Jacksonville Bank Half Marathon December 28, 2014 2:17:04 Temp: high 50s/low 60s with clouds and then fog What I wore: hat, short sleeve shirt, Skirt Sports Happy Girl skirt, PROCompression socks,  and my Altra Intuitions I went into this race with very low expectations. I had only done 4 double digit runs since JUNE! and 3 of those were other races. I had thought I'd get my training act together in November and December, but I struggled with a weird soreness across the top of my toes and ended up taking lots of non-running days. Despite a slightly chilly start, the weather was predicted to warm up quickly, so I made the decision to run a bit faster than my recent races and training indicated I could do for 13.1. I wanted to … [Read more...]

Madison Mini Marathon August 16, 2014 2:27:11 Temp: mid 60ss and crazy humid (something close to 90%) What I wore: hat, short sleeve shirt, Skirt Sports Happy Girl skirt, PROCompression socks, and my trusty Altra Intuitions (my very first pair, which I have now retired from racing) Friday Evening Kim arrived in Wisconsin and my dad and I picked her up at the airport (after a slight detour to Ale Asylum since her flight was delayed). We immediately headed to South Union to pick up our packets.  Pick up went smoothly and we just happened to run into Jess from Run with Jess and her family.  After some time chatting, we headed back to my parents' house and an early bedtime. Race Morning I had my usual pre-race … [Read more...]

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 … [Read more...]

A little over a year ago, I decided I wanted to move up a level in Half Fanatics.  Much like when I randomly announced I wanted to run a marathon, not a lot of thought went into the decision.  Apparently, I'm much more of a jump first, figure it out later kind of girl than I realized.  Surprisingly, Beer Geek was totally on board with my idea.  (I think he just really wanted me to do another 5 half marathons in 5 days and didn't realize what he was getting in to.) I knew I'd kick off the fun with RNR USA.  I hadn't run it in a few years and knew that it was exactly 78 days from ZOOMA Annapolis.  Boom!  Start and finish settled. Since we'd already established that I would spend spring break running the Riverboat Series, that was … [Read more...]

I don't even know where to begin. This past weekend was just AWESOME. So.much.amazingness.  In fact, it was so awesome that I'm doing a weekend recap and a race recap.  Yes, it was that good. After a 3:30am wakeup to get Jones and Beer Geek off on an orchestra field trip and then a morning spent with Shoo and his class at the monuments on the Mall, I finally hit the road to Annapolis. Because I had to leave so late, traffic was not awesome and it took me almost twice as long as normal, but I got there. I quickly checked into the Loew's where I got the coolest room key ever. Yes, I kept my key as a souvenir! I popped into the expo and couldn't resist buying myself a souvenir! I also ran into a few of the ZOOMA ambassadors, so got to … [Read more...]