At the mall waiting for the results of a costume contest - for my little Medieval Queen!

It's Almost November Already????

With my girls on my birthday!

Hard to believe that my last post was on my birthday back in September. Now here it is, just 1 week away from November. Where does the time go and and how is everyone doing out there????

I guess I will start from today and count backwards on what has been going on.

Running Bandit, Race for the Cure, and Running with Maddy

What a day it was today. After several days of low sleep (due to crazy kid schedules) and just recovering from illness over the past week, I wasn't sure how I would do meeting Maddy at 6 am to run Race for the Cure and then additional mileage to make a total of 16 miles. But I figured I would prepare for the run and see what happens.

It was a nice cool morning when Maddy pulled into my driveway at precisely 6 am. I was feeling okay for a run. Seems Maddy's schedule has been about as crazy as mine lately - and her training hasn't been as good as she likes, so she, too, was not sure about 16 miles. We headed over to UCF, got a good parking spot and headed over to the packet pick up area. It opened at 6:30 am and we were there just as they opened. There weren't many folks around yet, but the area was well organized - and ready for a really big crowd. The T-shirt table indicated that they only had shirts for the first 8000 people who picked up their registration. 8000???? Wow, what a big crowd was coming. We were glad we got there early.

Since the race didn't start until 7:45, we decided to make the 2.5 mile loop around UCF's campus as a warm up. It was a cool morning, almost chilly, and felt great for running. We did our 2.5 mile lap and by the time we were back near the packet pickup area, there was a huge crowd there. Now we were really glad we got there early.

Running bandit: The reason I was running "bandit" was I thought I could register for the race on race morning, but it turns out for the chip timed event, you had to pre-register by Wed. I could have registered for the "fun" run and not be timed, but I figured I would either run bandit with Maddy (who I sponsored for $25 so I had really contributed to the event) or watch Maddy run and then run with her afterwards. We decided to go bandit!

We didn't race it - we ran it pretty easy - and really enjoyed the race - chatting the entire way. We ran across the finish line together with our arms up in the air!

We then grabbed a snack and then headed out for the rest of our run. We had 6 miles down already, only 10 more miles to go. We took a nice slow long run pace and started running through the Central Florida Research Park. It was then (about 2-3 miles in) that we didn't think we had 16 miles in us - but 12 seemed ok, so we decided to do a tour of the Research Park where I showed Maddy everywhere I worked (I guess I have worked in 6 different buildings) and gave her the boring tour of the Modeling and Simulation industry there.

After running through Research Park we headed back around campus. By the time we got there we decided to start walking and walked the last 2 miles. Still our overall pace for the morning was under 13 min/mile. It was a enjoyable run! Thanks, Maddy.

Running the Mt Vernon Trail in Crystal City - Arlington, VA

Earlier this week (Mon - Wed) I was on a business trip to Crystal City, just across the water from Washington, DC. While there, I had a late afternoon with enough time to fit in a run. I was still recovering from my chest cold sinus thing so I wanted to take it easy. In fact, I left the Garmin home and only brought my running watch. I checked with the hotel desk for places to run and they told me how to get to the Mt. Vernon Trail, which was less than half a mile from the hotel. I headed for the trail and ran north around the airport, past Gravelly Point and just beyond the Navy and Marine Memorial before turning around to head back. After about 6 min I found a mile marker on the trail, and ran 2 miles before heading back - so I estimate my distance to be about 5.1 miles - in 56:42. Not too bad! The temperature was perfect as well - low 60s.

UCF 5 Miler and 2 Mile Races - the Distance Dare!
Last Sunday, I ran the UCF 5 miler (which I run every year) only this year
they created a "Distance Dare" where you run the 5 miler AND the 2 mile race which follows. I wasn't feeling that great, and was regretting signing up for the race - but I went with my husband and decided to take it nice and easy. The 5 miler went well and I ran it in 56:58. The 2 miler was timed but only clock time was recorded - I finished in 22:05. I had planned to run to the race, then run home - but since I wasn't feeling very well, my husband and I drove to the race (it's about 3 miles from my house).

Life in General....

School is going well...but homework ties me up for 10-20 hrs a week. My older daughter's marching season is in full swing. We were in Tarpon Springs for a marching competition yesterday and got home after midnight. She has two more the next two Saturdays. Jamie has soccer every Saturday and this week we were up at 6:30 am to get ready and get to the field by 8 am! Busy times! But I would not trade it for the world.

So that is the latest from Marathon Chris' world. I hope to catch up with everyone else's blogs this week. This week at work should be slowing down a bit so I may even have some time between homework assignments! Run strong everyone! Congrats to everyone who ran the Marine Corps Marathon today. Fond memories! Also a big congrats to Shirley who completed her first Ironman race in 15:01!