Need a Little Help Please!

Hi everyone!  Can you please do me a favor and vote for Mary Katherine Knott in the attached link?  She is the young lady I wrote about here.

(https://travelrunstyle.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/a-moment-of-pride-for-a-child-who-isnt-even-mine/)

This poll is for Athlete of the week from our county newspaper.  Our area meet was this weekend and she won the WHOLE thing with a PR of 18:41!! This humble young lady just keeps getting better and better!  State race is Nov. 4.  Can’t wait!

Thanks for your vote.  And you can vote again tomorrow, or from different devices!

http://www.gwinnettprepsports.com/schools/buford/fans-choice-fall-athlete-of-the-week-candidate-profiles/article_58c9d77e-99a1-11e6-bb3f-5b258a1fe11e.html

A Road Trip

Haven’t been anywhere in over a year…but we went to Florida Friday and Saturday as chaperones to a high school cross country meet. 

As you may know, parts of Florida were hit by a massive hurricane this weekend. (Please keep all of the folks affected in your thoughts and prayers). We went to Tallahassee which was not effected by the hurricane. 

Tallahassee itself isn’t particularly scenic, nor was the drive down there.. mostly cotton fields for scenery 

We kept ourselves entertained by playing a highly intellectual game that our 3 girl passengers called Fudoodle: every time you see a yellow vehicle you hit the roof of the car and say fudoodle. School buses and machinery don’t count.

I was the reigning champion, mainly because I kept playing after everyone else had quit.

We drove straight to the course so that we could meet up with the rest of the team to do a preview. The meet was the Florida State invitational race. I believe that it is Florida State Univ s  home course. Most of the Florida teams use it as their state course preview. But there were other out of state teams there too.

We let the girls out of the car, then we ran the course 2 times. And I have got to say, this was the most spectacular cross country course I’ve ever seen.  If God created a cross country course, this what it would look like.  

I am certain that this course was built from the ground up specifically for cross country. Everything single aspect of this race/course was perfect. Even down to fabulous port o pots. Clean, clean, clean, and running water next to them so you could wash your hands! 

Spectators weren’t allowed near the finish chutes. So there was a mobile jumbo-tron that allowed us to watch our finishers.

The course itself was perfection. The surface was gravel/hard sand on places, low grass/dirt in other. Almost the entire course was in the shade of beautiful Spanish moss draped live oaks. The track was so wide, you could literally drive 2 Mac trucks down it. Even the one hill was very thoughtfully designed. It was tiered. So after a bit of ascent, there was a small depression/plateau which you can use as a spring up to the next ascent. Turn the corner, and a beautiful point 2 mile downhill (but not too steep) finish. 

The weather on race down was almost perfect. And it was our coolest race all season so far. Around 70 degrees and very low humidity and a nice breeze.

On a personal note, out daughter did well. She had a massive stress fracture and missed almost the entire season last year. This year she has been working her way back, while trying to improve her form to avoid another stress fracture. She still hasn’t beat her last year’s one race PR, but every race she is dropping 30 seconds. 

Hopefully she can keep improving!

An Unexpected Companion on my Morning Run

The other day, my husband was up and dressed to run with me at 5:30 am. This was completely out of character for him. He is an evening runner. But that day, he was so eager to get out the door with me-that he became chatty….at 530 am. He is RARELY chatty. And NEVER in the morning. To be honest, I was kind of thinking ‘Shut the f up’ to myself. 

But then I realized that I needed to show him the ropes of morning running. I was kind of surprised at how many ‘ropes’ there actually are.

First off, it’s better to run on the street than the sidewalk.  2 reasons. 1) The pavement on the sidewalk is very uneven. A big tripping risk. 2) Low hanging tree branches hold bugs that could fall on you.

Next, we got out a little early. The gate where the golf course maintenance workers come in wasn’t unlocked yet. We had to sneak through the bars at the side of the gate. This area is prime spider web real estate. I keep a clearing stick on the stone next to the sneak through area. He laughed at my preparedness.

Neither one of us wore a watch, and we needed to be back by 6:30 to get our daughter to school. No problem on the time thing.

I know the time by various sights and sounds.

It’s 5:50 when you can hear the train go through town.

At 6:13, two boys come out of their homes for the high school bus.

We knew it was 6:20 when the boy who takes a special needs bus came out of his house. 

I have to give you a little background on this boy. I don’t know why he takes the special needs bus. My guess would be that he is autistic. I have noticed that he likes routine. For instance, the first day of summer, he was still out his door at 6:20. Ready for his bus. 

Every morning I say good morning to him. Just recently, he started saying good morning back. He has such a sweet voice, it makes me happy to hear it. Once he started saying good morning, then started asking me how I am. I was especially touched by his eagerness, and shared this story with my whole family. Now my husband got to greet him too. Big treat!

When we were going up the last hill I ran, he walked. The biggest meteor ever passed by. It was a giant white flash with a long white sparkly tail. Just awesome! 

Truthfully, when we were finished I was actually glad to have had the company.

A Fantastic Day in Rome (Georgia)

We spent half of yesterday in beautiful Rome, Georgia at our girl’s first cross country meet of the season. Since she only raced once last year before missing her season to a severe stress fracture, this was going to be her 2nd ever meet! All of us were excited, but nervous about the possibility of more injury.

It turned out to be a spectacular day for everyone….our daughter, us, our teams!

First Race

The first race of the day was an open race. My husband and I decided to run it. My husband had a blood sugar dip right before the start, so I lined up by myself. There were middle schoolers as well as post high school runners. I noticed our mechanic’s son near me. He is one of the fastest runners in Atlanta, and an xc coach. He had his team there for the meet, and decided to run. When the gun went off, it seemed like the whole field of runners except me was sprinting. I noticed I was one of the oldest runners, and just prayed not to finish last!

The course was beautiful and rolling. But I went slower than I’d hoped. I felt ashamed of how slowly I was going. Especially with our whole team plus parents there! After passing by the 2 mile mark, I saw our teams lined up on one  side of the course, many parents lined up on the other. Oh crap. They were cheering so loudly, and I felt so embarrassed of my slowness that I didn’t even look up as I approached them. As I neared them, it occurred to me that no one knew how slowly i was running; they were just happy to see me running. I looked up and waved and smiled! The girls had made up a cheer/chant/dance. It was so cute and It made me so happy! 

Today a few of them recreated the cheer at my house and allowed me to film it. I have already watched/shared SOO many times! 

Here you go:

Second Race

Girls varsity. 2 great things about this race: our daughter hit her goal, and so did her best running buddy!

Our daughter’s goal was to finish the race, and finish pain free! Her time wasn’t great, but she finished! And without pain!! There will be a second Race this season!

At least as exciting is the fact that our girl’s bff (the one I wrote about 2 posts ago), PR’d by 20 seconds! I couldn’t be more proud if she were my own!! She changed her strategy, and went out faster than normal. It worked! And the icing on this one is that she was able to beat her arch rival for the very first time! 

Third Race

Boy’s varsity. Our fastest boy is only a sophomore. He had an outstanding freshman year. He looked awesome yesterday, and won the entire race! 15:59. It was thrilling to watch how much he won by. 

Fourth Race

JV girls and boys combined.  This was a crowded race. It took a long time for the racers to space out. 

It also took a while for the race to finish. While we watched the last runners finish, we heard a loud cheer go up as the last runner and his bike escort appeared. As he ran by, I saw that he was a Downes Syndrome young man.
Oh my goodness…how inspiring. Sappy to say, but I shed a tear on that one.

What an amazing sport and an awesome day!

Here is a pic of the the parents/family supporters…lots of us!

Running, Confidence, Dressing Nicely and Business Success

Hello. It’s been a while since I posted, and although I regret that it’s been a while, there is a good reason. We’ve been super busy at work. And let me say, when you own your own business, busy is way preferable to not busy!

We are having high sales this month. But the even better news is that we have been creating opportunities which could lead to ongoing increased sales. Some of these opportunities haven’t panned out yet, so I hope I’m not jinxing things by mentioning them!

So, there are a number of factors contributing to us being able to create opportunities, but I just want to talk about the ones related to running.

Confidence Through Running

I started running several years ago. And one of the best things about running for me is that it makes me feel strong. I’m sure it’s the same for you. But once I realized I could run x number of miles, or race in a variety of distances, it made me see that I’m pretty strong. This gave me more confidence. I learned that I could do more than I thought. And the every day work problems lost significance .

Dressing Nicely 

As my body transformed through running, I had to start buying new clothes. I’m too cheap to spend much on clothes. So for years, even though I was now in good shape, I didn’t dress nicely. Instead of dressing like the owner of my business, I dressed like the delivery lady. 

That all changed a few years ago when I got a second job at a women’s clothing store. Through working there, and helping ladies with their wardrobes, I began to see that dressing nicely is another way to build confidence. The fact that employees are entitled to shop at the “company store”, where everything is $5 or $10 helped me transform my wardrobe quickly and frugally. 

Now, when I go see our business customers or prospects, I’m not preoccupied with feelings of inadequacy. I know I look nice, so I can concentrate on building our business.

Petty I know, but I’m convinced that dressing more nicely is helping me build our business.

Goal Setting

The other way that running is helping to build our business is through goal setting. I think all of us runners can easily appreciate the process of setting a goal – like  running a marathon – and following the steps to achieve the goal. But as business owners, I’ve got to confess that we’d become a bit lazy about setting goals.

We had a tough month in July, and it made me refocus on the goal setting. At first, I didn’t have any concrete goals. I only knew that we needed more sales. I got a pen and paper and wrote “we need more business” over and over on the page. (Did I mention we were slow?)

Now I’m not going to say that we magically got more business because i wrote that sentence four times! But I will say that  actually writing those words made me focus on ways to go about getting more business.

We strategized and came up with a real plan to help us get more sales.

All this, thanks to running!

Now wish us luck!!

A Moment of Pride for a Child Who Isn’t Even Mine!

We’ve know M since she and my daughter have been toddlers. M is a twin, and we all used to play together in our neighborhood pool.  The girls would all take turns jumping off the side of the pool into my arms when they were very young. When they were a bit older, they’d all take turns having me throw them up into the air and then splash into the pool. 

Now, the girls are in high school and M and my daughter run cross country. They are good friends, which makes me very happy since M is such a kind hearted, generous, hard working girl. 

It has been amazing to watch M grow and improve as a runner. When she first started running as a freshman, nobody noticed this shy, quiet, self conscious girl. But every race that fall, she got better and faster until by the end of the season, she was the number 2 girl. 

Last season, she became #1 in the time trial…an internal race held at the beginning of the season for positioning. 

She had an amazing season last year, and became one of the fastest girls in the county. Our county is the largest school district in the state, so this is big! Her track season was awesome too.  We drove to track meets just to watch her.  

And now cross country season has started again. At the start of each athlectic season, the county newspaper ranks the top 6 athletes in each sport. It’s called the Super 6. And our girl M made super 6!!! I’m so  proud of this young lady…almost like she was mine! Proud, and in awe. 

Can’t wait to see what she does this season!

Odds and Ends

Well we are in the heart of summer running here…which means really hot and humid. Same as it is for all of you I’m sure. 

The good news is that I’ve been doing an excellent job getting out before sunrise. It makes such a big difference not to have the sun combined with the heat and humidity. Here is a screenshot of the weather one day last month. If you’ll notice, the temp isn’t bad, but humidity was high. Lately, it’s been even higher! Last week it was 92%!! Regardless of how rough it’s been, I still vastly prefer this to the cold of winter….so hard to get out of bed and run before the sun is up when its in the 20s!
On the fashion front, I made an excellent find yesterday at TJ Maxx! A Boston Marathon jacket! And wait for it….it was from 2015-the year I ran it!

I didn’t buy the jacket at the marathin expo in 2015 b/c it was $110, and I’m WAY too cheap for that! But look here at the tags! Nice bargain shopping!

Final price $40+tax! The only downside is that the size is XL…but when I tried it on my family and I all agreed it wasn’t as bad as we would have thought!

So yeah, this is a post complaining about heat and buying a coat! Hmmmm.

On the race front, we just had the largest 10k in the world here yesterday. The Peachtree Rd race. 60,000 participants!! I didn’t do it this year. But I have done it in the past. It is super fun, and patriotic feeling. 

This Saturday, I am participating in a 24 hour team event. 8 team members… we’re a mixed team. 4 boys and 4 girls. We take turns running a 6 mile loop. The weather forecast for daytime temps is 100! Yikes. But it’s around a lake/in the woods, so maybe a bit cooler?? One can hope. I am looking forward to it. I only know one or two of the runners, so I always enjoy making new friends. 

Hope you all have a nice week. I am looking forward to reporting back on the race!

A 100 Mile Run (not mine)

We have the good fortune to live near a very nice community… Suwanee, GA. There is a town center/green that is surrounded by residential and retail. Back behind the town center and residential area is a beautiful nature preserve with miles and miles of trails.

Our run store is in this retail area. And they host group runs on the greenway trails. It has been a great place to meet other runners and make friends.

Our son is employed at the running  store and has also been able to meet many people. And although he isn’t running right now, we all share the same acquaintances and friends.

One of the people that my husband, son and I all enjoy is R. He is great encourager to all and well liked within our running community. In fact R is the one who influenced so many of us to try out an ultra marathon!

R and his wife recently welcomed their first child, a boy. As a result, they have decided to move back to Michigan, where their families live.

As a parting gesture, R decided to run 100 miles in consecutive loops around the .36 mile perimeter of the town green. He put out an open invitation for members of the running group to join him. And started off his run this past Friday evening.

Over 50 runners joined R for parts of his run. My son ran with him on Friday night. By the time we all joined him on Saturday around noon, he had  76 miles in. Another friend, who my husband nicknamed ‘the closer ‘ (b/c she helped me finish my ultra) showed up around 1 with the intention of helping R finish.

But by Saturday afternoon, it had gotten extremely hot. We left for an hour for our run down the greenway in the shade. When we came back, R hadn’t gotten much farther. And he didn’t look good. We left, and wondered if he’d finish.

Much later in the day (6:15), my daughter wanted to go for a run. So we went back to the greenway. As we drove past the town center, we could see the gang still out there running. I wanted to go run with them, but in her strange 15 year old way she didn’t want to be seen there with her mom. So we ran in the shady woods where it was less likely that she would be seen. When we finished, we checked on the gang again. 

The scene I witnessed was straight out of Forest Gump….R in the lead with about 15 people trailing him. Then he just stopped. Was he done? Had he accomplished his goal? Was he quitting? I wasn’t allowed out of the car. But when I got home, I saw a new FB post that he had just finished!! Over 27 hours after he had started, and with help from a lot of friends, R had run 100 miles!

Nicely done.

Motor Photo Journalism

I ran a fun half marathon this past weekend, and have every intention of writing a post about it.

In the meantime, I’ve been seeing some interesting things as I’ve been going about my daily travels.

Today I saw a house driving down the road.

Yesterday, I saw the weinermobile! (Not a very good picture, I know…but hey, I was driving)

A few days ago, I saw a caboose without wheels, parked in a parking lot. The next day, it was gone!  ????

Hope that you are all having a good week, and that my odd photos have improved your day!

2nd Race of the Year – A Success – Sort of

Last week was my second race of the year.  Another 5k, another repeat race.  I ran it the year before last, and remembered that I liked it.  It is a favorable course with more downhills than up. And for this reason it attracts many of the fasties in the city.  Since it is such a favorable course, I persuaded several friends to race it too.

The race, and course, and friends were awesome!  The course was even better than I remembered.  I hit my race goal, as did 4 of the 5 friends who raced too!  And my performance truly gave me hope that maybe I haven’t lost all my speed to the large quantity of junk miles I’ve been running.

The only regrettable thing about the whole race was that I forgot to double knot my shoes!  Rookie mistake!  At exactly the start of mile 2, I realized my shoe had come untied.  I tried to ignore it for a bit, but that wasn’t working.  I pulled off to the side to tie, and I’m pretty sure that was a 30 second mistake.

My goal was for my finish time to start with a 23.  I finished in 23:45.  So, goal accomplished.  If you subtract the 30 second mistake, and add that to the fact that I should have lined up closer to the front to start (could have cost me 10 seconds of initial weaving), I came really really close to finishing the race in the 22s!  I’ve only done that twice before.  So I’m really happy about the race.  And, a feeling that I’ve never had before:  As I turned the corner towards the finish, I actually felt disappointed that the race would be over soon!!

 

Downhill finish…I thought I was smiling as I passed the photographer.  This looks more like a grimace.

This weekend I’ve got my 12 hour race.  I’m looking forward to it.  The weather forecast is going to be a bit hot…mid 70’s, but the course is shaded.  And speed isn’t the priority.  So I think I can handle the heat.