O... Out & Backs Rock!

First off, a fabulous thank you goes out to my many recent donors to BPE: Grandma Ehman, Dan & Ann Barkel, Rob & Judith, Gayla Posch, Scottie, Mary Power, Tim & Lori Barkel, John & Karen Wieringa, and Janice & Dean Warner! Whoo! My recent birthday gave my fundraising a great boost. :)

Last week's 13 miler:
Lauren and I drove down to Shawnee Mission Park, where we set off for the run, in unusually warm weather (55 degrees!). The second mile was ridiculously hilly and I thought we were never going to make it up... but we did - which resulted in much more brief downhill portions. From there we ran 6.5 miles out and then back. The best thing we discovered were several port-a-pottys planted along the route - allowing for needs to be met if necessary. If you run great distances, you know this is an exciting discovery. However, we also discovered zero working water fountains (I guess it is January), which resulted in 13 miles with NO water! Along the route we met some runner friends who had much water, but apparently not enough to share. And one of them - get ready for this - is running a marathon in every state (only has Alaska to go) and currently has 91 marathons under his belt. And, he gave me a fist pump when I told him I was running Boston. So I fist pumped a near-hundred marathoner. Needless to say we were extremely thirsty by the end.

This week's 14 miles:
Today, I ran more than I have ever run before. This was the first time I have had this experience since September of 2007. We had a system for today to fix the lack of H2O situation. We parked in the middle and ran 3.5 miles out and then back to the car where we were replenished with water (yay, water!) and various energizing products (sport beans and gels) and used the aforementioned port-a-potties. Then we ran 3.5 miles out the other direction and back. There was a little snow on the trails, but the sun was out and the weather was actually must better than anticipated! The run went very well, the aftermath not so much (not sure if it was the sport beans or the pudding for breakfast). Lauren and I had great conversation (including our chant when times get tough, "Lauren, how do you feel?" "I feel good, oh, I feel so good!"), and the 2 hours and 14 minutes flew by! From here on out, I'm running into uncharted territory.

This happened in the fall on a 12 miler, but I ran 5 miles in this condition. I would highly suggest not tripping while running on concrete. I have several scars to remind me in case I forget.

My adorable pup Avery :)

Avery loves going down slides!

Perhaps I will take more recent, relevent photos to document my training soon.

This week, I got my schedule for the Sprint Center for February. I am very excited because my working dates are all on the weekends, meaning I don't have to kill myself trying to work, work more, and run/cross train on the week days. I am working great events like: Monster Jam (where I hope to meet many large truck lovers, and sell lots of beer), Rascall Flatts (where I hope to meet many country crooners who are large truck lovers, and sell lots of Jack & Coke), and Elton John & Billy Joel (where I hope to sing along with every song). Wait... Elton & Billy?? Yes, face to face tour. I am beyond pumped to just be in the building when this happens! All my $$ from this job, is being donated to BPE!

P... pictures!

I have recently been feeling a little inadequate in the picture department. So today, I will be gracing you with some photos.

First, my 12 miles last Sunday went great! I set my Virtual Partner (here after referred to by her name - Vivian) to 9:45 pace thinking I would be happy with that, but with the little snow remaining, and running on city roads, I needed give myself a little extra room. Well, at the end of 12 miles, I was kicking Vivan's butt by 3 minutes! I ran in 9:30 minute/miles. I was pretty happy with that on a foggy, foggy Sunday morning. From there, I headed to church where I recovered before taking a great nap later in the day.

This week Tuesday I embarked on my 5 mile run. It turned out to be very unfortunate, as I was very dizzy, and lost to Vivan for the first time. :( However, the highlight of my run was these two little deer which were about 15 feet from me (I promise, dispite the lack of clarity in the picture, no zoom). I had to be very careful, as my trip to Yellowstone taught me, you never know when you might get mauled by wildlife, like this man. I have circled them in this picture for your convenience.

A local hill, by the way, pictures do not do hills justice

Tomorrow I will be off for a 13 mile run on some local trails. My running partner Lauren will be back to join me. In fact, I will leave you with a picture of us after finishing the Kansas City Half Marathon in October.

Enjoying some post-race nourishment

Finally, a HUGE thank you to my awesome donors: Grandpa & Grandma VanGinhoven, Grandpa & Grandma Elzinga, and Kendra Varns! See you next week... more pictures to follow! :)

G is for... Garmin

I believe the amount of physical activity required in this training is starting to catch up to me! Thursday night I was in bed before 9:00pm and on Friday night, I fell asleep watching Valkyrie (a good movie, according to Travis, who was able to stay conscious) at 9:20pm. Talk about an exciting Friday night! :)

Well, last Sunday's 11 miler was great. I was dreading it due to the ridiculous cold, but it turned out to be nice to run outside again, and felt great to have it done afterward. I woke up at 6:45ish and piled on the clothes: tall socks, running tights, another pair of workout pants, workout tank top, long-sleeved running top, long-sleeved zip up Nike jacket, fleece coat, fleece headband, and stocking cap. I picked up my friend Lauren, and we headed out to a running club that meets at 8am. When we arrived, no others were in attendance, so we decided to have our own running club that day. When we set out it was a cool 4 degrees, upon return, it had warmed to 12, although the feels like temp was 6. There was ice in my hair, frost on my coat, and wind in my face. You can check out the details and the awesome information from Garmin Connect.

Later this week, I set my watch on the Virtual Partner setting (you set your "partner" to a pace, such as 9:15 minute/miles, and it shows you and the partner running and how far you are ahead/behind). Talk about motivating! I pushed myself to beat my "partner" and love this setting!

Tomorrow I am off on 12 miles. Lauren is out of town so I'll be running alone, but with my virtual "partner" of course. Snow is melting away, and tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day, so it should be a great run! I'll update with my awesome Garmin stats!

J is for... Jess!

Today's post is the wonderful story of how I decided to run the Boston Marathon this year.

Flash back to late September 2009:
I had been running for about 2.5 years at this point, and had completed two half marathons, with two more on the horizon within the next couple months. I had been trying to talk my common law sister-in-law (aka Jess) into running a half with me for at least a year. She was hesitant and afraid of issues I won't deleve into here. :) At one point (I think perhaps on video, and with the help of her friend Mr. Rubinoff) I got Jess to agree to run the Chicago Marathon with me sometime in the next five years.

So, it was a usual day in September, and I was emailing Jess (who currently works at BPE, doing my old job+), and told her I thought 2010 would be our year to run Chicago! Well, she got back to me and had apparently "just forgot" to tell me that she was considering running the Boston Marathon! "What the what??," I said. Appaled that Jess would A) have forgotten to tell me, B) be crazy enough to run the Boston Marathon. I encouraged her and said that would be a lot of work and the fundraising would be hard, both true statements (secretly being entirely jealous and bitter that I wasn't the one running). Weeks went by and I continued to think she was crazy, but was excited for her, and continued to be secretly sad and jealous, until one day, I thought, "what if I ran? Could I really raise all that money? What about training in the winter?" And amazingly, I called Jess that day and she said, "I think you should run too." And the next sentence out of her mouth was the best idea I had ever heard, "It would make a kickin' Amazing Race appliaction video!"

From that moment on, I was sold. It was the last year I could run for BPE, the only year I could run with my common law sister-in-law, would make the best Amazing Race app video ever, and a year I was ready to run a marathon. I convinced myself I would raise the money, and I would run through the winter (little did I know we'd have this kind of winter!), and I would run the Boston Marathon! I turned in my application (to run for BPE that is), and anxiously awaited the offical news.

I am so glad to be sharing this experience with someone so supportive, encouraging, crazy, helpful, understanding, not mad that I was secretly (or not so secretly) jealous, committed, determined, family, and above all, awesome! And that we are again connected through BPE and fundraising for a great cause is icing on the cake! (I love cake, but I can't eat it anymore, I'll eat the icing though, that's why it's so great!)

After hiking to the top of Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone

I will leave you today by noting that the current feels like temperature at 4:54 on Friday, January 8, 2010 in KC, MO is -5, which I should note is a significant improvement from earlier this morning's feels like of -12. Tonight's actual temperature low is -12 with wind chills reaching -24. It's been really pleasant here lately. :) Oh, and I'm running 11 miles on Sunday. On a great note, today is my second (in a row) snow day - leaving time for some relaxing and running (on the treadmill, so I don't die). On a really great note, I got a Garmin GPS watch for Christmas! It's amazing, and I am currently in the process of figuring out how to save a screen shot as an image so I can show you all the amazing things it tells me!