Van #1, Runner #4...

So I have already talked about the numbers, so let's talk about the fun. Based on our projected average pace we were scheduled a later start time. Since we were van 1 we headed to Brekenridge to set off at noon. It was a little intimidating to start with five other teams when four of the teams were ultra teams. (An ultra team only had six members instead of 12, that'll make you feel like a slacker.)

Do you think Kelsey and I look intimidated?

I can only tell that this picture was from the start because I look like I had recently had a shower here. We were kind of cold before the race start. It was cloudy and a little windy, when the sun was out we were fine, but then it would go back behind the clouds and we would be cold again.

And then we were off! Jerry made it through his first leg, and then Kelsey had a little rain for her's. Patti was up next and set off to run straight up a hill that was almost two miles long. By hill I mean mountain, and the almost two mile distance is not an exaggeration.

We did have a nice place to take pictures waiting at the top to cheer her on again.

We had a pit stop, one with a gas station bathroom instead of a port-o-potty, and then another cheering pit stop before we made it to exchange three. There was a port-o-potty pit stop there too, I was nervous.

When it was my turn to run, I took off and felt pretty good for about half a second. The elevation was a little over 9,000 feet and it was really hard to breathe. I ran for 6.5 miles with a side stitch that I just could not breathe through. This lead to quite a bit of walking on the uphill portions of my leg. Though my uphill portions were nowhere near what some of my teammates endured.

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I love that they got a picture of Ro laying on the ground taking my picture. I thinking I pulled off not looking like I was dying here. I did get some sunshine on this leg, and I got some beautiful views of Lake Dillon. Of course, I ended the leg with a very steep uphill climb, but it seemed all too quickly my first leg was over and I handed off the slap bracelet to Scotty.

Scotty took off like the bad ass he is and busted out his leg in no time. We almost didn't get to cheer for him because he was too fast for us. We meet up with him at exchange five and the Rochelle was off for a hill that was about seven miles long and took us to Vail where van 2 was waiting for us.

We stopped on the way for an ice bath, and a cheering station. That water was cold, but it sure made our feet feel great.

It was great to see van 2 when we made it to Vail.

Kelsey, me, Robyn, Patti, Tiffany, John, Monica, Steve, David, Scotty and Jerry. We were waiting for Ro to meet us at the top of the hill. Kind of makes you feel bad knowing we were hanging out while she was killing herself on a massive mountain.

She made it to the top and we had some pictures.

Van 1 with Lance. He had a great time as route support for both vans. And then the girls of van 1 with our asweome shirts. Yeah, we were looking good.

Then, while John was running up to Vail Pass and an elevation of about 10,800 feet (the highest for a Ragnar ever), and then Steve set off for a nine mile trek straight downhill that he ran in an hour, (a freaking hour!) we got food and then headed to wait at exchange 12 for van 2 to hand off to us again.

Next time we will talk about leg 2, the middle of the night legs.

 

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WIAW Ragnar Edition...

For my WIAW post this week I thought I would talk about what I ate in Colorado this weekend.

If you are going to be a part of a 188 mile relay with eleven friends there will be food involved.

We flew into Denver last Wednesday evening and were starving when we got there. We picked up our 12 passenger van that should have been a 15 passenger van and headed to Pinche Tacos for some food. After a little bit of a wait we sat down and ordered some tacos.

I ate one of my tacos too fast so I only got a picture of the second one.

Horrible picture but yummy taco.

For breakfast Thursday we had some English muffins that Patti made just for us. Can you say best teammate ever?

There is an English muffin in this picture, I was also drinking my green tea, Ro was having some coffee and we were having some fun with Flat Abby and Flat Cliff. (They will have their own post.)

We headed out to get in a shake out run and see if we could not die in the altitude, and we had to stop for food on the way.

I had some French onion soup and Patti walked next door to the Winery Tasting Room.

A interesting woman came in to buy a bottle of wine and when she left she did this...

Very entertaining. We headed to Dillon to run and met up with the Cali/Utah members of our team at Dam Brewery. There were lots of appetizers, some beer and a really big plate of nachos, none of which I have pictures of. (I am a horrible food blogger.)

Afterwards we headed to Target to stock up on food for the van. If you take six runners to the grocery store to stock up on food for a 200 mile, 24+ hour relay, you will end up with something that looks like this...

My favorite part? The big bear full of animal crackers, dipped in Nutella was amazing. We also had candy corn mixed with peanuts, that was interesting. We were thinking that they should have been honey roasted peanuts but the dry roasted were good.

On Friday we made it to Copper Mountain and handed off to van 2. We were starving so we decided to get some food at C.B. Grille. Patti nd I shared some cheese ravioli, and I had some green tea. It was so cute.

The rest of the time in the van included lots of snacks from the shopping cart above, when we finally reached Snowmass we were starving again. We headed to Sneaky's Tavern for some post run fuel. Plus we were waiting on van 2 to make it to the finish line.

There seemed to be a limited number of vegetarian options on the menu but they had hummus and it was awesome.

In case you were wondering, I didn't share this plate of goodness with anyone. Everyone else was having burgers, so they weren't sharing with me either. The veggies were so good, I'm not sure if I was just starving after spending the previous 24+ hours in the van, but this was the best hummus I have ever eaten.

When we finally got back to where we were staying we had some spaghetti, and there was a little Starbucks on the way to the airport and an Einstein Brother's pumpkin bagel with cream cheese on the plane.

What a great weekend of eats and running.

 

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Ragnar Colorado 2012...

This is the first of multiple posts to recap this weekend. I thought I'd start with the actual miles and then go from there.

I was Runner #4, here are the stats from my three legs.

Leg 1--6.57 1:03:44

Leg 2--5.88 51:23

Leg 3--2.1 16:47

Total miles:14.55

Total time: 2:11:54

Total pace: 9:03

In all I am really happy how the race went, considering the altitude and the mountains I think it was fabulous.

Our team finished 28th out of 164 teams, in our division we were 13 out of 97 with a total time of 27:29:10. That's an average pace for more than a day of running as 8:46.

This picture was taken on Thursday afternoon when we meet the California and Utah portion of team Starbucks All-Stars/OK Runner. The back is Monica, John, Tiffany, Patti, Steve and Bob. Middle is Rochelle, Robyn, me and Jerry. In the front is Scotty, Lance and Craig.

I can't say enough about this weekend was and how great this team was. More recaps to come I just have to get over my Ragnar hangover.

 

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Brookhaven 5k...

This was my fourth year running the Brookhaven 5k, you can see last year's recap here. Not sure what happened to the pictures in that post.

Anyway, today is September first and it was time for my first race since Cowtown. I was a little bummed yesterday when I was thinking that I was gonna have to run it solo, turned out that Ro and Laura were there with me. It was funny, Josh had been thinking he was gonna come if I didn't have anyone to run with. He and the girls used to come watch me run 5k's.

Ro and I got there early and became those runners that we've always made fun of. We ran two easy miles before the race, it was a nice 9:45 pace and I was a little worried about how it was gonna go.

It was hot out, and our usual photographer was out of town. We ran into Jeanne and had her take a pre-race picture for us.

I already looked like a hot sweaty mess.

So we visited with some fellow runners (I love Brookhaven for that) and lined up at the start. I ran this race a lot smarter than last year, my splits were a lot more even. My miles were 7:45, 7:48 and 7:54.

My official chip time was 24:36, which is almost the same as last year. I was 6th out of 47 in my age group and 58 out of 399 women overall. Not a bad start to September.

I came home and iced my feet.

And had some leftover pizza.

Now, I'm hoping to get a brick workout in this weekend and get packed to leave for Colorado on Wednesday.

 

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August Foodie Pen Pals...

This month my Foodie Pen Pal, Amanda, sent me a box from Houston. I know I say this every month but I just love when my box shows up.

I just love the cupcake tissue paper I found inside.

I should seriously work on my photography skills.

Inside was a nice note explaining all the goodies she sent me.

And the goodies:

• I just love jellies and jams, not just the old Welch's grape jelly I grew up eating. Makes me want to make some toast.
• Granola, perfect to mic with Greek yogurt and bananas or kiwi.
• Quinoa, I discovered this not too long ago. I just love the texture and taste. Better than just having rice.
• Dark chocolate, oh how I love all kinds of chocolate. This one was wonderful. Carson and Camy and I cracked this open as soon as we saw it.

I love getting a box full of Someone else's favorites. It's funny that Amanda spent her freshman year in collage at Oklahoma State University. As a die hard Sooner fan, I must say I don't blame her for leaving after a year. :-)

 

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How About a WIAW Post...

I have been completely slacking on these WIAW posts. That and going to the gym, but who needs cross training?

After the killer hill repeats we did Tuesday I certainly wanted to eat everything in sight. What is it about hills that make me so hungry? And what would possess grown women to run up and down a hill at the crack of dawn? At least this week three of us had headlamps on to light the way.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to talk to someone wearing a headlamp? Or to talk to someone when you are wearing a headlamp? You are either going to blind someone or be blinded, it's a no win situation.

Anyway, my WIAW post is just gonna be my, what did I eat that I took pictures of with my phone that I can post on my blog on a Wednesday.

Here we go...

On Sunday, the one that happened ten days ago, I meet some of my favorite girls for a wine tasting at Blu. They do this once a month and we are so planning to go back next month. We got to sample six different wines and had some appetizers. I did not get any pictures of this yummy food, I was too busy eating it, but I did get a picture of our wine glasses.

 

Oh wait, there are plates of food in there.

Here's a description of one appatizer we had...

maytag blu cheese potato chips - 8
chips, cheese, cilantro

There was also hummus, cheese, apple slices, it was all yummy.

How about overnight oats? I had heard mention of these on many a food blog lately and decided to to do a Google search to find out what the heck it was. I found a recipe here and gave it a try.

I used oats, almond milk, chia seeds, and Greek yogurt with honey. I have to be honest, I have never been an oatmeal eater. Sure I make homemade granola, and my double chocolate chip cookies with flaxseed have oatmeal in them. But when it comes to not cereal I'm a cream of wheat girl (I did Google overnight cream of wheat and came up with nothin'.)

I made these twice, the second time I ground up the oats in the food processor, something I do when I put oats in my cookies, and I kinda liked it better that way.

To sum up, I am not sold on the overnight oats, but I'll try it again.

Finally, Josh was out of town last week and I wanted chickpea tacos, but I was too lazy to make them. Luckily I had this in my pantry...

I have been a fan of Rick Batless since I saw him on Top Chef Masters, and I lobe his products I can buy at the grocery store. So I grabbed a can of chickpeas, rinsed them and heated them up with this sauce, add some refrained black beans, a little shredded cheddar and tomato and I had this for dinner three times last week.

Not the most exciting eats, but all very yummy.

 

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New Shoes, a Long Run, Softball and a Snake...

For the last few weeks my knees have been bothering me when I've been running. For me that means its time for some new shoes.

I have run through four pairs of the Brooks Adrenalines, but after consulting with an expert at OK Runner, I went with a new pair of the Brooks Ravenna 3's.

They are super cute too.

I laced them up yesterday morning and headed out for a long run. It was brutal. It was about 78 degrees out, which wasn't bad by itself, the 89% humidity was a killer though. There was multiple times during the run that I considered heading back early, but my need to not miss out on the fun forced me to stick with it. We got 9.5 miles total (Ro got 10, but that's because she is super awesome) and I haven't been that happy to be done wi a run in a long time.

Maybe the fact that I spent four hours at the ballpark watching Camy play softball Friday night had something to do with it. Pb&j with chips probably isn't the best pre long run meal. But Carson and I had fun spectating.

The weather was wonderful all evening, and we got to see Camy play centerfield for the first time.

After my long run I headed home and got ready to head back to the ballpark for a day full of games. In the second game Camy got to bat.

She was walked but ended up on third base, they called the game for time before she had a chance to run home. In the third game she got to bat again and after getting hit in the head by the catcher, I guess it's hard to throw when you have a left handed batter, she got a real hit and even had a RBI and got all the way to third again. The inning was over before she got to run home.

It was a very long day, but Camy had lots of fun.

This morning we had a little excitement here. Penny was up barking pretty early for some unknown reason. Turns out we think she was barking at a snake, we found it in our bedroom a little while later.

Now I'm off to continue my nice lazy Sunday.

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