Another Corporate Challenge...

This weekend was the 25th annual OU Medicine Corporate Challenge.

We were participating for the fourth time this year, and it was a tough year. We won our division last year, but this year I doubt we did a very good job of defending our title.

The weekend just started off all wrong. Friday afternoon most of the Oklahoma City metro closed down at about 4 pm because of the severe weather that had been predicted. The Friday night events for the Corporate Challenge were cancelled. I headed home a little after 3 pm, and found out a little while later that Camy's softball game was cancelled.

A little later, there was a little of this.

Zoey, Carson, Zach and Camy

Sid and Mimi (my sister's mother-in-law and her mom) were on their way to Edmond with my niece and nephew Zoey and Zach for a BBQ that we had planned on going to after the softball game. By the time they made it to Norman it was too late, the tornado that started on the west side of OKC in El Reno made conditions too dangerous for them to drive to Edmond. They originally stopped at The Riverwind Casino and we got ahold of them and offered our house and the empty space in our storm shelter.

They headed over and we had some pizza, some time in the storm shelter, and not long after no electricity. It's always fun to have unexpected guests, just wish we had been able to offer them some air conditioning and the ability to open and close the fridge whenever we wanted.

The power finally came back on a little after 7 Saturday morning. I ended up missing the women's mile that I had plans to walk at 8 o'clock Saturday morning. I did get up in time to see the 55 meter dash.

Kim, Jarred, Matt, Leighanne and Dennis

Afterwards, I headed home and Josh and the girls went back up in time for volleyball. I thought I was going to have to play, but we decided to go with the six players that did show up.

Jacob, Casey, Jeana, Louis, Chanda and Jarred

I did do the one mile walk this morning that Camy and Carson were walking as part of the Kid's 10K. We watched the tug-of-war this afternoon, and then this happened.

I traded shoes with Camy and made a couple of changes to our dodgeball team. Yes, that is one orange and one lime green sock. I honestly don't ever remember playing dodgeball as a kid, so I studied up on the rules. Seriously, there are alot of rules for dodgeball.

Let me say that we won our division in dodgeball last year. Since I was playing I am not at all surprised at today's outcome. The rules had changed a bit from last year, so it was the best of three games, and each game was 1 minute. It was also single elimination, so you had one shot to move on. While I survived our first game, we lost two in a row and were done.

Stephen, me, Casey, Tiffany, Jennifer and Jarred

No shame here. I think we got an unlucky draw, the team we played was pretty tough. On the bright side we did make it home by 5:30. Even though I wasn't out there the wholetime for three days, driving back and forth and the time we did spend out there was pretty tiring.

It is not easy participating in an event like this and not being able to run. I am glad that I don't have any scheduled events for the forseeable future. With a little over a week of no running to go, and I plan on getting some crosstraining and yoga in this week. It's either that or I am going to have to repeat "step away from the rice krispy treats" to myself over and over again.

 

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OU Medicine Corporate Challenge 2012...

This was the third year the company I work for participated in the Corporate Challenge.  I love this event, it's pretty time consuming organizing everything, but it so worth it.

I was a little disappointed this year because I still had not been cleared to run, I had been looking forward to besting how I did last year.  I was set to go back to the doctor on June 5th and the Corporate Challenge was June 1-3.  So I got to do things other than run.  {I am not gonna lie, this completely sucked.  But, what can you do?}

My first event was Saturday morning.  It was the 50 yard women's freestyle sprint.  Two years ago I finished 3rd in our division, this year I finished 1st.  We didn't have a second girl willing to be a part of the co-ed relay, so I got to drive to Edmond, warm up and swim a 50 yard sprint and then head back to OKC.  It was pretty fun.  I didn't realize the locker room at the UCO field house would be severely lacking in adequate shower space.  Oh well, I was going to be hanging out at the track the rest of the day, so who needs a shower?

My second event Saturday night was the co-ed obstacle course.  Man was it hard.  You had to run through some tires, across a balance beam, jump a hurdle, kick a soccer ball around some cones, and then jump rope five times in a row without stopping.  I fell off the balance beam so I had to go back, I was painfully slow with the soccer ball, and then I could not jump rope five times in a row to save my life.  I have resolved that if I am going to be a part of the obstacle course next year that I need to practice.  It was fun though.

Sunday morning the girls and I did the one mile walkabout.  I was bummed to not be running the 10k again this year, but there is always next year.  I did sign up for the 5k bike sprint.  I have never done a bike sprint.  When Kendra and I did the Norman Conquest last year it was very laid back and just out for fun.  In the sprint triathlons and duathlons I have done the bike has already been fast {or me trying to be fast}, but not an all out sprint.  This 5k was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  It's a time trial start, which is nice, everyone starts 15 seconds apart and when you get up there they hold your bike so you can get clipped in and then they let you go.  It was a bit terrifying to have someone hold your bike and be clipped in and just thinking that when they let go you have to get moving before you fall over.

My goal was to finish under 12 minutes. I checked out the times from last year and I thought that might make me competitive.  I figured I can work as hard as I possibly can for 12 minutes, right?  That's half as long as running a 5k, so I just put it all out there.  I pedaled as hard and as fast as I could and I finished in 10:05.  Way better than I had hoped, and I was worn out afterwards.  I managed to finish first in my division too, so that was good.

My last event was the women's relay.  The legs are like this 100M, 100M, 200M and 400M.  I figured I could run a 400M, I know I had not yet been cleared by my doctor but it's just one lap around the track.  I hadn't been cleared yet just to give me more time to build up my quad muscle in my injured leg and I was two days away from going back to the doctor.  We were second in our heat when it was my turn.  I tried to chase down the girl that was ahead of us and for the first 200M I thought I might be able to.  After that my quads sort of freaked out.  It was like they were saying "What the hell are we doing here?  What is this strange exercise we are doing?"  After that I ran out of some steam and we ended up second in our heat.  My quads were sore for about 5 days after that.  It sure felt good to be running around that track though.  I'm not gonna lie to you.

It was a weekend full of cheering and supporting my co-workers in their events.  The weekend wound up with the dodgeball competition on Sunday afternoon.  Each of the four divisions played and the winners had a round robin at the end to crown an overall dodgeball champ.  It took FOUR HOURS!  We won or division, which made me happy but that meant I ended up being there two more hours waiting to cheer our team on in the overall competition.  We ended up third in the overall, but it really was fun watching our team compete.

It was a fun but tiring weekend.  I can't wait to do it all again next year.

And Now the Depressing News...

I saw my ortho doc yesterday for what I thought would be my final visit. I've been boot/crutches free since Friday and my leg feels good. So while I am walking like a normal person I have still not been cleared to run for ANOTHER 4 WEEKS. My definition of eternity? I know you want to know this, is 12+ weeks of no running. I go back on June 5th.

So I thought I would sum up what I have missed...

Rock N Roll Dallas Half Marathon in March...


The OKC Memorial Marathon in April...


I'll be missing the Dirty 30 5k on Saturady...


And there will be no running at the Corporate Challenge the first week in June...

Luckily there are other things I can do here.  Swimming, cycling and maybe even an obstacle course.

Still, I won the 10K for our division last year and before my injury I was running way faster than I had been running in that race a year ago.  I was looking forward to what I could do there this year.








There is one race I am on the fence about.  It's the OCCC Super Sprint Tri on June 9th.  I go back to the doctor on June 5th and I should be good to go at that point.  Is it possible to train for a sprint tri when you are not able to run?  The run is only a 5k, so I just have to see if I'm willing to find out if it's possible.  Sounds scary, but I have done lots of things in the past that are scary.  Fear is good, right?  I need some motivation, otherwise I feel like I've been spinning my wheels for the last 8 and a half weeks and I still have another 4 weeks to go.


 
 
 
 
 
 

The Waiting is the Hardest Part...

I managed to survive the weekend.  The 2011 Corporate Challenge is done, all that there is left to do is to wait for the results.  Why do I have to participate in one of the three events that it seems to take days to get results for?  They have yet to post the 10k/5k/5k cycle results and I am dying to know how I did.

I ran the women's mile on Friday night, and did tons better than I ever expected.  I ran a 7:21 mile and finished 5th in my age group, first in my division, which is where the points are.  After we were delayed for about an hour for weather we finally got underway.  The weather was thunder and lightening that moved into north OKC, but it never actually rained.  After the first lap and a half my lungs were on fire.  I have never experience that on a run before.  I think if it had actually rained it would have gotten whatever was in the air out of the air, but since it didn't it all managed to end up in my lungs.  The rest of the night and part of Saturday I sounded like I had asthma and a dry hacking cough.  Not pretty.  But for first place, I'll take it.

Saturday was the 55 meter dash, what a joke.  I am not even going to post my time here.  I managed to squeak in third place because a girl in my heat fell right before the finish line and I managed to get across before she did.  I felt bad that she fell, but there were people falling all over in those heats.  Glad I just made it through without any more scrapes and bruises.

Sunday morning was the 10k, and I was determined to do better than I did last year's 1:05 time.  I was hoping for better weather, and I knew that there would for sure be water stops so I was ready to go.  I think I went out a little fast, I checked my Garmin at the one mile mark and it said 7:39, WAY too fast.  I backed off a little at that point.  In the next mile I saw my friend Patti pass me.  I aspire to be a runner like her, so I kept her in my sights the first lap.  I can say that I was so glad she wasn't running the 10k and that I could hang a little behind her for the first half of my race.  She told me after that she saw me and wanted to get in front of me.  Nothing like a little friendly competition.

The weather was much better than last year, but it was pretty windy on the very flat and very boring loop, that I had to run twice.  The water stops were much appreciated, although they were handing out bottles of water.  Not very convenient if you are just wanting a small drink.  I felt like handing mine back to the volunteers to have them put my name on it so I could get it the next time around.  I hate that I wasted three bottles of water in one 6 mile race, but I sure didn't want to carry it with me.

It was a good race.  I finished in 54 minutes, I haven't seen my official time since it's not posted yet, but I took about eleven minutes off my time from last year.  I guess better conditions, no knee brace and being in much better shape makes a big difference.

My last event was the 400 meter leg of the women's 800 meter relay.  It was not pretty.  We were in lane 4 for the men's and women's relays and we finished 4th in both.  Most of the weekend we were a fourth place team.  We did win volleyball, we beat the Thunder team twice which was nice.  The weekend wrapped up with exhibition dodgeball.  Very entertaining.  Who knew that there were so many rules for dodgeball!  Turns out we have a dodgeball star in our accounting department. 

No working out yesterday, a hi low cardio class this morning, piyo in the morning and out to Draper to get some miles on my bike tomorrow night.  Here's hoping I don't have a repeat of last week's fall.  Really, if you are turning to the left you probably shouldn't unclip your right foot.  On the plus side I have some pretty awesome bruises and the fall wasn't as far as I imagined it would be.