What's Your Dream?

I was feeling really low after my DNF at Sun Mountain . I didn't want to run at all. I was thinking of going to Echo Valley with my friend Mary and was basically set to hit "buy" when my other friend Liz pinged me.  That's how I ended up at the Beacon Rock 25k .  I didn't know what to expect from this race, I hadn't been practicing a lot of elevation gain and this race has almost 4,000 ft in the 25k. So I planned to just hike/run it. This race had a very generous time cutoff, so I wasn't really worried at all. I took my trekking poles with and used them on all of the uphills. I couldn't believe how great my legs felt after! I wasn't sore much at all, just my shoulders from the poles.  I was getting ready the morning of the race and found Emily and Sean hanging out under their nice dry tent. So I joined them for a while before the race, just hanging out and having a good time not knowing that Emily was about the same pace as me and that Sea...

I started this journey with the inspiration to run a race for my beloved grandpa. I knew I wanted to do something big. So I decided to do the same race that I ran 4 years ago as my first half marathon but as a 50 miler this time. I love my grandpa more than anything and this is how I wanted to show him that. My grandpa and I visiting on the porch like old times. This whole experience was surreal, it feels like a dream that didn't really happen. Which, I know I am extremely fortunate to be able to say that. I had many downs in my training, from ending a relationship, to trying to find a new place to live and moving, to getting injured but I made it through all of that and race day came whether I was ready or not. Mom and I doing last minute crew planning the night before! I had planned on my whole family crewing me during the race but the week of the race things fell apart last minute. My mom (Karen), nephew (Joshua) and best friend (Tiffany) came through for me though....

As you all know I have been training like crazy for my first ultra marathon. And in my training I decided to use a full marathon as a training run. So I chose a nice easy flat course, Blooms to Brews in Woodland, WA . It is a beautiful country course with lots of flowers and country fields. You even get to run buy a vineyard or two.  There were only two downsides to this who race. First, there is an inner loop that you have to run and you can see the runners on the loops from miles away. Which is neat at first then daunting later when you realize you still have that far to run!  The second is that the whole course is on the road but then there is a mile of rough gravel road at the end of the race. The course description was a bit short on how much gravel there was. Other than that, this race is very well organized and very beautiful.  This race didn't go well for me though. At mile 18 my ankle popped and caused me to be in an extraordinary amount of pain. I pushe...

So much has happened this month!  I found a new apartment I moved Ran the Lake Sammamish Half Marathon Paced the Hot Chocolate 15k Seattle Ran with the SGLRG Saturday 7:00 Morning Run for the first time Ran with the SGLRG Tuesday Evening Run for the first time Went to a Pie Bar on Pi Day for the first time Ran as an Easter Bunny in the Beat the Bunny 5k for the first time Bought a new running watch! Garmin Fenix 3 HR !!! And so much more!  That's just a very small portion of what all has been going on this past month. Life is good!  Having a great time at the Lake Sammamish Half ! Perfect weather and perfect run! I started off this race thinking that I would run an easy 11:30 the whole time in preparation for the Hot Chocolate 15k the next day, that didn't last long. The weather was too nice to waste! I split off from the pacers and just had fun :D 11:30 Pacer for the Hot Chocolate 15k Seattle with Beast Pacing ! I had an amazing op...

Run run run as fast as you can! That was the theme of this entire run for me, strangely it started way earlier than the race did. My friends and I all carpooled to the race however, none of us thought to look where to park. Why? Because we thought there would be signs directing us to park, and there were... except we parked in a parking lot dedicated to another race that was happening that day and we had no clue.  We arrived about an hour before the race was to start because we had to pick up our race packets and we wanted to have enough time to get settled in before the start. We piled out of the car and wandered towards the race start (so the signs indicated), about a mile of wandering we found a group of race volunteers and they directed us towards the race start. After about another mile and half we realized that we had be misdirected by a group of volunteers for the wrong race! We found yet another group of volunteers and they were the correct ones this tim...

Wow, is pretty much the only way to describe today. Anthony and I woke up at the butt crack of dawn and headed down to the city of Tacoma for the St. Patrick's Day Half Marathon. After making a much needed pit stop at Starbucks for breakfast we arrived in plenty of time to pick up our race packets and get ready for the run. This run was especially memorable because it was Anthony's very first half marathon! Looking forward to this day all week I kept checking the weather report only to be met with dismay. 100% chance of rain. The weather report didn't let me down. It seemed as if we were met with more than 100% chance of rain and were out matched by the crazy wind! We were all lined up and ready for the race to begin and we were already thoroughly wet and my feet soaked. The weather didn't seem to phase Anthony, thankfully! He faced the run without hesitation. We started off with the 2:10 pace team. I was pretty excited about running with them but my excitement quick...

Where to begin... The very idea of running for Chocolate is a wonderful one! I saw this race and just had to sign up, there was no question. The expo was fun but considerably smaller than I thought it would be considering the size of the event. There were really great photo ops and they even had volunteers out helping race participants capture their Hot Chocolate memories. They also had a chocolate fondue station with mini hot cocoas as well. That was pretty nice. The only thing negative about the expo was their lack of directions to get to it! There weren't any signs around the Seattle Center either pointing towards the packet pick up despite the huge number of volunteers wandering around setting up for the big event. We had to make a full circle before we found the expo (under ground and only one sign saying packet pick up) but we did eventually find it! The info that was distributed for race day said to be at the race area by 6:30 for a 7:55 start. I thought that was a bit ear...

Today was the day of the 12Ks of Christmas 12K and 5K run in Kirkland. This race has been going on for several years now and this year they decided to change the course to accommodate the growing numbers of participants over the last several years. The location for the start and end of the race was Heritage Park, this turned out to be a much better location than in previous years because there is a lot more space to sprawl out and nobody was over crowded.  I started off my day by waking up at the crack of dawn and heading down to Kirkland to volunteer at registration and packet pick up.  I've done this for Promotion Events before at Green Lake Gobble last month. Thankfully this time it was not raining and we were not forced to stay under tents the whole time. We were short probably two or three volunteers and we had a line backed up about 20 yards! But it ended up working out alright. I was able to hand out the packets this time and it worked out much smoother then before...

The Biggest Loser Half Marathon ! This race was very different than almost every other race that I have ever run. There were several reasons why this one was so different and the first thing that made it different took place a few weeks before the race even took place! I received an email stating that the race location had been moved from Seattle's Gas Works Park to the Port of Everett. I have never had a race location be moved before, I almost pulled out of the race (they offered a refund) but I decided to stick with it, and I'm sure glad that I did!  The second thing that happened different with this race is; I bonded with my new friend Shannon on Facebook through a local running group. We kept each other posted on our other races/training runs and we met for the first time the morning of the race!  Shannon is a lovely lady and I so glad that I was able to meet her finally!  I ran this race after getting off my graveyard shift, drove the 45 minutes to Everett and t...