We finished!

We did it! Sean and I both finished the half marathon yesterday (one of us much faster than the other, but hey! I still finished and ran the whole thing). Sean finished in an unbelievable 1:34. I came across the finish line at 2:19.

I'll be honest - it was a lot harder than I expected and I was a LOT more sore last night than I expected but I did it! The hills did me in. Didn't train much with hills in Minnesota! But the weather was absolutely perfect and the route was so beautiful.

It was an amazing experience to run with 25,000 other people. I've never done anything like it. After meeting the Team in Training crew at 4am (yeah!) we headed down to the start line in Tukwila. People just milled about for a couple hours and it was an amazing atmosphere. Everyone seemed to just be really excited to be there an definitely anxious to get started.

They started us in corrals - there were 36 total. I was back in corral 20 with 700 of my closest friends. It took almost 30 minutes for us to even get up to the start line.

I took a bunch of photos with a disposable camera so I'll get those developed ASAP and share them here too.

Here are some pictures from the day. (More to come soon!) :

Tomorrow is race day - don't forget to wear your pink!

We're getting ready to go to our team dinner (aka carbo load). The whole Team in Training Minnesota crew is sporting this t-shirt tonight.

Don't forget your own pink!!

Early day tomorrow - team picture at 4am. Brutal!! But it's race day. And that is oh-so-exciting. Beautiful weather today and it's forecasted to be the same for tomorrow. Can't wait!

My request ....

First, did you see that I met my fundraising goal?? Just wanted to make sure everyone saw that one more time. Because it's AWESOME. My rock star supporters (see over here at right) and everyone else who has lent moral support are absolutely the best.

So here it is - my last (running-related) request! My friend Ali (aka Laurie Ann) gave me a great idea for race day. I would love to have all of you wear pink on Saturday - race day - and send me a picture. Wear pink in honor of Gracie (it's her favorite color) or in honor of someone else you know who has battled cancer or in memory of someone you know who battled cancer. It will be an awesome show of support. And you don't have to wear all pink either. A couple of friends from work said they had pink bandanas. Perfect!

Here's me wearing my pink earlier in the season:


And again for the 10K run:


I'll post all the pictures here on the blog. I can't wait to see the pictures coming in! And don't worry - you know I'll send a reminder!

Just four more days ...

Fundraising goal MET!!

We've done it! Together, we have raised $4000 for cancer research!! What a truly amazing accomplishment. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I have one last way for everyone to get involved on race day. (And this won't involve any donations!) Stay tuned. More to come a little later today ...

Wooo hoooo!

Wow! That was an awesome burst of energy at the end there. With more than $3800 raised, we're now at 95% of the goal which is beyond awesome.

We had a Team in Training meeting tonight and one of our fellow teammates shared his reason for joining Team in Training. He shared that his daughter, McKenna, died from Lymphoma a few years ago. He's also lost his father and his brother to Lymphoma as well. This is why I am part of this organization. For we are all touched by these diseases and we can all do something to help.

Our team - the group of about 50 of us in Minneapolis with Team in Training running or walking in Seattle's Rock n Roll Marathon - together have raised more than $155,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society!! What an amazing accomplishment. I'm so proud of this team! And I'm getting so excited for race day!

GO TEAM!

Team Seattle Rock N Roll for Gracie

Our honored teammate, Gracie, absolutely loves pink so we've had a couple of team runs where the whole Team in Training crew wears pink. Gracie made it to the last one. Here she is - the princess in pink!

Exciting news - I have just $499 to go! That means I'm over 88% of the way to the goal!! There are only a couple of days left until the fundraising deadline. It's coming up this Tuesday, June 16th.

GO TEAM!!

Rainy run on a Saturday

Last Saturday I finally made it down to the team run again. It was a pretty rainy day. In fact, it felt a lot like the Northwest, so I told myself that it was a good warmup in case the weather isn't so great on race day.

Once again, I was late, though it really wasn't due to four trips back to the house for things I had forgotten. In all fairness, I don't think my tardiness was my fault this time. Somehow the dudes at MN Department of Transportation had once again, in their infinite wisdom, decided to completely shut down the major interstate that connects Minneapolis and St Paul. This kind of thing happens with alarming regularity here in the Twin Cities. I have yet to find an acceptable explanation for this.

So, I spent a good 20 minutes exploring (read: bumbling) around the city trying to find my way down to River Road on the Mississippi to meet the team. I finally got there late but with just enough time to see Kristin, our awesome Team in Training coordinator, who gave me the route for the day. It was a 10 miler.

In the end, I was okay with being late. Like I've said before, I tend to be a solo runner. I turned my iPod on and jammed out for the first six miles or so. At about six miles, I was supposed to be turning right ("keep the river to your right!") on the Washington bridge on the campus of the U of M. It was also at this point that the drizzly rain turned in to a true downpour and I was glad to be wearing my nifty Team in Training hat made of the world's greatest material: DriFit.

I headed up the hill in search of the U of M covered bridge on Washington Ave and happened upon three other women who were with Team in Training as well. Yay! I wasn't alone after all! So the three of us explored (again read: bumbled) around the campus and finally found our way.

Our coach found us on campus and ran with us for a while too. Though, he didn't seem to have much more idea about where we were going either. No matter! Coach Kelly said I was a hammer. To which I, of course, replied, "I am, Coach Kelly??" I've never felt like more of a badass. I think Coach Kelly was being nice to me but whatever!

Here's a picture of Amy and I coming in for the final leg of the run, which ended up being 11.25 miles. For those of you keeping track (really just me), that's now officially the longest I've ever run. And I was a drowned rat when I got done. But I was a hammer! Coach Kelly said so.

How Team in Training came to be ...

Here's a great video that talks about how Team in Training got started. It's such a fantastic organization and I'm so proud to be a part of it. I can't wait to cross the finish line with my purple jersey on!

I'm counting down the days!

The finish line is near. As you can see, race day is less than a month away. What an amazing experience this has been!

So far, you've all helped me raise more than $3000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to help combat blood cancers. I'm so proud to be a part of the Team in Training organization!

But it's not time to rest just yet. The fundraising deadline comes even sooner.

There are just two weeks left for me to raise $998!

Any assistance you can provide in helping me to reach my final goal is greatly appreciated! As always, thank you so much for your support.

GO TEAM!

My Portland

I'm home again visiting family and I am once again in love with my home state. Not that I ever fell out of love, but I'm back in infatuation stage. For those of you not from here, the picture above looks out from OHSU hospital on the top of the hill. The wires you see here belong to the tram that you can ride from the bottom of the hill up to the top. Here's a closer look at the tram:


As you can see, it's an amazing view. Sean and I decided to go for a run yesterday. We ran down the hill from OHSU and then back up again. It was about 5.5 miles all told and my pace was actually really good! Here's an above view of the road:


Though the hills truly kicked my butt, I hardly noticed because the view and the weather were so spectacular. Growing up in Oregon (and now living in Minneapolis) I've learned to truly appreciate the weather when it is good. And right now, it is SO good.

ONE MORE UPDATE!

I'm less than $100 away from my goal for today! I set a goal to raise $3000 by today and I'm getting so very close. The finish line is only a few weeks away now. Again, thank you so much to all of you who have donated! I'm so very grateful for your support.

70% down!

The final few weeks are upon us! I'm so excited to report that I've passed the 70% mark for fundraising! And though it's really exciting to be this close, I'm not at the finish line yet.

Just as with my training routine (which has taken me to a couple of 10-mile-runs) I've come so much farther than I ever thought possible! From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!!

More to come a little later on my beautiful runs in Portland as I'm here visiting family. . .

Oh so funny

Scenes from Lake Harriet

As I've said before, we're truly spoiled being able to run around the lakes here in Minneapolis. And now that the weather is getting warmer, the lakes are coming alive! At any time of day, there are tons of people out, running, walking their dogs, roller blading and biking. It's rather invigorating and always lifts my spirits.

One of my favorite places to go is Lake Harriet (pictured above). In the summer, they have live concerts at the bandshell, there's a park nearby and they sell ice cream too. All good things!

There's also the old streetcar nearby that is still run by volunteers. Last summer, Nana came to visit and we took a ride:


But absolute favorite part about Lake Harriet is the "little elf" that lives in the bottom of the tree on the opposite side of the lake. His name is Mr Little Guy and he's been living there for as long as most people can remember. When I was there a few days ago, kids had left a bunch of presents for him. Here's his house:


If you open the door, there are two bags of letters; one bag of letters to Mr Little Guy and one bag of letters from Mr Little Guy. One of the letters I saw asked Mr Little Guy what his favorite sport was. Of course, his answer was "elf ball".

Whenever I run around Lake Harriet, there's always a crowd of people at Mr Little Guy's house. I always wonder how he gets in and out without anyone seeing him. But he does and I love it. Long live Mr Little Guy!

I'll leave you now with a self-portrait of running. Love live the run!

It's official

I'll finally call myself a runner now. Was it the 10 miles I ran during training a few weeks ago that pushed me over the edge? Was it the 10K race I ran last weekend? Nope, though those things still feel good.

Today at the airport, I bought Runners World magazine. It's really a pretty good magazine, by the way, and their website is really good. The cover story was all about beginners to running. And, they refer to themselves as RW, which is me! It's kismet.

It's official. I'm a runner.

The Get in Gear 10K!

I have officially completed my first 10K race and it went really well! Sean and I were joined by 7000 of our closest friends in the race on a cool but sunny day. And, my sister Bethany was there to cheer us on, even though she missed us both coming across the finish line. Such a bummer!

Here we are getting ready for the race:


That's me in the pink shirt and hat and Sean walking toward me. It's really quite something to run with such a big crowd. This is really what it looked like for most of the race:


I felt really good the whole way. With that many people, you really are distracted most of the time by trying to move around people and keep your pace going. I kept an eye on my NikePlus and was feeling really good about the pace most of the way. Of course, my iPod was blasting in my ears too. Here was the rockstar playlist:

Paper Planes - M.I.A. (always my song for the start of a race)
Because of Love - Janet Jackson
Just a Ride - Jem
King Without a Crown - Matisyahu
Dirt Off Your Shoulder - Jay-Z
Stronger - Kanye West
Someone to Call My Lover - Janet Jackson
Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill) - Wyclef Jean
Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode
Feelin' Alright - Joe Cocker
Mercy - Duffy
Freedom - George Michael
September - Earth, Wind & Fire
Final Countdown - Europe (always the best song for the end of a race)

And yes, I do go from listening to Matisyahu, the Orthodox Jew rapper to Jay-Z singing "Dirt Off Your Shoulder."

My goal was to finish the race in under an hour, which would be a pace just under 10 minutes/mile. I finished at 58:35 and felt GREAT about it! Here's a link to the official results. You'll see I placed 604 out of 1766 women runners. Not too bad! Sean seriously rocked it. He finished in 45 minutes and placed 319 out of 1647 men!

Here's Sean and I after the race. Pay no attention to the fact that my face is the same color as my shirt:

So it was a good day all around. Special thank to Sis for cheering us on!!

Ode to my first pair of running shoes

Alas, the time has come for you to retire, dear running shoes. You were the first pair I ever purchased specifically for running. How have I loved you? Let me count the ways:

• You are silver and sassy and that makes a girl think that anything is possible.
• You are the LIVESTRONG brand from Nike and therefore my purchase donated money to cancer research. You know I'm always a sucker for a good cause.
  
• You introduced me to my second running-related love - my NikePlus. It's so very clever of you to get me hooked on your brand like that. And it worked. Oh, how it worked.
• I never once had sore feet or blisters and that's pretty remarkable.
  
• You took me so much farther than I ever thought possible. 268 miles farther, to be exact. I never thought I'd be the person who ran more than about two miles and only then it was because it was required for the volleyball team my senior year in high school.

So thank you, first pair of running shoes. You have shown me that I can do things I never thought I could.

Two big milestones in one day!

Yesterday was a big day, my friends. For so many reasons!

First:

This is the face of a girl who just ran 10 miles. Yes, 10. And it actually wasn't too bad. I finally made it to a team run with Team in Training down by the river again. It was another beautiful morning - about 40 degrees and sunny.

The group met up. We discussed the route - "turn at the Ford bridge - turn at the Franklin bridge - keep the river to your right." Seemed easy enough but for some reason I had to ask which bridges we were turning at about 10 times. I think it was the combination of the early morning fuzzy brain and the nerves over running 10 miles. I noticed a few other people did the exact same thing. Then someone shared a "mission moment", which is our reminder why we're raising money for cancer research. One person shared that she's a teacher and she's running in honor of one of her students.

Then it was time for the cheer. Oh yes, the cheer. It's a lot to ask at that hour on a Saturday morning, but I did my best to get in to it - "I say purple, you say green - purple! green! purple! green!" You get the idea. It did occur to me that there would probably be some form of the cheer on race day too. Since I'll be wearing a bright purple jersey along with the rest of my teammates, I decided that I'll just go with it and love the cheers. There's no acting too cool for school here.

And off we went! I kept up with the group out front for about two miles. I felt pretty good about keeping up with the "fast kids" as I called them in my head, but decided that I wouldn't be able to finish if I kept up that pace. So, I dropped back a ways and rocked out to my iPod. I think I'm better at running solo anyway. I like to jam out to the music and I'm not much for talking when I'm working that hard at keeping my legs going. I kept a pretty good pace for most of the 10 miles as you can see here:






Second:

I reached the halfway point for fundraising! And a few days ahead of my goal, too. I have been so humbled by the generosity of each one of you. Thank you so much to all of you who have helped me get this far!! And thanks in advance to those of you who will help me get the rest of the way there!

I added a thermometer to the side of the page here and I'll keep it updated as we get closer to the final goal.

Third:

I'm sending in the recommitment paperwork today, which means I can't back out now! I'm really going to do this!

Happy Easter, everyone!

NikePlus rocks

I am completely addicted to my NikePlus thing. I use the wristband because my trusty iPod mini doesn't officially sync up with it. I actually like my setup a little better anyway. So the sensor goes in my shoe and I keep the wristband on while I'm running.





It keeps track of my distance, pace and time while I'm running. When I get home, I pop it in to the USB port on the computer and it loads my runs to the website. The website kicks butt too. It keeps track of all of my runs and shows how my pace varied throughout the run in a graph like the one above. (You can see that I'm not so great at keeping a steady pace but that's okay since my goal is to cross the finish line with my legs still moving.) The graph above is my run from today.

So if you run or walk, you should seriously check NikePlus out.

PS - Did you see on the graph above that I ran for 50 minutes?? I'm very close to calling myself a runner.

Today's playlist - Brought to you by the letter "S"

Here's what was on my iPod for a 6.4 mile run today. (The links will take you to iTunes for the songs):

September - Earth, Wind & Fire
SexyBack - Justin Timberlake
Shake Ya Tailfeather - Murphy Lee, Nelly & P.Diddy
Shut Up and Drive - Rihanna
Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) - Beyonce
South Side - Moby
Song 2 - Blur
Stronger - Kanye West
Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Say Hey - Michael Franti & Spearhead
Say Na Say Na - Aneela, Johan Bejerholm & Robert Uhlman
Say You'll Be There - Spice Girls (yes, I'm appropriately embarrassed about this one)
Seventeen Years - Ratatat
Smile - Lily Allen
Son's Gonna Rise - Citizen Cope
Someone to Call My Lover - Janet Jackson

I'm getting ready for the Get in Gear 10K coming up in a few weeks. Not too shabby - I finished in just under an hour, which is faster than I've done it in the past!

Team Seattle Rock N Roll for Gracie

Well I wasn't in the picture, but it's great support for Gracie nonetheless. I wore my pink! I just got lost and didn't make it in the picture. Go Gracie! And GO TEAM! (That's how we Team in Training people are supposed to greet each other. At least, it seems to be in all the emails. It's hard not to get swept away!)