What Do You Do When Your Blog Heckles You?

I'm looking at my blog, reading through the comments and noticed a Google ad for snorgtees.com that made me laugh. The t-shirt said, "I am disappointed in you're grammer", which seems so appropriately ironic if you know me at all. It is like my blog is speaking to ME!

Just the other day I sent an email out to my family and friends about my Dallas Rock n Roll Half Marathon race photos and mentioned I had only purchased the one with my metal. Only after my good friend Ginny, instant messaged me and wrote "if you say metal one more time, I am taking away all your MEDALS!" did I realize I had written the wrong word! LOL I was dying laughing at my mistake. Apparently I had done this several times when writing about my medals.

Having spelling or grammatical errors in my writing is of course is not unusual for me. I attribute these errors to several things, one, I am a fast but terribly inaccurate typist, two, I am pretty sure I am dyslexic to some degree, three, I THINK I am typing the correct letters, it is really my fingers fault and lastly, well, I always like to use the excuse I do it on purpose, to make myself more human and less of a perfectionist. :D

To make light of the situation, I sent out ANOTHER email stating I was technically correct when I wrote METAL since the MEDAL is made of METAL. Right? I mean, come on, I was technically correct. LOL

Now I see my blog has sided with the fam and my friends and has started heckling me over my grammar and spelling through carefully placed Google ads. It seems just wrong when your blog starts heckling you right? I must speak to the people in charge.....

Water Stations as Big as TEXAS, Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon

From 2010 Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon

Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon
March 14, 2010

Completing the Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon marked 6th event completed in my personal challenge to complete 24 events in 2010. The half marathon was a great race with good weather and a nice course, plus I got to share it with good friends and oh, 9200+ other runners. There were lots of things to keep my mind busy too; lots of bands, crazy runners, pot holes, LONG water stations, mile markers and my constant need to calculate how long to the finish. My finish was nothing to call the media about, 2:40: 29, but I finished and considering my pre race training consisted of running 2 5k races, I am pleased with my race performance.

As with the Dash Down Greenville 5K, the pre-race weather was FREEZING! My friend Ginny and I huddled behind a bus near the exhaust to keep warm. Funny huh? We thought so too when we say people huddled around the back of the buses, then we tried it and wow, what a difference! We stunk like exhaust and I'm sure it wasn't good to inhale the nasty exhaust but we were a little more warm.

We dreaded handing over our gear check bags, doing so meant giving up warm layers of clothing. We waited as long as we could, then quickly got into our corrals in hopes of benefiting from the group body heat.

After San Diego's marathon race, Ginny and I decided we could run races together, just not TOGETHER, so she was in corral 7 and I hung back in corral 8 with my TNT buddy, Rhonda, and my TNT mentor, Susan. Rhonda and I have run several races together and we already know at some point we would probably get split up and that's ok, we just run our own races and see each other at the end. Susan I knew ran faster than me so I had already planned on "meeting her at the end."

As we stood there shivering and waiting patiently , I looked around at the other runners and noticed a cute pink shirt on a girl. On the back it said "Please God let there be someone behind me to read this shirt." That's what I was thinking! "Please God, just let me NOT be last in my age group!"

 My strategy was simply, don't over due it, stick to my intervals and just get to the finish line in a reasonable amount of time. Rhonda and I started off together with our 5 minutes running, 1 minute walking and that seemed to work well. We were almost to the American Airlines Center when I turned my head to the right to notice and older gentleman pull out a race map and look at it like he was sightseeing! I was dying! I poked Rhonda in the arm and just pointed in the guys direction. We both laughed as we ran off. Too funny. I guess he wanted to know what interesting things he was passing, surely he didn't need help knowing where the course was, there were plenty of runners to help with that!

About mile 3 there was a down hill part and we were on a walk. I said to Rhonda, "we should run, its down hill." Rhonda looked at me was said, "No. No need to over achieve Carolyn, especially since we haven't trained! We are sticking to our intervals." LOL Ok! Sticking to intervals! Heck, I didn't really care anyway, I'm not an over achiever lately....if I was I would have at least run more than 3.1 miles at a time in a training run. My only goal was to finish so we walked down the hill.

What was up with the water stations? They were the longest, most well stocked water stations I've ever seen! They were definitely prepared for lots of runners. The only minor irritation was when someone wanted Cytomax, it was all the way at the end which seemed like a quarter mile down so you almost had to run from the water to the Cytomax or you totally ruined your time. Not complaining though! Would rather have TOO much water than not enough. Just thought they were funny, they made for good distractions.

Somewhere along Turtle Creek Blvd. or maybe Beverly, there was a pretty long, steep hill. I had already agreed with Rhonda to stick to the intervals so when the hill came up, I ran it, didn't like it, but I did it. What was great was the lady beside me for part of it, she was chanting to herself "flat course, flat course" all the way up the hill, and she ran up the whole thing! You go girl! Pretty amazing how the mind has so much power, you can do amazing things just by telling your mind you can. I'm not sure but I gather the lady hadn't run many hills and it was clear she didn't like them. :)

And who does right? Hills are just annoying, running or cycling. They are some of the few times in life when flat IS better! And thank you spectators for being there, cheering us on, always telling us when a hill was coming up or if the rest of the course was flat or down hill. I find those sorts of things very helpful, when accurate. At one point though, I think one spectator was a little loose with the definition of  "downhill."  We were nearing Mockingbird Lane and ran on part of Airline where my old company is located. So when a spectator yells out, the rest is down hill, my first reaction is "oh, thank you!", then I round the corner onto Airline and immediately wonder what that person was talking about. Airline is NOT downhill. It isn't uphill either but it certainly isn't downhill. And I already knew there was a long incline on Mockingbird to Skillman so I wasn't sure what "downhill" the person was thinking of. Regardless, this thought stuck in my head for at least a quarter mile or so helping distract my mind.

The hill from Mockingbird Station all the way up to Skillman was just plain annoying. The only good thing about it was I knew after I finished and turned the corner onto Skillman, I would be at mile 8 and well on my way to the home stretch. The last miles were the hardest, I guess that is to be expected.

At mile 9 I tried to calculate how long it had been and how much longer I thought I would be running. The thought of running another 48 minutes was irritating so I started calculating smaller increments. At mile 10 I was feeling pretty good. I knew I was going to be past my last half marathon time, there was no way I was going to be able to make it up but I just kept running anyway. I could have run faster by why bother? I had less than 3 miles left at that point and a minute or two was not going to make or break my race but stressing myself out or hurting myself from running too hard would have been detrimental to my new life goals, so taking it easy vital.

About half way through mile 11 I hear a guy tell his friend, "when we see mile 12, we are golden, we've got this." His friend was a bit more winded than he was yet still managed to say, "Dude, we already got this, we are doing it." Love hearing other people's comments along runs. Mile 12 took a long time to come around, seemed like forever. I had started chanting to myself "Come on, you can do this, stay focused, you can do this, eye on the goal, just keep moving" somewhere around mile 5. By the time I got to mile 11, I was chanting it all the time and at times shouting parts of it to push myself to keep moving.

As I ran the last mile, my speed increased a little and I just kept thinking, "I'm almost there. Almost there." It was a great feeling to run into Fair Park and see all the people cheering us in. There was a little boy, maybe 5 standing there shouting, "you are almost there!" So cute. That last quarter mile was rough but as the course wound around I could hear the cheering and the announcer, I knew I was near. Then I saw the mile 13 marker....time to pick it up. I rounded the corner and sprinted as fast as I could into the finish line, 2:40: 29. A few minutes slower than my White Rock Half Marathon time from December and oddly, just a few seconds off from my Big D half marathon time last year.

From 2010 Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon

Overall a great race, will run it again next year for sure, hopefully with a little training under my belt! Now that I'm done with this race, it is time to start thinking of my next big run, the America's Run in Arlington, Texas in April. I know, I've said it before but really, THIS time I am plan on actually TRAINING for the half marathon. Really!

Check back for updates on how that's going. LOL

From 2010 Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon

From 2010 Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon

It's a Race People, Not a Beer Run - Dash Down Greenville 5K 2010

The Dash Down Greenville started off with driving to Mockingbird Station and taking the train UP to Lovers Lane. It seemed a bit backwards to go down, then up when my house is almost a straight shot, as a crow flies, to the race start but with parking issues and the potential for lots of drunk people around, the train was starting to sound better and better.

From Dash Down Greenville 5K

It was a COLD morning, way to cold to be waiting for the train or standing around waiting for a race to start! My friend Ginny, Jessica and I were FREEZING almost the entire time. The worst was just standing around waiting for the race to start. But the scenery was fantastic! Lots of people were there to see the race AND the parade so they were all decked out in green St. Patty's Day garb. Lots of girls in inappropriate short skirts and low cut tops too, not sure how they were doing it since I was freezing in pants, shirt and jacket. But God Bless them, someone had to give the guys something to look at!

From Dash Down Greenville 5K

Ginny and Carolyn

From Dash Down Greenville 5K

Jessica and Carolyn

We huddled together with the other runners while we waited to start. It was so packed for at least the first mile which made it hard to run a good pace, not that I run fast anyway, but I certainly don't need a pack of people in my way either! I'm not sure why but there were walkers, lots of them, near the front, and the race path was relatively small compared to the amount of people so as I started off I was practically walking. I tried to run and had to hop on and off the curb to get past the walkers. Such a crazy race.

As we turned the corner onto Southwestern, there was a water station, or what I thought was a water station, it only had beer! I kept running. I know it's a St. Patty's day run people but beer? As I am thinking about the beer and how ridiculous it is I come upon a HUGE hill. Not really...but any slight incline to be is a big hill. All I could think about at that point was to just keep running up the hill, not stopping at all - and I did it! I rounded the corner onto Skillman and felt so happy I had run up the hill without stopping. I normally consider hills to be my "walks" and do my best to walk quickly up but instead I found the motivation to just keep running.

I was about at the 2 mile mark when I decided I wasn't going to walk or stop, I had been running since the start and I was still feeling pretty good, another mile, no problem! (My normal running strategy is intervals with 5 minutes running and 1 minute walking but for 5K's, I try and run the whole thing now, a BIG accomplishment for me!) I didn't even stop at a water station!

I finished at 34:28. Three minutes faster than "Dash for the Beads" in February and just 45 seconds slower than my PR from last year. Considering the first mile was packed and we could hardly run, I consider this time to be wonderful!

Afterward we went to Ozona for a "make your own" Blood Mary, so good! A great ending to a fun race.

From Dash Down Greenville 5K

Now THAT is a Bloody Mary!

Day 37: Bikram Yoga Challenge - Been There Done That

As I laid in Savasana, I think it was after Cobra, I noticed a lady next to me, she looked exhausted, her face was red, sweat was streaming down her face and she looked at bit defeated. I didn't really have much thought about it except to notice she was really struggling.In Savasana you aren't suppose to look at the other person really, you are just suppose to completely relax and look at a point on the floor and try not to think. But this poor lady wasn't turning her head the same way as everyone else, so when we looked to the left, there she was, facing me a little but with her face more in her towel, looking exhausted.

I just stared at her, watching her struggle, noticing the sweat patterns are her face and arms. My first thought was wow, I have totally been where lady! I have been so exhausted I couldn't think straight and it was all I could do to just keep breathing, don't bother asking me to turn my head the right way. I have been so red in the face people thought I should sit out a posture.

But that wasn't me today. Today I felt calm and noticed my own breath was normal and easy. And I was working hard too, don't think a calm feeling comes just from not working hard in class. It comes from working hard in class consistently! After taking 36 classes in a row, my yoga practice seems to be at a different level. I made it through Triangle, both sets and I made it through the standing series without having to stop to take a breath. I fell out of postures sure but that is normal if you are trying your hardest in a pose. Falling out and sitting out are two different things. :) I tried to think of the last time I even sat out a posture. I couldn't remember. Then I wondered if I had written about it in my blog. The fact that I can't remember the last time I fell out of a posture automatically makes me assume it has been a long time. Let's go with that theory!

Now today might have been a fluke, you never know, tomorrow I could go to class and have the "oh my gosh I am going to die" look on my face. But I'd like to think I am making progress and "growing" into my practice. So to my yogi friend who was next to me, "good job making it through class, it wasn't easy for sure but you made it! Come back tomorrow, and the next day and the next day. Some day it  WILL get easier!" Namaste.