2014 Run Galesburg Run – 5K – 27:26

Race takeaway: Running with a stroller is hard work! 

Sunday Rob and Drew ran the Run Galesburg Run Half Marathon and Chase and I ran the 5K. This would be my first time pushing Chase in her stroller in a race. All of our past races with Chase Rob has done the pushing. It was a very warm morning, 70 degrees and sunny, and it was only 7am.

Logistically this is an easy race to get to. The start/finish is the same location and we can part in the lot right next to everything.

I forgot to pull Chase’s sunshade up for the picture. At least it provides good coverage!

Since it’s a smaller race, there are no start corrals and the half marathon and 5K start together. The 1 mile walk begins just a few minutes after that. Strollers were asked to line up in the back so we took our position at the end. Running with a stroller in any race is a challenge. You have to be very mindful to not to clip a runner with your wheels, especially when some runners don’t run a straight line and make sudden movements or go to a dead stop or walk without moving to the side. Also passing people requires taking the outside edge most of the time. Collectively this makes for a slower time because we easily get stuck in pockets of people that are going a different pace and it requires extra maneuvering. This race only half of the road was marked off for the race so it made for congestion in many spots. Regardless I’m just so happy this race allowed the 5K to have strollers.

I was interested in just getting a good workout and not running anyone over or tipping the stroller since this was my first time alone. I wasn’t used to running without full arm movement and it took a lot more upper body strength than I originally anticipated. Chase loved the run the entire way and just quietly took in the view. I kept good distance between me and other runners when I could and then just sped up anytime there was an open pocket of space. At then end it was a total success and we finished in 27:26. The volunteers even gave Chase her own medal. 🙂

Afterward we waited around and cheered Daddy in. He finished in 1:50:31. Drew ended up having to help a lady that went down on the course. He and another runner made sure she got water and medical attention. He finished in 2:27:17.

2014 Run Galesburg Run Finisher’s Medal (it was the same for all the race distances)

Stats:

27:26

8:50 Pace

Overall: 95/?

F: 35/260

F 30-39: 8/67

Previous Race:

2012 Run Galesburg Half Marathon Express – 1:51:03

Chase 11 Months Old – Our Little Book-worm

Chase is 11 months old, which is so hard to believe! She’s got four teeth now and a couple more ready to pop through any day now!

Chase’s 11 Month Photos

Springtime School Pictures at Daycare – 10 months old here

Getting Chase to sit with the chalk board is proving more difficult every month. I plan to stop here at her one year birthday with making them so we are in the home stretch!

OMG I love that smile! And the laugh she makes just makes my heart jump. 🙂

Baby Milestones

She’s such a happy baby all of the time. It’s been fun to take her out to different restaurants and go for walks. She really enjoys her surroundings and pointing at everything. A bonus has been that she has really good table manners. She feeds herself carefully and only starts to “race car” drive her food around when she’s close to finished. She will sign “all done”, which confirms she’s finished her meal. Chase hasn’t been a fan of her sippy cup until recently. We’ve been offering it with water and she’s shown little interest. Until one day she grabbed it and just started chugging away. Now she’s a sippy cup pro. We haven’t yet started putting her formula in it and will be working on that next. Plus we will start introducing whole milk soon too. Lots of big changes to come there!

She’s walking while holding on to the side of things like a table or chair. She won’t take our hands to walk just yet, but she will stand with no hands and look like she wants to take a step and then plops down on her bottom instead. 🙂

She’s become such a book-worm! Chase will pick up a book and crawl to hand it to us and then curl up in our lap to have it read to her. We’ve been buying books like crazy because she can’t get enough. It’s been so fun that story time is something we do now multiple times a day. 🙂

Chase is also loving dancing to music. It’s the sweetest thing to see her sitting rocking to music or standing up and bebopping up and down.

Every month just gets more and more fun with her!

2014 Peoria Half Marathon – 2:02:07

Saturday Drew and I ran the Peoria Half Marathon (there was a full marathon and 5K option as well). Rob stayed home to watch Chase since it was too cold early in the morning to come out and spectate. I was up at 4:30 and out the door just before 5:30am to head to Peoria, IL.

Heading out:

I’m terrible at navigating Peoria. For some reason I can never figure the way the roads are laid out and I get turned around. Luckily Drew was able to navigate me to the parking lot once I was over there. We got our stuff together and walked 5 blocks to the start area. Logistically this was an easy race to navigate, especially since was so close to our where we live. I barely looked at the course map and just trusted we would be directed where we would need to get to, which the course seemed well marked. It would be a good race for people to spectate because the course passed through downtown Peoria area a couple of times. This was the second year for this event, so it’s still on the smaller side for attendance. There was no corral system, but wasn’t necessary. There were pacers for only the full marathon, but they were still a good gauge for half marathoners for approximately 9 miles.

The race started on time at 7:00am and we were off. The first mile was basically a straight shot out with just a turn to the right as we came to the first mile marker. I found it interesting that my Garmin went off early and then no matter how I cut the tangents I was hitting the mile markers early on my watch. I never expect to be spot on, that’s unrealistic, but was just curious how it would end up.

I had good energy for this run and was feeling well the whole time. A big improvement from my last half marathon. Peoria is notoriously hilly, but this course did a good job of keeping the hills to a minimum. Drew passed me on the big hill at mile 7. I then caught back up to him about mile 8.5 and we chatted. I moved ahead feeling great thinking I could pick up the pace. By mile 10 my un-trained body reminded me that I’m not ready to go faster. My left IT band tightened up and I had to slow my pace to complete the race. Drew passed me and I told him I would be okay and that I would see him at the finish. Drew came in at 2:00:18 and I finished 2:02:07. Bonus – I didn’t fall down or walk the race at all, that’s progress! 🙂

Regarding my Garmin being off, I came across at 13.3 miles and so did Drew and others. 13.3 on the nose. I’m used to being off + or – .05ish, but .2 is quite a bit and it’s interesting that others were showing the same thing. It would be disappointing if the course was long (or short), especially if you were running the full marathon. Hard to say what happened there.

A couple items that I didn’t care for at the race were the water cups were plastic, which are very hard to manage when running to get a drink. A paper cup allows you to pinch the cup into a spout to drink will running. Trying to do this with the plastic cups resulted in the cup fully splitting and then not getting any water. Also, the finish only had oranges and bananas. There were no pretzels, bread, or any type of carbs. Not having more than an orange made me feel sick. I would have been in trouble if I were running a full marathon and fruit was the only post race recovery fuel. Finally, there didn’t appear to be much medical staff at the start/finish or throughout the course. That can be a very dangerous situation, so I hope that it is improved in coming years.

The finisher’s medal.

Stats:

2:02:07

9:20 Pace

Overall: 216/505

F: 75/269

F35-39: 10/38

Running for Charity – St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital

Many of the races I’ve run benefit local and national charities. It’s wonderful thing that running races becuase it provides people a fun way to stay fit, hang out with friends, and a charity can also benefit. Something I haven’t directly done before is actually ran a race for a charity by fundraising specifically for a charity. I’m excited to finally do that for the upcoming Rock and Roll Chicago Half Marathon on July 20th to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

St. Jude has always held a special place in my heart. When I attended Illinois State University they were my sorority’s (Epsilon Sigma Alpha) main charity. We completed fundraising throughout the year and had the opportunity to take a check to the headquarters in Memphis, TN and visit the facilities.

Me and my sorority sisters (circa 1997) at the headquarters in Memphis, TN.

While we had time for some fun photos, it was a very serious trip to get to visit with children, families, doctors, and the support teams. It’s one of those significant moments in life to witness such brave children and their families battling cancer and diseases. It was apparent that in those moments the world stops and everything focuses in on the love for your child. Now being a mom, it hits home a million times more, what that would feel like.

It was an easy decision to focus a race and support such a wonderful cause that helps families get through such a trying time and support these kids getting the best of technology and research as a part of their treatments and hopefully a cure. Some important information about St. Jude’s:

• Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.
• Because the majority of St. Jude funding comes from people like you, St. Jude has the freedom to focus on what matters most – saving kids regardless of their financial situation. (That means your donation, no matter what the size, will help!)
• St. Jude is working to drive the overall survival rate for childhood cancer to 90% by 2020.

So I ask for your support either donations and/or prayers for the children going through treatment with St. Jude’s. I appreciate you taking the time to read this post and consider supporting this charity.

My fundraising page

My training is no where like it used to be, but I still want to share what I’m doing in preparation for this race periodically to share my progress.

Here’s what I’ve done thus far for training:

Week 1: 17.1 Miles

• 4/1: 2 Miles Easy, 16:25, 8:13 Pace, Treadmill, 1% Incline
• 4/4: 2 Miles Easy, 16:53, 8:27 Pace, Treadmill, 1% Incline
• 4/5: 13.1 Miles Race, Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon, 2:07:07, 9:43 Pace, Springfield, IL

Week 2: 8.21 Miles

• 4/11: 3 Miles Easy, 25:18, 8:26 Pace, Treadmill, 1% Incline
• 4/12: 2.2 Miles Easy, 20:54, 9:25 Pace, ‘Hood
• 4/13: 3.01 Miles Easy, 26:59, 8:58 Pace, Const Trail

Week 3: Bike – 6.1 Miles, Run – 8 Miles

• 4/15: 6.1 Miles Bike Easy, 30:09, 12.14mph
• 4/16: 3 Miles Easy, 25:42, 8:34 Pace, Treadmill, 1% Incline
• 4/18: 1 Mile Easy, 8:31, Const Trail
• 4/20: 4 Miles Easy, 38:07, 9:32 Pace, Const Trail

Week 4: 18.2 Miles

• 4/24: 2 Miles Easy, 17:05, 8:33 Pace, Treadmill, 1% Incline
• 4/25: 3.1 Miles Race, IL Marathon’s 5K, 36:20, 11:44, Champaign, IL
• 4/26: 13.1 Miles Race, IL Half Marathon, 2:12:54, 10:09 Pace, Champaign, IL

Week 5: 8.48 Miles

• 4/30: 1 Mile Easy, 8:40, Treadmill, 1% Incline
• 5/2: 2 Miles Easy, 17:39, 8:50 Pace, Treadmill, 1% Incline
• 5/3: 1.48 Miles Easy, 15:31, 10:30 Pace, Lake Bloomington, IL
• 5/4: 4 Miles Easy, 37:52, 9:27 Pace, ‘Hood

Week 6: 0 Miles – Chase was sick and then I was sick 😦

Week 7: In Progress….more to come

And I thought I would add a look back at the past times that I have run RNR Chicago Half Marathon. Here are the links to those races.

2009 – 1:55:44

2010 – 1:36:16

2011 – 1:39:54

2012 – 1:54:07

Thanks again for your support!! I’ll post about my training as it goes along!

Rob Runs 2014 Lake Run Half Marathon

Race Support Takeaway: Chase had a great time clapping for all of the runners.

Saturday Rob ran the 2014 Lake Run Half Marathon. This race has a 7K and 12K option, known as the inner and outer loop around Lake Bloomington. This year was the first time that they added the half marathon distance, which ran both the inner and outer loop, plus a little extra.

Rob and I have decided that for awhile we will take turns running half marathons. So this time he would be running and Chase and I would be the pit crew.

So to cheer Rob on Chase and I made a sign for him.

We arrive about an hour ahead of time, which left us more than enough time to visit with friends until the start. The 12K and half marathon start was 8:30 and the 7K was at 9:00.

Us before the race.

After the start, I was able to get in 1.48 miles running with the stroller, feed Chase, and then we went to watch runners come into the finish. Chase clapped for the first time at this race and was really enjoying cheering on the runners. 😀 We met up with our friend Carissa and her son Joey and we walked to around the 12 mile mark and got to see Rob as he was on his way to the finish.

Rob hasn’t been training so he ran this just to get out for a run and was able to finish in 1:52. After getting his finish medal, fed Chase a bottle, and then we headed home to enjoy the weekend and get chores around the house completed. We are so proud of Daddy for getting out there and running. I hope we get to keep up with our training and also get more time to run as a family now that the weather is nice! 🙂