San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon: Rocked it? (Part I)

I used to think I was a person who couldn't do things.  Back in NYC, there was once a time when I thought I couldn't change my life.  But then I did.  Not so long ago, there was also a time when I thought I couldn't run.  But then I did.  There was even a short time, after witnessing the brief life of Maya, when I thought I couldn't get another dog.  But then I did.  Three short years ago, I thought I couldn't run a half marathon.  But then I did (and have done it 3 more times since).  Two short years ago, I thought I couldn't run a marathon.  But then I did (and now have 2 more times since).  I could go on and on about all the things I once thought I couldn't do, and then did.  The point is that I've proven myself wrong enough times, that now I find myself believing that I am a person who can do things.

But there's one problem with becoming a person who believes that you can do things.  When there comes a time that you don't do what you've set out to do, the disappointment is deep and biting.  Because you know the only thing that held you back from accomplishing what you wanted was yourself.

I'm not saying that I am in any way disappointed by my performance in the San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon...but I'm a little torn.  I'm torn between being elated with my PR of 10 minutes, putting me at a 4:18:43 marathon time (if you had asked me if I could have done that after I ran my first marathon, I would have laughed in your face) and feeling that I quite simply could have done better.

In order to explain these mixed feelings, let's chronologically relive my 4 day weekend in San Diego.

Friday


Erica picked me up at 6:00am to get to the airport to make our Team flight to San Diego.  Because I fundraised for LLS for this race, my flights and hotel were booked for me by Team in Training.  These were group reservations that included all the members of my team that were running or walking either the half or full marathon in San Diego.

We arrived in San Diego around 10:30, were shuttled to the Grand Manchester Hyatt in downtown San Diego, which looked like this:

Yep, both towers.  Easily one of the nicest,
biggest hotels I've ever stayed in.

From there, we went to the Race Expo to pick up our race packets.

Yay, happy pre-race excited faces!

The expo was filled with a ton of vendors wanting to sell me stuff I absolutely didn't need.  But we did stop by the Team in Training display, which included a wall that was quickly filling with signatures.  This was the first time that the thought occurred to me that this race was not about me.

Signatures of hope, joy, thanks, dedication,
and sadness--for cancer patients, survivors,
and lost loved ones.

After picking up our packets, we made use of our free tickets to Sea World (given to us with our race registration by the Rock N Roll group).  This was my first time in San Diego, and therefore my first experience at Sea World.  I was unprepared for the the Disney-like theatricality of all of the shows, but I still got to see lots of cute animals and take about 100 pictures to show my kids at school today, as promised before I left.  

Hi inquisitive dolphin, you are super cute.  I almost got to
touch you, but not quite.

Then after a tasty Mexican dinner that quite unfortunately did not include any margaritas due to my "no alcohol for a week before race day" rule, we went back to the hotel and fell fairly quickly off to sleep.

Saturday

I had hoped to see a little bit more of San Diego on Saturday, but unfortunately after a leisurely brunch and a fairly restrictive schedule that included a 3:30 team meeting, and 5:30 "Inspirational Dinner," I didn't see much beyond the hotel pool.  Turns out, I didn't mind this so much.

No, we didn't particularly appreciate those clouds on Saturday,
but on race day, we definitely did.

At our 3:30 team meeting, we listened to some last minute details from our coaches and team organizers and took a group picture.

This is just about everyone from the Washington/Alaska
chapter of Team in Training that ran in San Diego.

During this meeting was the second time it occurred to me that this race was not about me.  I met a few other teammates that I hadn't met yet, heard a few more stories, and watched as one of my coaches, Nadine, whose father had passed away after a long battle the Thursday before, stood strongly before us, there to support us on our mission to play our part in ensuring no one else lost their dads too.

And then we went to our Inspiration Dinner, where it hit me full in the face that this race was NOT ABOUT ME.  There were 2,500 participants who raised money for LLS running in San Diego (an LLS sponsored race).  Upon entering the conference center, all 2,500 participants walked through a long column of mentors, captains, coaches, and organizers cheering them on, reminding them of the money they had raised and the challenge they bravely faced.  I have walked through one of these cheering red carpet lines before, but this time, as a mentor, I got to be a part of the cheering squad.  And let me tell you, I found this perspective to be more inspirational than walking through on my own.  I got to watch each face that passed by--the uncontrollable smiles, the tears, the anguish and joy in people's hearts as they remembered why they were doing this, how far they had come and faced their final meal before one of the biggest challenges they've ever put before themselves.

The energy is apparent.  The emotion is palpable.  I'd be
lying if I said I didn't tear up a few times.

After standing there cheering for an hour, with a hoarse voice and tired hands, I didn't want to complain.  Because this was not about me.  This was about them.  Those people I raised $3,075 for.  Those people who also fundraised.  Those people who were running their first half or full marathon.  Those people who were doing it again, because this is what matters.  It was about those people who have watched friends and family members go through the horrors of cancer and cancer treatment.  Those people who have watched their loved ones go into remission and come out with success stories to tell.  Like Darren, who I've trained with all season, who has been in remission for several years and ran his 2nd marathon on Sunday, with his wife by his side running her first half marathon.  It was about those people whose lives cancer has taken.  Like Heather, Erica's sister who passed away 3 years ago leaving behind her parents, sisters, 2 sons, and husband.  Like Siona, a 6 year girl who passed away New Year's Day 2 years ago, whose father and friends ran in her honor on Sunday.  Like Nadine's dad Tom, who had so recently lost his battle.  Like my grandmother, who I never met, who my mother barely knew after she passed away when my mom was 3.  This was not about me.  This was about them, about the cause, about finding a cure.  Because mothers need their daughters and sons need their fathers and brothers need their sisters and no one should have to watch this happen to anyone they love.

Once inside the Inspiration Dinner, we listened to the CEO of LLS tell us that we San Diego runners had raised over $7 million for our cause.  We listened to John "The Penguin" Bingham run through his oft-repeated, but endlessly funny running jokes.  We listened to a man tell the story of his cancer, his treatment, and his thanks for everything we have done to help him survive.  We ate pasta, we celebrated ourselves and our teammates, we cheered, we cried.  Several times in my Team in Training career, I've joked and heard others joke about the somewhat "cult-ish" nature of TNT.  If it's a cult, it's one I certainly don't mind being a part of.

When dinner was over, we went back to the hotel to decorate our race day shirts.  Supplied with permanent markers, puffy paints, googley eyes, and glue, we plastered our purple TNT race day shirts with the names and symbols of those we were running for.  Here's my end result:

I got a special "rock star" shirt because I
raised $1000 over my minimum requirement.

I left my shirt fairly simple.  Every shirt I've raced in has said that I'm going the distance in honor the "The Fam," because without my family I would not be doing this.  My family is everything to me, and if something I'm doing today can help somebody in the far off future, I am going to keep doing everything I can.  The butterfly is for Erica's sister Heather, and the purple and green ribbons we made for Nadine's dad Tom--one for everyone on the team so we could run for him and for Nadine.  There are other names I could have written, but for this race, these people were most prevalent on my mind, so I left it simply with them.

After shirt decorating, it was time for bed.  Time to toss and turn and pretend to sleep.  I only got about 5 hours of sleep that night, but I slept soundly. I fell asleep with the thought in my mind that this race was not about me.  It wasn't about my time, my goals, my pain that I knew I would inevitably feel in the final miles.  It was about everyone else.  I fell asleep knowing that with that thought in mind, I could make it through any challenges the next day would bring.

GO TEAM.

Life with Lucy: Relief

I don't know where you went mom, but thanks for coming back.  I'm sleepy now.

Life with Lucy: My heart just sank

Is that a suitcase?  This is my depressed face.

Are you ready?

The count down is starting to look intimidatingly small.  Less than a week until I hit the pavement in San Diego for my 3rd full marathon.  As I get closer and closer to June 3rd, the question I hear most frequently from people I don't run with is, "Are you ready?"

I've encountered this question before my other marathons and I always struggle to answer it.  Before my first marathon, when approached with this question, all I could manage to reply was "I have no idea, but I hope so."  A marathon is an unknown entity in and of itself each and every time, but the first marathon is the biggest unknown.  You know that you are going to be doing something incredibly difficult.  You know your legs will get tired, but you've never experienced that kind of bodily fatigue before.  And you've been told that you're going to hit a mental and physical "wall" at some point in the race, but you've never really hit this wall before.  And you just don't know how hard it will be to break through.  And you worry that sometimes people can't do it.  So the biggest worry on your mind isn't "Am I ready?," it's "Is this possible?"

When the question was presented to me before my second marathon, it gave me a different feeling.  I wasn't looking into the physical unknown anymore.  I knew my body was capable, but I also knew how much it hurt.  I remembered telling everyone who asked me how the first marathon was, that it was by far, the most difficult thing I had ever done in my life.  From the first marathon, I had learned that the biggest challenge during the race was a mental battle.  I had seen the "wall" now, and it was tall and thick and you needed a sledge hammer of a mind to break through it.  So when asked "Are you ready?", I wanted to respond and say yes, my body is ready but I have no idea if my mind is.  I figured people would think I was crazy if I said that, so I simply replied, "I'm as ready as I'm going to be."

And now, encroaching on marathon #3, I'm being asked this question again.  And again, I don't know how to answer.  Looking at accomplishing this insane feat a third time is yet again a different feeling.  This time though, I look at this marathon through the eyes of a marathoner.  Before the first marathon, I didn't know if I would become a marathoner.  Before the second one, I keep thinking that the first time could have been a fluke.  Maybe I wouldn't be able to do it again.  But this time, I feel like a marathoner.  I've done it twice before and the rational half of my brain knows I can do it again.  But the irrational half has an abundance of fears and worries because of that unknown quality of a marathon.  A marathon is a living, breathing, fickle thing.  No matter how well trained you are, how many times you've already done it, how "ready" you are, sometimes people just have bad marathons.  Who knows when it will be my turn to have a bad marathon, and it's scares me to death that this could be it.

Here's the thing though.  If I wasn't nervous or scared or shaking in my boots, that would be more cause for worry than the nerves.  When I was a swimmer, I always did better during a race when there was pressure, stress, or a need to do well.  The races I was nervous for were always the races I did best in.  If I wasn't nervous, I knew I wouldn't do well.  If I didn't feel butterflies in my stomach, then something was missing from that race.  I'm a person who does well under pressure.  In fact, better under pressure.  Before a marathon, I should feel nervous.  If I didn't, then I shouldn't be running it.  Because anybody who isn't nervous about running 26.2 miles, no matter how many times you've done it, is missing a screw somewhere.

For the remaining 6 days before my race, I'm going to continue trying to do all the good things that will keep my body prepared for my race.  I'll hydrate regularly, eat the best I can, try to get lots of sleep, and continue to respect the taper.  I'm going to remember how great it felt to push strong through the wall at Whidbey.  I'm going to keep trying to practice fighting the wall in my mind.  I'm going to remember why I'm doing this, so that when I want to stop during the tough miles, I can remind myself.  And when someone asks me if I'm ready, I think I'm going to revert back to the second half of my first answer to this question.  "I hope so."  Because I really do.

Life with Lucy: Look who's all growed up now!

Thanks for the new bed, mom!

Respect the Taper

Yes, respect the taper.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term "taper", here is a quick definition: 2-3 weeks prior to a race, it is a decrease in intensity, decrease in distance, decrease in everything (except rest...increase that).  Right before the race, when your mind is freaking out and telling you to push your hardest and run your farthest, DON'T DO IT.

I totally understand the purpose of the taper.  For the past several months, I've been increasing mileage, increasing speed, and increasing strength.  I've been pushing my body to its limits and then pushing it farther.  My muscles are torn, tired, and vulnerable.  And now they need to rest.  They need to repair and strengthen themselves so that when I absolutely and totally push them to their limit in about a week and a half, they will be ready for it.  My legs are happy right now.  They are saying thanks for the rest.  Unfortunately for them, they have no idea what's coming.

So yes, the taper is essential, important, and should be respected at all costs.  But mentally, I think the taper is sometimes the hardest part of training.  As I said before, for the past several months, I've been pushing myself farther and faster...so now, right before the race, when I want to do everything I can to keep preparing, I'm supposed to hold back, go slow, shorten my runs.  My mind doesn't grasp that too easily.  Today I went for a run, aiming to go slow and steady for 50 mins, but my legs felt great.  And my mind didn't want them to go slow and steady.  My mind wanted them to push harder, like I've been telling myself to do for so long now.  But instead I have to think backwards--slow down, relax, breathe.  Here is a picture of my pacing graph from the Nike+ website:

I'm in the "blue" level on the Nike+ website, having logged a total of 704.72
miles since I got my watch in September.  That's a lot of miles, I think.  

See the argument I had with myself on this run?  See the ups and downs of winning voices in my head?  Speed up, no slow down, no too slow, wait go slower.  Running is such a mental battle.  The physical part is only about 10% of what it takes to make it through.  Maybe less.

Luckily during this taper, I've been incredibly busy and unable to think too much about tapering.  We're encroaching on the near end of the school year and suddenly I find myself drowning in the intricacies of teaching.  Teaching often pulls you in a thousand different directions all at once, but this week has been especially overwhelming.  It's like trying to solve a puzzle, but the pieces don't fit together.  And there's a few extra pieces.  But someone told you that you can put the puzzle together, that it will all fit.  So you keep trying.  And trying.  Until you realized you're facing an insurmountable task.  But even then, you don't want to give up.  Right now I have all these pieces of things that I want to fit in my brain.  But suddenly it feels like my brain is at capacity.  I'd make a list, because lists are great, but I don't know where to start or what to even call it (I simply can't have a list without a title).  "Things to think about," "Impossible problems to be solved," and "These things are important" are all possible but not necessarily all-encompassing titles.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not complaining about this.  I love my job.  I love feeling like what I'm doing matters.  If I fit only 2 pieces of that puzzle together and the rest fall away, I've still done something.  And something is always better than nothing.  I'm thankful that I feel involved, overwhelmed, and consumed by my job (when I'm at my job).  Most of the things that would land themselves on this theoretical list are pretty amazing.  For instance, here are things I have to remember for tomorrow:

1)  Plan my reading lesson:  Choose a great book, teach children to love and think deeply about that book.  Encourage them to do the same with their own book.

2)  Count coins for our Change for Nepal fundraiser:  My brother is currently saving the world in a small village in Nepal by helping to build a school and an orphanage.  I decided to help him raise money for school supplies by holding a coin drive at my school.  So far we've raised $992 in four days.  All of it in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.  Which have to be counted by hand.  Tomorrow is the last day and I hope that we will have to spend a very long time counting more coins.

3)  Give a math test: Ok, this is not so fun.  But hopefully it will serve as evidence of all the awesome skills I've taught my kids in the past few weeks.

4)  Prep and host our "First Grade Coffeehouse Poetry Publishing Celebration":  This involves making lots of iced tea, setting up the classroom to look like a coffeehouse so that the kids can have a poetry reading and share their awesome poems with their parents.  There will be smiles, excitement, snacks, streamers, and a lot of stress for me.  But it's stress I'll take.  It's stress I've brought upon myself because if you could see how proud these kids are of their poetry, you'd do it too.

And those are just the big things.  There are other things like grading papers, sharpening pencils, solving the social dilemmas of 7 year olds, completing reading assessments, trying to remember if I have any meetings, and eating that are kind of important too.  The list is endless.  

And so, with this unnamed "list" of things in my brain for the past few weeks, tapering has been the last thing on my mind.  This has resulted in one of the easiest tapers I've ever had.  But there's still a week and half left.  I guess I shouldn't speak too soon.  Regardless here's one more list to close us out called "How I Plan to Respect the Taper, If All Goes According to Plan":

1)  Slow down:  As much as I love seeing the number 8 at the beginning of my pace, a 9:15 pace on a run is OK right now.  In fact, it's good.

2)  Drink water: This is one of the things that has slipped off the unnamed list of things at school.  Hydration is key.  Next week I will do better.

3)  Don't drink alcohol: I like to take a week off from alcohol before a big race.  I will have my last drink Sunday afternoon at a fellow runner's birthday party.  Then it will be more of item #2.

4)  Sleep: I will try to go to bed early all next week, because come next Saturday night, I know I will most definitely not be sleeping, especially with a close to 3 AM wake up call.

5) Think about the race: In trying to check so many things off so many lists, I haven't been thinking much about my mental plan for this race.  I need to look at the map, the elevations, and the mile markers and mentally prepare for this thing.

6) Stop thinking I suck at running right now: I've had an amazing training season.  I felt great, ran strong, and am faster than I've ever been.  In the taper, I forget that.

7) Enjoy some Lucy love: Because the Lucy face makes everything amazing.

8) Breathe and enjoy life:  Because this is my life.  It's what I've chosen and it's what I have.  Don't get so caught up in all the lists that I forget to enjoy all that is good about it.  Because in the end, the lists won't really matter anyways.

A career in T-shirt collecting

Can 4 years of running and 3 years of "racing" be considered a career?  The Merriam Webster online dictionary has 4 definitions, but here are the 2 commonly known ones:

1) a field for or pursuit of consecutive progressive achievement especially in public, professional, or business life.
2) a profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling


I'm not sure if my running fits the first definition, although I'm not sure exactly what "public" life is.  If public simply means that I run in public (and blog for the wide public to read about it), then I fit.  But no matter, because if my running doesn't fit the second definition to a T, I don't know what does.  "A profession for which one trains"?  Um, yeah.  "Undertaken as a permanent calling"?  Yes, most definitely.  I may not have believed it when running found me 4+ years ago, but now I think I can safely say that running has become a permanent fixture in my life.  And often, it is running that calls me.  It pulls me out on the streets, helps me battle through tired days, helps me celebrate the great ones, and gives me a reason to feel accomplished in my life.  And until something happens that absolutely requires me to stop running, it will be a permanent part of my life for the foreseeable future.


But I didn't start this post to talk about the definition of a career.  Instead, I'd like to talk about how I'm a pack rat.  At least when it comes to clothes.  There are items of clothing in my closet that it would be embarrassing to admit the year I bought them (Sierra can attest to this if you'd like proof, she looks disdainfully at certain articles of my wardrobe every time she sorts through my closet because she does know when I bought most of the items).


I'm getting better at weeding out some of the older, "regular" articles of clothing.  I did a huge cleaning of my closet when I moved in February.  Almost 2 garbage bags full of clothes (and a 3rd full of worn out running shoes).  But when it comes to items that have any ounce of sentimentality in them, I can't bring myself to let go.  I still have my D.A.R.E shirt from 5th grade, complete with all the signatures of my classmates reminding me not to do drugs.  And all those T-shirts we made with puffy paint in middle school for the swim team?  Still have those.  I have every single homecoming class shirt, from our Back to the Future themed year to our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt.  I've got swim team hoodies, college hoodies that I never went to but visited while on the market for schools, and random t-shirts like this one:

Because when I lived in Brooklyn, the L
train was an awful train that was always
under construction, late, and never worked
when you wanted it to.  So angry Williamsburg
artists made shirts like this.

Do I ever wear this endless pile of sentimental clothing?  No, not really.  Maybe to bed.  Maybe under a hoodie on a Lucy walk.  But most of the time, these t-shirts are folded away in my dresser, sitting there holding onto their sentimentality until they finally disintegrate into nothingness one day.

So let's contemplate for a moment, the idea of race t-shirts.  Do they hold sentimental value?  Yes, every race means something, whether it's a 5K or a marathon, there are memories in that t-shirt.  Even though in most of the races I didn't even wear the shirt, I seem to invest my memories in them.  But at least with these shirts, they are getting their full use.  I wear them proudly.  Each time I put them on in preparation for a run, I momentarily flash back to the race that I earned them.

Not every race has a shirt.  There's that first 10K I did 3 and a half years ago that was so small I don't even remember the name of it (but I remember Sierra waking up to drive me down to Seward Park and then sleeping in the car while I ran).  And then the Jingle Bell 5K this year--they somehow gave me a youth large shirt instead of the small adult I'd asked for, and these 2 sizes are nowhere close to being the same.  I gave that one up to Goodwill (although I still have moments of thinking I shouldn't have).  

Are there still memories for the races I don't have shirts?  Yes of course.  Do I worry that one day I will forget them if I don't have a shirt?  Yes.  Am I a little bit crazy and neurotic?  Yes.  But my race shirts tell a story.  They tell the story of my running career.  Since we haven't delved into the past lately, let's tell the story.

Seattle Rock N Roll Inaugural Half Marathon.
June 27, 2009

My first big race.  My first half marathon.  The one that began it all.  No one told me to sign up for it.  No one convinced me to run that far.  No one ran it with me.  It was me.  All me.  I chose to do it.  I remember my long runs, counting the miles as each week I ran the farthest I'd ever run (7 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles, 11 miles).  I trained for it by myself.  I ran it by myself.  I felt awesome.  And then I wanted more.

Seattle Rock N Roll Full Marathon
June 26, 2010

I first took a picture of this shirt by itself, and then I realized that this race really looked like this:

My first race with Team in Training.

When I ran the half the year before, I saw all these people in purple shirts cheering each other on, smiling, having fun together.  I decided I wanted running friends.  So when I got a flyer in the mail for an informational meeting, I signed up, went, and started practice the next morning.  The white shirt is the participant practice shirt and the purple one was my race shirt.  I had originally signed up for the half marathon again, but got convinced into training for the full.  So I trained for the full and ran it, surprising even myself.  As I finished the race, I remember thinking that it was by far the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.  It hurt like hell.  I cried when I was done.  Then I laughed.  After that, I ate a lot.  And 2 days later, I wanted to do it again.

Seattle Seafair Torchlight 8K
July 31, 2010

This was the first shorter race that I ran for fun with friends.  It was a gorgeous day to run along the viaduct, and I remember thinking that it was great to be seeing that amazing view at mile 4 of an 8K instead of mile 22 of a marathon.  I got to enjoy it a lot more.  And I love the t-shirt.  Still one of my favorites.

Amica Seattle Half Marathon
November 28, 2010

I didn't actually run this race.  I got a stress fracture in my knee at the end of the summer and had to skip out on this one.  I still picked up the race packet and t-shirt because I sold my race numbers to a friend so he could run his first half marathon (not exactly legal, but people do it, shhh don't tell anyone).  I kept the shirt because it wasn't my friends size and because I still wanted to remember the race I couldn't do.  It helps me remember to take care of my legs so I can keep running more races.

St. Patty's Day Dash
March 13, 2011
oops, and some red toes

Another fun race with friends.  It was cold, rainy, and I was just about to start training for my 2nd marathon and 2nd event with Team in Training.  We met at the old TNT office before this race and it helped me get excited for the upcoming season.

Seattle Rock N Roll Half Marathon
June 25, 2011
someone got jealous and wanted her toes
in the picture too

This was my second half marathon.  It seems as though the Seattle Rock N Roll has become a sort of ritual for me now.  I ran the inaugural race and the year after.  Now having done the race 3 years in a row and currently signed up for the 4th, I think it's going to become a staple every year.  The 2011 race was the one that I almost broke the 2 hour time but was off by a minute.  Nonetheless, I was still 15 minutes faster than my 1st half marathon.

Seattle Seafair Torchlight 8K
July 30, 2011

I ran this race with new friends from my half completed marathon training season with Team in Training.  In my second season with Team, I made some really great friends, and this race reminds me of them.  We dressed up as pirates.  I embraced the idea of a running skirt.  Good times.

Victoria Full Marathon
October 9, 2011

Three shirts again for this one.  The red race jacket--best race shirt ever.  It's a zip up jacket that has long sleeves with thumb holes and a pocket in the back that has a headphones hole on the inside so that you can weaver your headphones up your back to your ears.  This is essential because you don't want your headphones cord flopping around in front or behind you.  The orange shirt underneath is the telltale sign of a Team in Training mentor.  I signed up as a mentor for TNT that season and helped 8 people raise money for LLS and watched them finish their races.  Pretty awesome.  Then the purple shirt was my race shirt with the new Team in Training logo.  You probably can't see it, but there is a googley eye stuck to the fish (the symbol for the Washington/Alaska chapter of TNT).  That eye bounced up and down for 26.2 miles (or 42 kilometers, since I was in Canada and that's what the race was marked in).  Even post washing, the eye still holds on.  This was an awesome race.  I loved the size of it, the city, the people, the weather, the course.  I would definitely do it again.  That is, after I've done all the other races I can't wait to do first.

It was shortly after the Victoria marathon that I started blogging.  So the remainder of this story you've heard.

Amica Seattle Half Marathon
November 27, 2011

You can relive this story here.

The now shirtless Jingle Bell 5K belongs here.  December 11, 2011.  Picture a white long sleeved t-shirt with green and red stuff on it.  In the actual race, Erica and I wore matching "I heart Santa" t-shirts and sequined Santa hats.  There was a very cold beer garden at the end.  The beer gardens are half the fun of these shorter races.  You get to quench your thirst and take back in the carbs you burned all at the same time.

St. Patty's Day Dash
March 17, 2012

I guess I didn't write about this one.  It was cold.  It was wet.  I got a time I'm pretty proud of (maintaining a 8:25 pace for just under 4 miles).  Then it snowed.  We drank beer.  It was St. Patrick's Day.  

Whidbey Island Half Marathon
April 15, 2012

This was an awesome race.  Beautiful day.  Great friends.  Surprisingly awesome PR.  Not so great shirt.  I'll get over it though.

There it is up until now.  Not half bad for just 3 short years of races.  This story is no where close to being over yet.  In less than 2 weeks, hopefully I'll add another shirt to the accomplished stack.  And then 3 weeks after that, another.  And then another in October when I run the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco.  And maybe I'll start adding some biking shirts to this pile.  As long as I stay healthy and my legs keep working, I'll be running.  One day my shirt pile will get too big.  When that happens, Mom you should plan on receiving a large box in the mail with worn out racing shirts so that you can make something awesome out of them for me.  A quilt?  A wall hanging?  I'll leave it up to you.  Don't worry, I'll give you at least another year or 2 to think about it :)

Until then, as long as you are all still interested in hearing the story, I'll keep writing it as it develops.  Actually, I'll probably keep writing it whether anyone else is interested or not.  But it's much more fun to have some friends along for the ride.