They did it!

 

Saturday.

Team Nick.

80 plus members strong.

Representing 7 states.

Raised over $26,000 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

St. Jude Half Marathon.

13.1 miles.

What. A. Day.

 

 

Here's the team pre-race.

 

Connie, The Boyfriend, and I were at Mile Four and cheered everybody as they ran past.
There they go!
Jordan is on the far left.
At that point she was red-faced, but smiling and still running!

My girl did it!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting for other team members at the finish line!

 

 

 

Taking a load off.  And shoes.

 

 

 

Such a good day!!

There were some slow movers at church yesterday.  Sore, but proud.

Yay!

Go Jordan Go!

Big day tomorrow.

There's a big group of folks from church who are running the St. Jude Half Marathon tomorrow in memory of Nick .... Team Nick.  Annnnnd, Jordan is one of them!!

I'm so excited for her!

My niece and nephew are running too!

I'm having an unknown number of teenagers over tonight for a pasta party.  A few are spending the night. So, we'll get everybody carbo loaded, hydrated, tucked in and hope for a good night's sleep.

Then we will be out the door at dark-thirty in the morning to get downtown.

The Boyfriend and Connie are going too, and we'll find a spot along the route where we can cheer them on.

Jordan had lower body conditioning at volleyball this week and yesterday she could hardly walk down the stairs without ouching.  I'm hoping her legs will decide to rejoin her body so she can push it 13.1 miles tomorrow.

So, send some good vibes tomorrow for Jordan and the other members of Team Nick!

Run Jordan Run!

Thank you Sir, may I have (half) another

OK people. Guess what I've done? I've signed up to run in the St. Jude Half Marathon. It's December 6.

I started back on the treadmill last week after being on the D.L. for 12+ weeks from my tibial stress fracture. I am taking it very slowly. Very. Slowly. I do NOT want to risk any injury again.

Running the marathon in June was truly one of my greatest accomplishments of my life and I would not trade that experience for anything. But I am beyond certain that I don't want to run another full marathon. No way. No thanks. It definitely took its toll on my body. Plus, the training for a full is just a huge commitment. The training was difficult. The recovery was challenging. (My toenail still has not grown out....) Face it -- I'm old people.

So I'll tackle another half. I have completed one other official half marathon - the Germantown Half Marathon - last March. And definitely put in the equivalent of half marathon mileage each weekend during my marathon training. But I've lost quite a bit of that conditioning after the stress fracture.

This effort may be more of a walk/run rather than a run/walk, but I know I can do this. I know there are many participants who walk the entire half marathon. They are capping the entries for the half marathon at 8,000. It's a good sized race. Last year, there were over 5,700 runners in the half and the slowest time was 4:47:00. So I could possibly be at the FRONT of the back. Ha Ha.

Anyhoo, the course looks great. It is described as being "relatively flat" (hooray since I HATE HILLS!). And goes by lots of downtown Memphis landmarks includnig the Forum, the Orpheum, the Pyramid, Beale Street and the zoo. It finishes in AutoZone Park, home of the Memphis Redbirds.

Wish me luck people.

From the 5k

Here's a picture of The Captain finishing strong...


And a picture of me just finishing....

The 5k Results

Here's how we fared:

315 total runners

I finished 281 overall
48:25
15:35 per mile
13 out of 16 in my age group

The Captain finished 113 overall
29:06
9:21 per mile
11 out of 21 in his age group

Hey - I set a PR (personal record) for this 5k. Ha Ha Ha. (Since it was my first official 5k, anything would be a PR.) As you can see, The Captain is very fast.

Did I tell you he came back up the last part of the course to run with me to the finish line? And he brought me some water. We walked a bit. Then he said "OK - ready? Let's go Turtle." And encouraged me to keep running to the finish line. There were some guys cheering everybody toward the end and they said "Good job Ma'am. Looking good sir." And I said "Oh he finished 30 minutes ago. He just came back to get me." And they whooped and hollered "Oh what a man! Good job Sir. That's a MAN!" They were funny.

There were two women walking ahead of us, and I barely trotted by them flew by them at lightening speed to the finish. That was probably a bit rude according to runner's etiquitte, but hey, I was trying to set a PR. Ha. Plus, four women had already passed me. So I had to make up some places.

Saturday after we finished, in the middle of my heat stroke, I told Jodi that I had finally come to the realization that I wasn't a runner and I really just couldn't pull it off. I decided I wasn't going to run any more races. Ever. But now, two days later, I am reconsidering. After all, I have to set a new PR!

My 3 H Day

I can sum this morning's 5k up in three words: Hot. Humid. Hilly. It was just brutal out there. The race started at 8am and by the time we finished up and made it home, it was already 87 degrees with 70% humidity. HOT HOT HOT. Plus, there were quite a few hills on our little course. You know how I feel about hills. No thank you.

I guess the official results will be posted in the next day or so. I believe I did it in about 48:00 which is a nice little 15:30 mile. Average for this turtle. The Speedy Captain did it in about 28:00. He's uber fast.

When we got home, the kids had made a little surprise sign for us.

Note that Cooper signed his alter ego - Batman. He also put 3 "o's" in his name. Time to go back to school.

Maybe it was the heat or maybe just my lack of any sort of real running in over a month, but the race totally wiped me out. I've been sleeping off and on all afternoon and really have no energy to do much of anything.

An update on my toenail....it is definitely coming off. I can see where it is growing away from the base of the nail. Totally yuk. Coach George is thrilled.

Good news from the Great Tomato Project. I have blooms on my tomato plants!! One of them has opened and I can see the yellow flower. And there are a few other little blooms on there too. If you look really careful in this picture, you can see one unopened bloom right in the middle. Look at about 1 o'clock from that bloom and you can see the tip of the yellow bloom. Hooray!

The Bloggie Doggie hasn't felt very well today and last night. His tummy has been upset. That's always nice - cleaning up dog puke. But he still always asks to play with his Frisbee.

We're just laying low this afternoon. Nice for a change.

Stay cool people.

Saturday's 5k

Here is the course for the 5k on Saturday. A little hard to see I know, but basically starts at the church, goes up Walnut Trace Drive, through the park, by the community center, down Trinity, down Ericson and back to the church. Just a nice little 3.1 mile route.

Picking up our packets tonight.

Half Way There

Welcome July! Today marks the first day of the second half of the year. Is it just me, or is this year flying by already?

I ran this morning. Actually took it outside. Nice for a change. I haven't done that in a long time. Temps were pleasant, but I think today is the last day for that.

There is no activity with my tomato plants. They don't look yellow anymore, but there are little brown dots on some of the leaves. Just on a few of them, not many. It must surely be a bug of some sort, although I don't see any critters on it. How long does it take to get a tomato? My excitement for this project is waning. Maybe I haven't waited long enough. Maybe I'm not a gardener after all. But good grief. It's just 2 little tomato plants -- I can't even grow one stupid tomato?!?!? What are these little spots?

Today's bloggie doggie picture is brought to you by Gauge who is lobbying to change his name to "I Ate A Cardboard Box And I Am So Proud Of Myself."

Treadmill and Trivia

I hit the treadmill this morning. Our A/C is still out upstairs, but I figured it wasn't any hotter up there than it would be outside, and if I stayed inside, I could watch TV. So, a nice little run on the ol' treadmill it was. I did work on my speed toward the end of my run. I'm pleased with how I did there. Looking forward to continuing to work on my pace. I did some core exercises on the floor and on the ball too. When it was all over, I was dripping with sweat. But it felt great.

I'm not sure why I still have a very tight hamstring and an occasional twinge in my shin. I'm debating whether to get my shin x-ray'd for fear of what he may see. I just don't want it to be a stress fracture. Although it wouldn't be as bad to find that now as opposed to finding it before the marathon. I've at least made it through what I really wanted to do. But sometimes I am wondering if that's what it is. So I've just been ignoring it. Which I know isn't necessarily a wise thing to do. I'll see how I feel today after running this morning.

Today's trivia....Anyone want to guess what the #1 country song 16 years ago today was? Here's a hint: His daughter (who just turned 16) currently has 2 songs in the top 50, one of which is one of the top 10 downloads on iTunes. That year, he had the #1 song....and a baby......








What a riot. Check out that hair and those moves. We will all be singing that today won't we?


Gauge says hello.

No turning back. It's paid for.

I am officially signed up to run the Hope 5k and Fun Walk on July 12!! I have already submitted my registration and paid so there is no backing out now. (That's a sure fire way to carry through on a race....pay for it....). Jodi said sign him up - so he's in too!


Several reasons I'm doing this:

1. One of my post-marathon goals is to run in some 5ks. It's just 3.1 miles. Very, very doable for me.

2. This one is LITERALLY in my back yard. In fact, my house is on the course map's aerial view. We will probably just walk to the start line anyway. So 1,000 bonus points for convenience.

3. It's just a few weeks away so I won't get 'out of the running mood'. I don't want to get too content with not running.

4. Hope is a huge church and I'm guessing there will be lots of people participating. Including those in the 'fun walk' category. So I shouldn't be the caboose in this one.

So, I've got to get moving so I can at least hang on to what little bit of endurance I had built up from the marathon. Time for the ol' turtle to lace up her kicks!

Sunny Sunday

I've enjoyed sitting outside reading my book - the latest in the Women's Murder Club series by James Patterson. I've got about 75 more pages to go. Hope to finish it tonight. It's a good one. Fast and easy read for sure. It was a bit warm, but the sun felt good.

Our Team in Training party yesterday was fun. The weather cooperated and it wasn't actually too hot. Nice of Coach George to have us all over. It was fun to see everybody again and to meet some of the Country Music marathoners. We all shared our marathon stories and future marathon plans. Nice time had by all. I am really thinking about signing up for the St. Jude Half Marathon which is in early December. I still have time to make a decision and then start my training.

I set my alarm last night for 4:00 am this morning to get up and do some Pilates. Seemed like a good idea at the time....I'll attempt that again tomorrow.

In the meantime, Gauge would like a biscuit.....he hangs around the pantry and begs.....

Finally, in case you were wondering, Kris Kristofferson turns 72 and Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman!!!) turns 59 today. And, today is National Chocolate Eclair Day!

Hump Day

Another musical great has a birthday today. Paul McCartney turns 66 today.

OK, so I did NOT get up this morning to hit the treadmill like I had planned. And I feel guilty about that now. I stayed up a bit later than I should have trying to finish my book - which was GREAT. Very suspenseful. So when the alarm went off at 4:10am, I just reset it. Never thought twice about it. What's wrong with me?!? I used to just hop right up and get to it. Now all I want to do is sleep. It's gotten very easy to sleep later. And I'm loving it....But, that has to stop. Tomorrow FOR SURE I'm getting up to exercise.

I saw the head track and cross country coach for Rhodes College yesterday. We talked about my marathon. He was excited about that and he really encouraged me to keep up the running in some form. He seemed to agree with my thinking -- focus on some 5ks and start training for a half. He offered to make a training schedule for me and help me out. Nice. I'm going to take a look at the calendar and see when I need to get serious about the half marathon training. Not that I'm this super conditioned athlete, but I don't want to lose what little endurance I've built up, so I need to start doing some running pretty soon. Tomorrow!

Nuts when we are excited to say "The high today is ONLY 86". It feels nice out there this morning. Wish I could play Ferris Buehler and make today's 1:05 Redbirds baseball game.....

Hope everybody has a good day today!