Blog Spotlight: Vegas Mother Runner

If you follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, you know I arrived home yesterday evening from Ireland. It was an absolutely amazing two weeks, but the flight home was rough (sat on the plane for 2.5 hours before takeoff due to a maintenance issue).  I’m totally jetlagged (yes, I did wake up at 4am), I have to do a ton of laundry (Irish dryers leave a lot to be desired, so I only washed what I absolutely had to), and we have zero food in the house.  So, today, I’m spotlighting another half crazy mom!  Don’t worry, soon I’ll be filling you feed with a ton of posts about our trip and the half marathon (#14 for 2014!) that I ran while I was there.

(I expect to run this feature twice a month.  If you’d like to be featured, shoot me an email at mcmmamaruns at gmail.com.)

Today’s featured blogger is Julie from Vegas Mother Runner. Julie has just begun her journey into half marathon addiction with 3 races under her belt and two in the near future.  I’m betting it won’t be long until we start hearing about more and more half marathons as the addiction takes her over to the dark side.

Welcome, Julie!

When was your first half marathon? What race?

My first half marathon was supposed to be the Las Vegas Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon last November, but halfway through my training, I had a bad accident and broke my arm and had to have surgery.  So, that had to be postponed.  A few months later, after I had recovered, I ran my first half marathon as a virtual race through Moms Run This Town. It was actually perfect for my first time running that distance.  I went to this beautiful park that I love and ran the loop around it about 7 or 8 times until I hit 13.1 miles.  My husband brought our kids to the park with signs they had made that said “Yeah Mommy!” and “Go Fast Mom!” and my 4 year old brought my medal and hung it around my neck.  It was the best finish ever and it was so nice being able to do it on my own terms and it really made me feel more confident for my first “real” half marathon race.

How many half marathons have you run total?

If you include my virtual half marathon, I have run 3 have marathons total, and am signed up for 2 more this year.

Which one was your favorite?

My favorite was the Wildland Half Marathon.  This was a trail half marathon held at Red Rock Canyon just northeast of Las Vegas.  Although very technical, the course was stunning, the race was put together really well and I felt good the whole time.  Oh, and winning first place overall female totally helped too!

How or when did you decide to run more half marathons?

After I ran my virtual half marathon, I didn’t immediately have any desire to jump into training for another one until a friend of my convinced me to run a trail marathon.  I wanted to try trail running, so it was a perfect way to get into it.  This was the Xterra Trail Half Marathon in Las Vegas, and it was hands down the most difficult race I’ve ever ran.  The first 3 miles were basically climbing mountains (I’m not even going to down play it and call them hills.  They were MOUNTAINS!).  It was also a 6 mile loop, so we had to do it twice.  It was HARD.  After I completed that, I felt like I could accomplish pretty much any half marathon course, so I signed up for more!
Tell us a bit about your goalsA few of my goals for this year are to run 1000 miles in 2014, run 14 races in 2014 and to sign up for a full marathon before the year is over.  I went back and forth forever on whether I wanted to run a full marathon yet and I finally decided that I’m going to try it (Eek!!!).  I have my eye on one specific full marathon that is probably on a lot of runner’s bucket lists that I am going to try to get in to (it sells out super fast), but I don’t want to jinx it so mums the word for now!  I will definitely be doing a post about it on my blog if I do or do not get in to it. If I don’t get into it, I’m going to find another marathon to sign up for.

Share your 3 favorite blog posts…
One of my favorite blog posts is a race recap from a race that our whole family participated in.  My husband ran the 5k, and I ran the 1 mile fun run along side my 4 year old daughter with my 2 year old in the jogging stroller.  It was so fun to race as a family!

Why the athletic community is so awesome.

My Howard Stern experience!

Julie’s Bio

Hi, I’m Julia, but you can call me Jules.  I’m a Las Vegan (not to be confused with a vegan).  I’ve been active my whole life, starting with competitive swimming at six years old.  After having my two daughters, I struggled to find time to be active and needed an outlet from all the craziness that life brings from being a working parent.  I found happiness in running and ran my first half marathon on February 17, 2014.  Since then I have been running various races and making some great friends along the way.  I love to run anywhere that is beautiful, especially on trails (and there are plenty of those here in Sin City).  I am a social runner and love meeting up with various running groups, but also enjoy solitary running early in the morning.  Most days you’ll find me up and running before 5am and in bed with my girls by 9pm, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I love living in Las Vegas and being a mom and wife.  My motto in life is “Work hard, play hard.”

Follow Julie at…
Facebook: Vegas Mother Runner
Twitter:  @vegasmotherrunn
Instagram: @vegasmotherrunner
Blog: Vegas Mother Runner