The Night Before My Marathon

I'm sitting here in my hotel room crying.
I thought this night would be different.
I thought a lot of things about this weekend.

 Our Mr. Ben in the red football jersey

But I got bad news last night, one of our dogs Benny took off from my sisters house.He ran away and was struck by a car, getting killed instantly.

I was running around Friday night at a race expo hanging out with my runner friends and back at home my pup was leaving us.

When I got the news Saturday evening it was tough. Me and T sat there crying. It was hard to believe that little guy would not be waiting for us when we got home. It hurt. I felt like it was my fault.

When you train for a marathon and race in general you make some sacrifices. I missed things this season, I spent time away from the family, but never did I imagine this would happen. I blamed myself and just hid under the covers for the rest of the night.

I really considered heading home that night and just saying eff it. I missed my dog and I felt like just hiding out for awhile. Then my sister called. She was on her way from Boston driving after taking tests for school, she was due to arrive at midnight! She told me I had worked so hard for this and I had to do it, and she would be there to kick my ass if needed. And you all online here on twitter, kept encouraging me to do it and make me feel better. I appreciated it all.

I decided I had to do it obviously I had come so far and trained so hard all for this day. I decided I would not let Benny down and run my heart out for him.

The day before he left us.

Benny was a great dog, the kind that followed you around everywhere. The kind of dog you can walk out of the house with off lease and not worry. I would take him on little car trips all the time, he was my little side kick. He came into our lives after I lost my grandmother while grieving I needed something to help me through, Benny did that for me. And when my daughter was born they became quickly inseperable...

Benny you were such a big part of our family and you will be missed greatly.

Road Trip to Philly

We are driving to Philly!!!

It's going to be a long 5 hours in the car with my toddler hehe but luckily my friend lent us their portable dvd player so she is content watching Princess and the Frog. I'm relaxing while T is driving. I'm lucky he likes to drive ;)

But thinking about Sunday I am lucky, and grateful to my family. Without them I may never have been inspired to get healthy.

We are sitting here now and I'm listening to T decide about race day. He was a bit horrified when I told him this was a large race... I do not think about it from their prespective enough. He will have a 2 year old in a stroller among thousands of people. He will have to entertain her and wait patiently as I run 26.2 miles. I'm worried about my race but he also has one of his own that day.

So I will try and remember this as I sit anxiously awaiting Sunday morning. As I panic about this race I will really try to consider them. I know when I cross that finish line no matter what happens they will be there with open arms and that is a feeling I will look forward to the whole race.

The Bling

Sometimes I get to wondering why I do all this training, obsessing, worrying, aka racing hehehehe 

OK so we know by now I am tapering like crazy and I thought today I would post something I walk by every single day :)

This hangs on my stair way so I literally have to walk by it every day ;)

All those hooks on my medal rack are full already! I am grateful that I was able to race that much this year. 6 half marathons hang up there, 6 memories of 13.1 miles run, once in snow, twice in pouring rain, once in heat and humidity, once in hills and earning a new PR. 1 spartan race medal, bringing back times of my muddy adventure in which I had a feeling of accomplishment beyond a road race. It encouraged me to seek out more trail running, crossfit, and obstacle racing. And last 2 medals, when I placed in races this year. First is a 6K I came in second over all and it was the first time I placed in a race, I will never forget how excited I was. The other is when I won my age group for a 5K and was second woman to finish. Again a feeling that I cannot replicate. Pure joy in accomplishing something BIG.

Now I am planning something else BIG and I am trying to remember all of these little moments I have had this year. I feel like I have been building and building on this moment when I cross the finish line of that marathon I know it will be a feeling of pure joy and accomplishment.

So for today I am grateful to have these tiny reminders of why I do this and thankful of my great year so far.

The Taper Madness

In 4 days I will be completing my first marathon in Philadelphia.

*warning this is a whiny post. Sorry to bore you just skip it if you want I understand ;)

I am a mixed bag of emotions these days. First of all, I cannot work out much. Working out has been my stress reliever for the past year and it saves my sanity. I know it might be tough for some to understand but it really pains me to not be active right now. It is harder than I thought it would be. You would think after racking up many miles all summer and into the fall I would welcome the break, no.

My training allowed 7 mile run Sunday, 40 minutes Mon and only 30 minute runs Wed and Fri. That is it for the whole week! 

I feel lazy. I know I am not in my rational brain, but in my evil side I deel lazy and I am afraid to eat like I normally do. I am afraid I will lose all my fitness in what a week or 2? I know its crazy but this is why we call it taper crazies.

Truth is my legs need this rest. My body has trained hard this entire year really I have not taken more than 1 rest day off in a week since I started my journey. So this week taking 3???? Wow unheard of hehe. So you can see why it might be tough.

Then there is normal stuff going on in my life, some stress here at home and its tougher to deal with when all I have on my brain is the marathon... It consumes my thoughts and really I do not want to focus on much else right now. Even my school work is slacking because all I seem to do is focus on this!

The positive? I hope that I can do well. I hope I will meet the goals I have set for myself for this marathon coming up. I hope that once I run this first marathon the next will come easier and I will stress less? :) I do not know, help me out here marathoners do the next ones get easier?


Oh and encase you were wondering you can sign up to track us Philly runners here ;)

Manchester City Half Marathon Pictures

The generous race organizers of the Manchester City Half Marathon had Nuvision Photo there taking pictures on the big day!! Now I have to tell you, as someone who is addicted to racing and her race photos I have dealt with a few different photography companies and Nuvision is the best in the area. They take high quality photos and do not charge you a million dollars for them. Our photos for Manchester were worked into our race fee which was still reasonable so I must say I was stoked!!

I needed to see these pictures this week has been tough tapering is trying to eff with my mind! I am bored and well ok not bored cuz there is a million things I can do but you know, I miss running but more than that I miss crossfit. I feel like a lazy sloth. I cannot wait to get my hands on some heavy weights after this marathon business is over ;)

 I love how the beautiful fall foliage was captured in the background of these 2 shots. Really going to make my race wall look nice ;)

Clearly I was having fun at this point in the race! Giving the camera guy a smile and thumbs up? What a ham hahaha

The next sequence I absolutely love! You can see how excited I was to have a shiny new PR, I was yelling and screaming for joy. I remember hearing a few people say wow she is so excited look at her.

 Arms raised, I love trying to always do this as I cross the finish line ;)

But wait let me check my Garmin and make sure its a PR hahahah (pictures tell all don't they)

Yes PR obtained I can now say I am a 1:46 half marathoner from a badass course riddled in hills in New Hampshire :)

Marathon Training Week 21

The countdown begins!!!!
Taper madness begins! Only 6 days until I officially become a marathoner and get that shiny 26.2 medal :)

I still cannot believe it some days that it is coming, sometimes I have to remind myself it is though. I try not to talk about it that much to people but it does seem inevitable that the topic comes up. It is funny when you tell people you will run a marathon, the most common response: wow I cannot even run a mile. Yep I hear that all the time, yep I couldn't do that last year either I tell them. I was surprised at how many people do not even know how many miles a marathon is too. I guess I have gotten so accostomed to my runner buddies that I forget I live in the real world too ;)

DO you know less than 1% of the population can/will run a marathon? Pretty freaking amazing to the marathoners out there. But it makes me a tad sad to not see more of us out there. Maybe we can increase the number in the years to come. If every marathoner out there got 2 more people to run one, then we could get up to 3%? Wouldn't that be cool? Then those 2 got 2 each, and so on and so on. So my mission now is to get at least 2 runners/beginners to a marathon finish line ;)

I guess I went on a tangent sorry ;) This week's training was a bit boring!
Monday - Recovory from that hilly half, I did weights work and pushups etc for a half hour.
Tuesday- Ran 4 miles in 42 minutes. The run was rought as Tuesdays have become lately.
Wednesday-Ran 6 miles in 52 minutes and felt much better than I did on Tuesday! I felt strong and speedier for sure.
Thursday- I just kept it light and stuck to the elliptical for 5 miles in 39 minutes.
Friday- I got a quick 4 mile treadmill run in after work.
Saturday- glorious rest day :)
Sunday- My last longish run before Philly!! 7 miles in an hour and 3 minutes.

I feel good going into Philly this week :) I feel ready to tackle any obstacle!

You can track runners on the day of the race just head over here :)

Thank you everyone for your support these past weeks have been increadible but not without each of your!@