Rugged Maniac

This was hands down, the toughest thing I have done to date! Give me a Half anytime! I was suppoed to go with my friend, but she wasn't feeling good, so off I went by myself. The check in was pretty easy, got my tee, my number and my shoe tag. Checked my bag, which took a little longer, and headed off to my heat. I didn't have to wait long, and made friends with a group of girls and their moms who were so nice! You couldn't see much of the course except the last obstacle and the *fire* WOOT!
We were off! We started off running on a race track, very slanty and uncomfortable! Then we moved on to a twisty turny hilly dirt track with sprinklers shooting at you and making it a little muddy. There was also a calf high mud pit to run through that made my feet very very heavy! Then we were in the forest, with some over/under logs across the path, and some short 4 foot-ish walls to get over, a couple A Frame walls to climb and a tire jungle. Tires on the ground and tires hanging all around.

I am not sure, looking back, about the exact order of all the obstacles, but this is an approximate idea, lol. These are official pics, not necessarily from our race. I will have pics in a week or two!

There was a muddy hill, and at the top we had to climb a wall, and then you slid down. It was crazy funny, I ended up hitting a guy, and one of my new friends then hit both of us. There was a lovely muddy puddle at the bottom!

The only obstacle I had crazy trouble with was the bounding one. There were six pillars, small medium tall medium small, and they were too far apart for my stubby legs. One of my new friends held my hand and talked me over them (she completely skipped it lol) but the last one I totally missed. Oh well!

There were two sets of mud pits with barbed wire over you. It was crazy muddy and unavoidable, sometimes watery mud and sometimes thick nasty mud. Followed by an over/under type water pit, water was waist high, with floating poles. I just slid over them two at a  time, the water felt great, but getting out was tough. Luckily, there were ropes!

There were also some crawling tunnels. You slid down one, maybe 8 feet long, into some lovely muddy water and then you had to climb up the next one, using rope. No footholds, water half filled the opening. YUM! Mud and barbed wire at the top. Hooray!
There was a group of 4 walls. The first wall was 8-10' high, and I needed a boost to get over. One of my new friends boosted me over (she was skipping it) and then it was a really high upright palette wall. Then another wall, where someone from one of my high school friend's group boosted me over. I had just met up with them at the barbed wire crawl. Then another palette wall. WOW! Was I ever tired now!
Next was another mud crawl, this time under cargo net. Some random dude behind me started telling me I could do it, no worries, just keep going. I apologized, thinking I was slowing him down, and he said no worries, he was just cheering me on. So sweet!!
We came upon a fence tunnel after that. No big deal, right? It was very low, and I ended up crawling at some point. It was very rough on the back! There was lots of tamped down high grass that ended up covering my legs when i got out.

After that we ran through some grass and track, and came to the tunnels. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. It was like crawling through a really long coffin. Lots of people were freaking out, but it wasn't too bad. It was very rocky, and very dark, and I got up halfway through and sort of stooped through it, lol. Sweet sunshine on the other end, and the finish line is in sight!

We ran on some more track, and  jumped over 2 rows of fire. It wasn't super high flame, but it was HOT and I could feel it both times. It made me feel like She-Ra!

Final obstacle: a palette wall, with a cargo net you had to half roll down, and half climb. Then you climb down a palette wall and you are done!

EXHAUSTING!

I bypassed the line for "showers" and used my 3 gallons of water to hose off in the parking lot. I ninja-dressed in my car, not easy to do, let me tell you. Gross where the mud ends up, let me tell you! An actual shower at home, a quickie because I was late for a Sweet 16 Party.  I am pretty sure there is still mud in my hair, lol.
Crazy good time, and i cannot wait til MudManX in 2 weeks, which I believe is 5 miles, not 5K. Actual pics to come, I hope. They had photographers there, but no guarantee how the pics will come out! Stay tuned...

JSRC Summer Series, week one

Our local running club holds a Summer Series, 5 weeks of 5K races on Thursday nights, for only $20! They give prizes away every week, and then a grand prize at the final race. Weekly prizes turned out to be hats or sunglasses for all the first place category winners. Sounds fun, right?
Holy heck these people were *fast*! They left me in the dust!

So let's start at the beginning. A cute 1/2 mile kid's race, and then a 1 mile kid's race, where every kid who ran got a medal. They used past race leftovers, super smart, and super cute. These kids were so proud! My friend's 5 year old ran for the first time, did the whole mile! It was the cutest darn thing I ever saw!
Now it is our turn. 85*, slight breeze, Wall Municipal Complex course, *lots* of hills. It is part of the course we ran for the Firecracker Five on July 4th. We stayed in the Complex though, and lopped around twice. NO problem, right? UGH! By mile one, I was one of the last runners, and by the finish I was the last runner. Seriously. Last. The only 2 to finish behind me were geriatric walkers. Luckily, they finished 10 minutes later. My time was just under 35 minutes, which is great. I averaged 11:09 minutes per mile, which is *amazing* for me on hills, and amazing as a training run time.
The whole time I was running, I had to positive self talk:
Holy Crap! These are huge hills, Kim, you are doing so great!
You train at the shore, this is so much harder!
You were not even running this time last year, and now look at you!
Your first hilly race, you barely squeaked in under 40 minutes!

It really did help, but seeing how few people ran in after, me, really killed me.
I feel much better today, and my goal is to beat that time next week! I am only racing against myself!
Oh...the good news? I got third place in our age group (of 3 ladies lol) and my friend Cheryl got first. She let her daughter pick the prize, and they got a JSRC Bucket Hat. If she wins next week, she can get the sunglasses!

SOOOO, now for my second review of my Active Head Band!
I wore my green sparkly one for the race, and it *didn't budge*. Not one millimeter. I was so thrilled! I got them at a Half Off sale, so I got 2 for the price of one. Right now they are about $10-$15 each. Check them out at
www.activeheadbands.com
They are not paying me for this review, they do not even know I am writing it lol.
Editing to add that on honor of her 35th birthday, the owner is having 35% off until July 15th, use the code bday35. What better time to try them out? I am going to order 2 more today, some non-sparkly ones!

Week 2 of training, and a product test!

Today is the start of week 2 of Marathon training. It is a rest day for both Higdon and Galloway, and I planned on doing Pilates, but I just felt like running! Neither kid wanted to give up the TV so I could do Pilates, anyway, so I decided to make use of the day and test out my new Active Bands. They are cute sparkly headbands, elastic, that are reputed to be the world's best. Since I never have any luck, I decided to try them out when they had a 50% sale. I got sparkly green and sparkly gold, although they have non-sparkly ones as well!
I took a before-pic of Morgan and I, with my Active Band firmly in place.

Off we went...Morgan was willing to give up the TV to ride her bike alongside me, lol.....towards Bay Head. The breeze was just enough to make the run bearable, and it didn't even suck too bad going over the bridge (it was actually very cool at the top). We stopped at the halfway point to take a second picture, to see if the band was staying in place. I was sweating alot at this point, and was surprised to see that it was still in place!

Hardly slid back at all! The run back was just as easy as the run in, a little sweatier though, and when we approached the house, I decided to cut it off at 3.75 miles instead of rounding the block again to make it 4.

UGH I look cross eyed, lol, but there is the band, slid back a bit, but still there! I will test them a few more times, and see if the immense amount of sweat contributed to the slippage. THRILLED that it was still there, as I was sure it would slide right off!

For those who are still reading, I want to take a minute to mention my Virtual Race again. During the month of August, you can walk, run, or bike a 10K (6.2 miles) and for a $20 donation ($15 goes to Komen and $5 defrays cost of medal and shipping) you get this awesome bling!

I have already signed up 41 racers and raised $640, and would LOVE to raise more! This $640, added to my other fundraising over the last 3 years, totals over $10,000 to Cancer Research! Holy Heck! For details, give me a shout at kimmiepcft@hotmail.com

Marathon Training, Day 3

DONE!
I hemmed and hawed, and stalled, and lazed, and decided to just git er done. I was afraid that attempting the gym would hinder my getting the run in, making it feel like too much work, so I decided to run outside. There was a nice breeze, how bad could it be?
BAD!
It is 93 degrees out there, dry heat at least, but still crazy hot. I brought a bottle of water with me, and by the time I finished, the water was HOT.
I ran to the beach club, beautiful scenery: kids playing, umbrellas, sparkling water, kayakers, the breeze....wait! Where did the breeze go? UGH! Stretched my achey shin and moved on. I was run/walking at this point, super sweaty, super hot, water warming up, no breeze. Stopped for a few minutes to talk to my friend Cheryl, who agreed it was too hot to run, and tried to convince me to go to the beach.
On to Community Park, and let me tell you: As I passed the turn off for home, I almost took it, but the Park is sometimes breezy so I talked myself into continuing on. No breeze. Not too bad though, a little shady, not as hot.
On towards home after one lap at the park, making it 2.75 miles in 34:12, a 12:30ish pace. Not bad considering all of the walking I did, and day 3 is over! WOOT!
I have both Higdon's and Galloway's plan, and my plan is to attempt Higdon's and settle for Galloway's. Higdon's has one extra day of running per week, so we will see how each week goes!

Good news! I registered for the Hershey Half in October! SO excited, what better place to run than that? Disney may be the happiest place on earth, but Hershey is the yummiest!

Firecracker Five

What a beautiful day for a race!


NOT!
It was muggy and hot when we arrived and it just stopped storming. I got there just in time to get my cute tee and my number and line up.

The sun did come out briefly at the start, and I regretted leaving my sunglasses in the car. The race started, and the clouds moved in and soone it was raining. The rain felt amazing...until it stopped! Then everything got sticky and miserable again!
There were water tables every half mile, which was great. I drank dome and dumped the rest on my neck at every stop.
There were also hills. Lots of them. Everywhere. I was on track to finish in about 57-58 minutes, until the last hill. I had to walk part of it, and then I just couldn't get my groove back. I finally got back to running, when I caught up with a dad and his son. The dad was trying to push the son to finish in under an hour, so I told the boy that he had to stay ahead of me, he didn't want to be beaten by an old lady in a sparkly skirt. That spurred him on, and I slowed a bit to let him finish ahead of me.

Aren't they cute?
I finished on 1:00:20, a nice 12 minute pace (my gps said it was closer to 5.1 miles, making my pace 11:50) which is on track for my 2nd marathon training run. My calves ache and my head hurts, but overall I am mostly happy. And when I crossed the finish line, I got my "bling", which all the ladies were getting <3

Oh, and the cute sparkly skirt? That is a Sparkle Skirt from SparkleSkirts.com, and it was very comfy to run in. It is part of my costume for the Disney Marathon Weekend 5K and I was testing it. I have one in light green as well, for my Tinkerbell costume. The aqua is for Jasmine. Cute, huh?

Marathon Training Started Today!

Where did the time go? 190 days until I am Disney Bound for the marathon weekend! Holy Crap!

Today was the first run, 3.1 miles in a little under 33 minutes. Felt super fabulous to be running again, but I am a little achey now, 8 hours later. Tomorrow is the Firecracker Five in Wall, gonna be a hot one, and I may have to walk some of it, but I am excited to be racing again!
Two mud runs this month as well as some Virtual Races, and next month is the Runyon 5K in YANKEE STADIUM!!!! So psyched for that one!

I also plan to earn my Half Fanatic status this Spring with 3 Halfs in 90 days! I will be running Long Branch Half, Runapalooza, and the Allstate 13.1 in NYC.
Yeah, I am nuts! It's all good!

The Skinny Rules (which I stole from RAD)

Totally want to get this book, and it is now time for me to take a hard look at the rules! I am starting Marathon training tomorrow, and just joined a 31 day ab challenge, so it is time to start eating well again!
I have #1 and 2 totally covered already, ingrained since my WW days! #3 I do most of the time, yay me!
#4 yikes! I need to watch that one!
#5 and 6, no probs but #7? I am training. for a marathon. I eat carbs. before and after lunch. Sorry Bob!
#9 and 10, no probs but #11, I use artificial in my iced tea. Again, sorry Bob. But is in small doses.
#12-20 also got that covered.
All in all, not bad.
AND
I only gained 1.5# on vacation. Not bad considering that i couldn't exercise when I wanted to, due to the high altitude!