Are You Ready for Some Football??

I've been a bit MIA lately. Things are starting to get busy around here.

This week marks the beginning of my son's football season. That means practice every night from 7-9pm, changing to 6-8pm when school starts (August 17). It also means that beginning with August 8 (first game), a large part of my Saturdays will be tied up with football through October 3.

The practices will get monotonous, I'm sure - they always do. There are some good benefits of taking him to practice every evening:

• My daughter gets more driving experience, meaning
• I don't have to drive.
• My daughter and I can go to the gym and work out or to the park and walk during practice (this has happened 1 / 3 days so far).
• I'm not sitting around the house snacking all evening.

There are also a few negative points to this:

• It's going to be tough to get my homework done.
• Tito (my dog) is feeling very neglected. He wants to come with us, which would be fine if we knew were going to spend the entire time at the park.

In running news, I'm running a 5K this Saturday. The bad news, it's at 5pm. It was 92 degrees at 5pm yesterday. The good news, it's at a winery and the age group awards will be bottles of wine (for those participants over 21). I'm hoping for a very small turnout.

Unfortunately, I'll have to keep the wine consumption to a minimum (even though I have a designated driver). I've made plans to run 13 miles on Sunday morning with C.

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As many other bloggers have, I also recently came into a case of POM Wonderful. As much as my daughter loves the stuff, I had actually never tried any of it. I was very pleasantly surprised by how delicious it is. You know, it's healthy, there is no way it could taste good, right? Go on over to their website to see some of the many health benefits of this stuff, if you haven't heard it before.

Run for the Bagel 10K

On Saturday, I went to the Run for the Bagel again.

The race started at 7:30am, meaning I had to leave at O'Dark thirty to get there.

I left my house at 5:20am and met up at Barbie's house. We picked up Shanna and her mom and were off to the race with plenty of time to spare. Once we got there, we were piddling around beforehand and wound up, once again, running to the start. I got to the starting line at 7:29am. Ugh.

It was a cool 65 degrees, which made the race that much more bearable. I've run this race several times, but as usual I was able to forget all about the course until the morning of the race. The course for the 10K is basically two laps of the 5K course. That's all well and good until you hit the second lap. The second lap is boring.

I was actually passing people during the second lap and feeling pretty good even though Garmin was being a brat. My Garmin didn't find the satellites until about the 2 mile mark, and I hadn't reset the laps since the last time I ran. So, I was basically running blind.
Barbie came out and ran in with me when I had about a half mile left. It was with her pacing that I was able to pass the couple that was pushing a baby stroller (he was pushing the stroller, she was turning around to see how far behind her I was). Yay!

I finished in 1:02:42. Not bad. I have no Garmin stats, bleh!
Shanna was the first overall woman in 39:40. Yay Shanna!
Barbie won her age division in 49:59. Yay Barbie!
I won nothing. :(

Joker's Wild Half Marathon Race Report

Do you know how some people dread a race so much and then get started and think "hmmm, this isn't so bad after all"?

Yeah, I am the opposite. I can convince myself that a race that I have run before that is HILLY and miserable wasn't so bad. The Joker's Wild half marathon is HILLY. It is two laps of a hilly 6 mile loop.

Let me back up to the day before the race, though.

I decided that we would venture over toward St Louis in the afternoon. Time kept getting away from me, and we didn't wind up leaving the house until 3pm. My daughter drove. The plan was for her to drive most of the way there and switch before we got to St Louis. She only has her permit, and she has only had it for just over a month. She was NOT comfortable driving in St Louis. As we got closer and closer, she just kept on driving and wound up driving all the way to the hotel. She actually did a fine job, especially if I didn't watch the road. :-P

We checked into the hotel and ventured over to Westport Plaza to start looking for something for dinner (I drove). Instead of dinner, we wound up at Coldstone Creamery. Just like last year, we were sitting outside eating our ice cream when we saw my friend Carol and her hubby. Deja vu.

We chatted for a bit, and they went on to eat dinner. I needed to find something for breakfast the next morning, so we found a Target and did a little shopping. $320 later, we got out of Target. How do they do that to me every single time?

After that, we ventured over to the Galeria and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. Yeah, I know, such healthy choices, right? The kids had never been to a Cheesecake Factory, so I took them.

The next morning, I drug myself out of bed at 5:45am and got to the race start at about 6:40am (race start time was 6:45am).

Pre-race:

The first lap, I was feeling pretty good. I even ran up the hills. I started to remember how hilly the course was once we hit the first of the hills. Carol was struggling during the first lap, but she kept up and we ran the entire time together. Here we are running up one of the smaller hills.

We managed to get through the first loop, but I knew there was NO WAY I was going to run up all of those hills again. We walked several times during the second loop. A couple of the water stops of each loop were handing out ice cold sponges. SUCH a great idea. I probably looked like I jumped in a pool at the end of the race because I kept soaking myself with the water every time.

After suffering through the second lap of the race (the second lap was miserable), we finally came around the bend just before the finish line:

And finished!

Garmin said the race was 13.3 miles and we ran it in 2:34. Last year, I ran this race in 2:17. Ah, well, I'm about 15 lbs heavier. This is just one more thing to motivate me to stop being so lazy and to lay off the tortilla chips.

And, on the way home, my daughter got to drive in the rain. It poured on us all the way home. I'm glad I didn't have to drive in it! But, don't be so hard on me, she is required to drive at least 10 hours in inclement weather before she can get her driver's license. I didn't make her drive in the rain just to be mean.

Race Weekend Coming Up

Saturday Morning: Hofbraufest 5K
Sunday Morning: Joker's Wild Half Marathon

Last run: Almost 2 weeks ago.

This should be fun.

Advice, por favor

Does anybody have the answer to how to make yourself get out of bed in the morning?

I know, I know, it has to be motivation that comes from within. I just need to find an alarm clock that will play an unbearably loud noise, followed by turning on the light and TV in my bedroom. Is there an app for that?

I have had the best of intentions this week to get out of bed by 5am and run in the mornings.

Alas, it hasn't happened.

Starting next week, I will have to get my daughter to Driver's Ed by 7am every morning to drive. How will I ever do that and run too?

Happy Father's Day

This morning, I met my friend C at Rend Lake to run 10 miles. When I left my house at around 6:30am, the temperature was 78 degrees, with the humidity at 94%. The air was heavy.

When we started running, we were both struggling to catch our breath. That humidity was taking its toll. Luckily, when C and I run together, her hubby runs support. He met us several times throughout the run with fresh water and Gatorade. I think I was dehydrated after the first time we stopped, I couldn't get enough to drink. About 4.5 miles in, C asked me if I was up for stretching it to 12 miles. I was undecided. At that point, I was starting to feel a bit better than I had at the beginning of the run. When we reached 5 miles, we went ahead for the extra mile before turning around to head back.

At the 10 mile point, I was thinking that we had made a big mistake. Ai yi yi.
We decided that the last 2 miles were bonus miles and walked more than we had in the first 10.
Finally, we reached 12 miles. Hallelujah!

I'm glad that we ran the miles because my parents had a cookout for Father's Day, and I indulged in burgers, dogs, and the works.

After running a 5K on Saturday and 12 miles today, I think I shall take a day of rest for Monday!

Sandoval Sesquicentennial 5K Race Report

This morning, I ran the Sandoval Sesquicentennial 5K. This was a one-time only race, they won't be having another. The course was out and back, very flat.

I arrived at around 7:45am and registered, hit the port-a-potty, and waited for the 8am race start. It was hot. It was humid. Yuck. Looking around, people were already sweating.

When the race started, I felt great, I ran the first mile in 9:13. I thought I could get a PR for 2009 anyway. The second mile was a bit tougher. After the turnaround, the sun was shining right in my face, and no air was moving. Mile 2 was 9:55.

After the mile 2 marker, I was ready to walk it in. I kept going, though, and mile 3 was 10:09. I wound up running the race in 30:33 (Garmin time). There was a decent turnout, so I didn't win anything, but I didn't mind that too much.

Here are the stats, from Garmin:

Distance: 3.13

Time: 30:33

Pace: 9:45/mile

Average HR: 177 (yikes, that's high!)