enough time for the extra 3 miles we had planned on running after, so we went straight home. Sorry, not much of a race update. Hopefully the next two will be more positive experiences, with more pictures, and more to talk about!

There were two more donations this week! Aimee, Callie's mom, and I usually do a little text message "high five" of sorts when we see a new donation. It helps get us closer to our goal, but more importantly it's another donation closer to finding a treatment, or cure, for Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  EVERY donation is special. EVERY donation makes my heart happy. EVERY donation counts. A donation can't be too big or too small. I want to share a story of one of the donations because it is awesome to have the opportunity to do that. There is a story behind every donation. This is such an amazing opportunity to be an important drop in the bucket that has to be filled to beat this disease. It's exciting to be getting closer to the half marathon next month, and then to be able to officially register for the big show, the 26.2 miles, just a few days later. We are all really looking forward to seeing the support roll in as we approach the goal race. We are grateful to everyone who has donated so far and gotten us on the path to exceeding our goal, and to all of the people that will donate along the way too. Each donation is a little morale boost for me when I'm struggling with getting out the door and putting in the mileage. It holds me accountable :) I imagine it's also a morale boost to Callie's family. I know it means so much to the people at GSF.  Feel free to share anything I post here. Please feel free to share the fundraising page and the marathon effort, tell people about the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation, and help us spread the word, and make people aware, that this disease is out there and it's something that can be beaten! Thanks for all y'all are doing to get us where we want to go!

*** Update 4/16/12*** Results were posted here are mine. Nothing to be proud of, but I finished. Aarik's are here.

Running and Not Running

This last week I had to put myself on the "I think I'm injured list". My left foot, which has been broken twice now, has been really bothering me since late last Saturday night. I did a couple of miles on the treadmill Tuesday night and it felt fine until a few hours later. Then, pain for two days that went away for me to run Thursday. Thursday I decided to try to run outside for a couple of slow, easy miles. Note to self: if you haven't been running your normal mileage it is almost impossible to "take it easy" when you do get out again. I ran the fastest two miles I've run in a good long while. Maybe because I had only run two miles all week, or maybe because I ran with music for the first time since I broke my foot last time, or maybe just because; it didn't matter that it was hot and muggy either. It felt nice to finish with a good pace, but I worried I had overdone it. Luckily my foot never did hurt (until today).

Friday night Parker got pretty sick, the sickest he's been so far. What seemed to be teething mixed with allergies turned into something crazy in the middle of the night with a high fever, runny nose and coughing. Since I didn't get to sleep until 7:00 Saturday morning, when I was supposed to be running, I didn't run Saturday. Instead Aarik, sick Parker, and I  drove down to Concord to do packet pick up for Aarik's half marathon, while Konnor and Mckenzie spent the day with Nana at home. They only had one day pick up (kind of inconvenient for out of towners) and we had made plans to stay overnight with close friends who live close by. The same people that did our last half and the one I'm doing In May with my mom and a few girlfriends. Honestly, I was disappointed in their "expo" which consisted of maybe two vendors and a few tables from the other races they do. The race itself was an awesome idea, and the medal was enough to make me want to run it, but luckily I didn't sign up to run with my hubby this time because it just wouldn't have worked out. Since we had to bring our sick, angry baby back home last night Aarik drove back up to Concord at 5 am to do his race. With all of the insanity of the weekend, changed plans, sick folks and the fact that he got bored training half way through and hadn't done much since, he STILL managed to pull a 1:48:18! How he does it I'll never know, but he is my running hero.I'm so proud of him and SO grateful to be married to a man that doesn't think twice about changing his plans when something pops up with kids or family life. It may be a little silly, but things like this make me love and appreciate him more. He has decided to concentrate on 5k's for awhile, partly because he doesn't really care for longer distances regardless of the fact that he runs them well, and probably partly because I have a plate full of training until November.

I've decided this week to start fresh with my training, take my mileage down and stick to a new training plan. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully we'll get some sleep tonight so that running this week will feel like something I love and not a chore. 10k is only 3 weeks away and then we'll be closing in on the half and registration and training for the main event! Any locals out there looking for a 5 or 10k soon should sign up for the Hospice Run in Winston. It definitely supports a good cause, is fairly small and was a fun event last time we ran it. This year it means a little more to me to support Hospice after seeing how well they treated my Grandma last year when she was dying and how great they were to the family after she had passed. I'm grateful there are organizations out there to ease the pain of a situation no one wants to go through but we all experience at some point.
Speaking of running for a cause, it's been a little while since we've seen any donations. The fundraising effort started out super strong and I'm so grateful to those who got us on track to meet our goal by the end of October. We purposely shared our fundraising efforts early on so that everyone could have time to find $5, or $15 or $50, and I feel like by Marathon day we will have exceeded our fundraising goal.  I LOVE running but would never take the time to share all of this with everyone in the world if it weren't going to be beneficial to someone else somehow. It's easy to share my training and little unimportant struggles along the way but, hopefully, the money we will raise will help people whose stories are of real struggles and aren't so easy to read about, or share. Spinal Muscular Atrophy is considered fairly rare, but it is far too common to be a disease that never has a happy ending. Please help me spread the word about Running for Callie and fighting SMA.

Last Night's Race

So last night was the 5k in Mount Airy. I've been waiting to get official results before I blogged about it, but I'm not sure when that will happen, so for now: I ran it in 26:35 (according to my Garmin) not super fast, but decent. From what I understand I placed first in my age division, which is exciting because that has never happened to me and probably never will again (my info came from a source very close to one of the directors).This only happened because it was a smallish race, but every little victory feels good. I had to leave as soon as I crossed the finish line to get home to Parker and make sure Aarik didn't miss his plans.   No, I didn't pee myself :) I did, however, have to take two quick walk breaks due to the crazy stitch I got in my side. Never had that experience before, and hope to never have it again. It was insanely painful and still hurts today. Not sure exactly what caused it but Runners World suggests this to fix it (for anyone out there who may have this experience in the future). So technically the 5k beat me again. What can ya do? Other than this dreadful pain in my side, the race was really fun. I got to run with a great friend who helped me run through the pain when she could have left me, the decorations on the course were super cute and it was fun to run at night. Callie's grandparents and aunts were there too. Some participating in the race, some taking pictures and some cheering. If I can get my hands on any pics (and don't look crazy in them) I'll post those and if and when official results are posted I'll update again. Please remember to pass on the fundraising page for SMA in honor of Callie. It's been exciting the past few weeks to see some of the advances in research. Just a reminder of how close they are to finding a treatment and how important it is that we continue to fund those doing the research. It would be great if those newly diagnosed with SMA never had to see the worst effects of this disease. My next race is a 10k on April 14th. OK, bedtime for the kids; we have all kinds of new schedules starting tomorrow!

The 5k and an update on our TEAM effort :)

My first race since having Parker is this coming Saturday, it's a 5k. 3.1 miles. The funny thing is that, for some reason, this distance continues to defeat me. No, seriously. It's not that I can't run 3.1 miles, I ran nine this past Sunday and five the Wednesday before that. I can't race it. I have raced two 10k's and two half marathons. I ran 14 miles every Saturday for several months before I got pregnant with Parker. Every 5k I have attempted has been a bust. The last one I attempted was especially bad though. The several that I had done before I wound up walking at some point (??)-frustrating, so the last one I signed up for was to be greatness. I had been running 8, 9, 10, 11 miles every Saturday building up to my first half. My shortest run during the week was four miles and I just knew I was going to kick this 5k to the curb. Well, it didn't happen that way. Aarik and I got to the race early, too early, and walked around for awhile, eventually sitting down to wait at the starting line. A little while before the race I decided I needed to pee and walked down to the port a potty's (ugh just typing the word makes me want to vomit), where we found probably a hundred people, if not more, waiting in line. Being the germ-a-phobe I am, and lacking the patience it would take to stand in a line that long, I decided "Hey, it's only three miles! I'll knock it out real quick then find a place to pee." Right. Let me give you some advice: it might "only be three miles" but you WILL NOT be knocking it out with a full bladder! Of course they started much later than the given start time, at which point I had been holding it for well over an hour. The gun went off and I took off, determined to get a great time and get to a toilet. That first half mile was amazing, it was the fastest I'd ever run, and then.... I peed myself. No, I'm not kidding. For real. In front of like 10,000 people. Who does that?!?! It brought me back to preschool days. Luckily it was very close to the one set of porta potty's on the course and I ducked into one and called my sister to pick me up on the closest street she could meet me at (moral of the story: ALWAYS run with your phone). Her, her boyfriend (now husband), and best friend left the finishing area, had a cop stop traffic (AND the race) because they had a "family emergency" and picked me up somewhere downtown with wet shorts and dropped me off where we had parked to wait on my husband. Talk about humiliation. I'm sharing this because if I fail at a much longer distance it won't be nearly as humiliating as telling everyone that cares to read about it this failure, at this mileage. Also to make you laugh because it's pretty funny. I'm hoping this Saturday I will be able to run the whole time and not pee myself. I don't even care what my time is.Well, not that much anyway...

Now that I have your attention, I wanted to give you a little update on the fundraising effort! Callie's Grandma, Jennifer, and Uncle David are also going to be training for the marathon that I'm doing. We are excited to be doing the fundraising as a small team effort this year in hopes to make it bigger by next year. It has been wonderful to see the outpouring of love through donations so far and we are really hoping to meet exceed our goal by the day of the marathon. Remember you can click on the "Donate" link on the side of my blog or just click here.  You can also keep up with the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation and all that they are doing to fight SMA. My little mileage ticker girl is on her way and I'll try to keep her up to date too. I'll let you know how Saturday goes when I get a chance. Hopefully it will be an uneventful night. ;)  Any runners out there feel free to share any of your "funny" running stories too!

Race Dates SO Far

In an effort to have some accountability, while I'm waiting to register for the Marathon and for them to announce the actual day in October, I am registered for every race I intend to do between now and then as "build up" races to help me gauge how my training is going. So I told you guys about my 5k in March, I'll also be doing a 10k in April and a half marathon  in May. If any of y'all are close by and feel like coming out to cheer me on I'd love to see you!  June 1st I should be able to tell you that I am registered for the Full Marathon and what the actual date is. So you can expect at least one big update a month on how training is going. After I'm actually registered for the full there may be one or two more build up races thrown in. I'm hoping that we will see continued support in our fundraising efforts for SMA on Callie's behalf. You can click on that link any time between now and race day and donate and your donation will go to GSF on behalf of Callie, which makes it a little more special than just donating. Right now we are at 5% of our goal, which is awesome but we still have a long way to go. I want you guys to realize that while there is currently no treatment, they are SO close to finding one. That's why it is so important that we do what we can to help them.

The little ticker to the right on this page is keeping track of where we are with our fundraising. It's a little droopy for some reason (I'm trying to figure that out) but it will help keep you guys up to date. I'm trying to find a ticker that I can update to let you guys know how many miles I've run for Callie since we announced our efforts. Until I find one I'll just share that info with you guys once a week after the longest run of the week (usually Saturdays). I want to show that this is a sincere effort with work going into it & hopefully people will match the work efforts with donations! Thanks for all  you are doing to help this effort along!

Myrtle Beach Half Marathon

This past weekend we loaded up the kids and headed down to Myrtle Beach for a race Aarik and I did. 48 hour trip consisting mostly of driving and running! First of all, Konnor has been sick with what appears to be a milder version of what Mckenzie and Jade had for a month. So the idea of doing the longest trip we have done with two potty trained kids was made even scarier by that. HOWEVER, the kids were amazing! We made great time, had perfectly spaced potty breaks and except for a little trouble finding a decent place to eat at a decent time the trip down was really fun. The kids were SO excited to play on the beach and in the ocean. We got lots of fun pics of this but unfortunately our camera was misplaced from our hotel room. Long story that I won't go into right now, needless to say I'm a little peeved. LUCKILY my mom did get some pictures of the weekend and so that's what I have to share! I hadn't been to Myrtle in years and had forgotten how crowded and touristy it is. Again, finding dinner was interesting but finally accomplished, we spent a little time in the hot tub and then got in bed. Luckily Aarik slept well I did not sleep at all and the kids slept until a little after we left for the race the next morning. The race was a lot of fun one really big hill followed by a mostly flat point to point course. For an inaugural event it was well organized and laid out. We finished on the new Myrtle Beach boardwalk and so the last 1/2 mile was literally running alongside the beach. The medals were HUGE and HEAVY. This was Aarik's first half and he did amazingly well. He finished in 1 hr 47 min 55 sec. I did 6 minutes better than my first half and finished in 2 hrs 1 min and 45 sec. I missed my goal time by 1 min and 46 sec but am happy to have a new PR. We had a lot of fun and I'm excited to start doing more races with Aarik!

We ARE Alive (just busy! :)

Can't believe I haven't updated since March! We have had a busy year doing lots of fun and new things. I'll try to remember as much as I can and try to get caught up. March was our 5 year anniversary, so Aarik and I went to the beach for a weekend. Between March and June I got a little more serious about running and Aarik came along for part of the ride (he is MUCH faster than me)! I did the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston (10k), Aarik and I did the Hope for Hospice Run (A did the 5k and I did the 10k), the Susan G Komen 5k and I ran my first half marathon in Hickory (Charity Chase). In May I got to go with a group of girls to Hilton head for a mother's weekend get away. I can't even put into words how much fun I had. Mckenzie turned 3 in June Konnor turned 5 in September. They are both as fun and as funny as ever. We've also started new things. We have added a few things into our weekday schedule and are just keeping up with life! I hope to be better about blogging again and now that I can remember how to sign into my blog I'm excited to catch up on what is going on in blog friends lives!! Also: One day I will figure out the picture thing a little better so that they are in the right place and the right order. For now this will do. :)