Race for the Cure...

So we were up at the crack of dawn on Saturday for what I think is my 10th Race for the Cure.  There seems to be more and more people each year.

I discovered the secret to a good race, if you are running, is starting as close to the front as possible.  We didn't have to run past any strollers, kids, or non-runners which made for a great race.  I finished in 26:19 (by my watch, 26:20 officially), which was my fastest 5k by almost a minute.  I was 10th in my age group out of 172 runners.

Here's some pics...

Josh, Camy, Carson and I after the team picture.  We look very happy for getting up at 5:30 am.

Camy and Carson with their Gammy.  She got up even earlier and drove down from Tulsa to race with us.

Camy, me, Jen, Karen, Paige, Hailey and Carson.  Hannah was not happy by this point and didn't care to be photographed with us.  Maybe she got up too early.

The crazy cousins!  Caeli, Paige, Camy, Carson and Hailey.

Judy, Dan and Caeli sporting some fabulous Sooner colors.

Finally, three sisters.  Me, Jen and Karen, this is our 10th race together.  Our first was back in 2001 and we all walked.  The second was in 2002 when Jen bet us she could run the whole thing, without training.  Karen and I bought breakfast that year.  And all the years since, with our team Sooner Girls for the Cure, and this year two work teams, we have had lots of great people participate with us.  Makes you wonder what will happen next year!

Race for the Cure...

So Saturday is the Race for the Cure in OKC.  I so love this event.  This is the first race that I have done religiously.  Jen and Karen and I did the first one with the three of us back in 2001, when my kiddos were little bitty.  (Carson is still little bitty, but she is 10 now.)

I can't remember if it was that year or in 2002 when we bet Jen breakfast that she couldn't run the whole thing.  She says she ran the whole thing, but we'll never know because Karen and I ran about 100 yards and we were done.  I believe we bought breakfast that day so what can you do, ask for a refund if she cheated?

We formed our team the Sooner Girls for the Cure the next year and have been participating with a bunch of friends an co-workers since then.  I was a little sad this year that I didn't get to register our team.  I organized a team at work and we chose to go with the company name instead of my team name.  Oh well, what can you do?  Especially when your work agrees to pay $30 of each registration for all employees that want to participate.

My work team has almost 50 people on it!  Not bad for our first year, I say first because I am hoping we will be able to do this again next year.

So Saturday morning, I'll put on my running shoes and my team shirt and head to the Bricktown Ballpark at the crack of dawn.  (Not really the crack of dawn for me, since I will actually be sleeping in compared to my usually 5 am wake up calls.)  My girls will get a bunch of free pink stuff and I'll run with some of my Y friends and we'll see how good we can do.  Maybe break 27 minutes?  We'll see.

As always, I'll carry the memories of my mom with me.

Chili Cook-Off

We had a chili cook-off at work today, to raise money for a co-worker who is 27 and was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  I'm not even going to start on how mad that makes me, and how with all the money that has been raised so far there is no cure and how my co-worker had her first baby earlier this year, and how she should not be going through all this.

I am instead going to talk about our cook-off.  We had a great turn out, and we raised a good chunk of change for Jill and her medical bills.  I, as usual, did not have my camera to take pictures but we did get a few.

From the top we have Sherri, Jeana, Candace and Cassie; Monica and Kerry; Jeanne with her first place prize tickets to the OU-Colorado football game; Roland, Stacey and Pat judging; pink ribbon cupcakes; Jeanne and Ginger with a few non-employees that stopped by; and pots of chili.

What a great way to spend lunch.

What's Baking?

So far this week, we've had Chocolate Thunder and Simply Strawberry cupcakes for the kiddos' Girl Scout Flag Ceremony yesterday, and I made some of the Boomer Sooner cupcakes last night.  Half are for a co-worker for her OU/TX watch party tomorrow, the other half will go with a new recipe for a yet-to-be-named cupcake.

The recipe came from The Swell Life, and they look pretty tasty.  I have an order for half Boomer Sooner (red velvet), and half with Texas colors.  I think these should work out well.  I'll do a little vanilla butter cream on top.

Then, I plan to attempt to make cupcake pops!  I am very excited about these and have been contemplating what type of cake I should use.  I might go with my chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  While I could never be as creative or arty as the Bakerella creations, I thought I'd try something simple and basic.  We'll see how they turn out.

Half Marathon Take Two...

I registered for my first half marathon, The Route 66 Marathon in Tulsa on November 21st.  This will be my second attempt to run my first half.

I have already run further than I did in my training before my knee decided that it had to stop in January, so I am feeling pretty good about it all.  I did get butterflies in my stomach when I clicked that "Register" button this morning.

So my Saturday or Sunday mornings between now and then will involve some long runs with some Y running friends.  I requested that they not tell me how far we are going to run before hand, ignorance is bliss for me in this situation I think.

Looks like the calluses on my feet won't be going away anytime soon.  My friends say they will take about three weeks off after the half and start training for the full at the Memorial Marathon next year, but that might just be a little too insane for me.

Tie Dye Tri

I participated in the Tie Dye Tri yesterday, put on by the Norman Y.  It was nice, this year was my second time and I wasn't nervous leading up to the event like last year.  I did wake up at about 2 a.m. yesterday morning and fell back asleep long enough to dream that I couldn't find the pool for the race.

When I went to get checked in, for some reason there were more people with last names starting with A-F than any other group so it took a while for me to get checked in.  Oh yeah, and it was cold outside yesterday morning.  Cold and windy.  If they had had the event on Saturday instead of Sunday the conditions would have been perfect, but wait one day and you get cold and windy.  This is Oklahoma.

I was number 39 to start this year, and I think I passed about three people in the pool.  There was one girl at the very end that I was trying to pass, I ended up hitting her once, on accident and we finished in the pool at about the same time.  The run to the transition area was cold, as I said before.  I did feel more comfortable on my bike this year, but the route was much more difficult this year.  We had to ride north into the wind twice and that felt like it slowed me down a bunch.  My legs felt like jello at the start of the run and eventually got warmed up, but it's hard to run by myself.

Overall, I am pretty proud of how I did.  I finished in 1:31:51, which was a couple minutes slower than last year, but I had a few personal victories along the way.  My swim/bike/run times were all a bit slower than last year, but my transitions were both faster.  Of course the one thing I didn't practice was faster, go figure.  I still passed some people in the pool, I didn't feel like I got passed by as many people on the bike, and I even got to pass one person, and I still passed a few people on the run.  I even passed the guy that started one spot ahead of me in the pool.  I passed him in the pool, he passed me on the bike and I got to pass him on the run, so that was nice.

I just need to get better on the bike.  Not sure how to do that, but I'll figure it out.

Let the Running Begin...

So, even though I haven't officially registered yet, I have officially started training for the Tulsa half marathon.  The big day is Sunday, November 21st and I have 62 days to feel nervous and get ready for it.  I can feel the butterflies already! 

My first training run was Saturday morning with Jerry, Choon and Laura.  It was my longest run to date at eight miles.  I did run a 10k during the Corporate Challenge in June, but it was about a million degrees outside that Sunday morning the beginning of June, and it was about as humid as it can be and not be raining, and the sun was blazing outside.  Oh yeah, and there were no water stops.  Really?  The event was put on by OU Medicine and they failed to provide hydration for the competitors.  Makes perfect sense to me.  Needless to say, it was a slightly horrible run and I finished in about 65 minutes.

I set out to run eight miles on Saturday and honestly, it was not bad.  I felt much better than I thought I would.  The thing I like about running with these people is that if one person stops then we would all stop, and believe me, I don't want to be the reason we are stopping.  I have been running about 4 miles regularly lately and I was surprised that when we stopped for water at the 4 mile mark I was still ready to go another 4.  I am convinced there must be something wrong with me!

The Tie Dye Tri is this Sunday, and I can honestly say that I was trying to figure out how I could still go run another eight on Saturday and be up for the race on Sunday.  I don't think that's going to happen though.  So I'll sleep in on Saturday and be ready to race on Sunday, and then I'll be back on track.  Okay, I'll have to miss for the Race for the Cure, and I still want to do the Fall Classic Duathlon again.  So many races so little time!