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Thinking Out Loud Thursday : Overscheduled

September 10, 2015 by MCM Mama 19 Comments

Thinking Out Loud Thursday : Overscheduled

How is it only Thursday? I feel like I've been through two weeks at least in the last two days since school started. I thought I was supposed to have free time once the kids went back to school?  Ha! Anyways, it's Thursday and I'm doing a bit of a mind dump AKA Thinking Out Loud with Running with Spoons. Last night was the first running of the Mad Fox Brewpub's Run Club. This has been an idea that we've been tossing around for quite a while since the wife of the owner is also a runner.  We had a nice turnout! I ran 3 miles with some lovely ladies, a few other people ran 5, and Beer Geek acted as sherpa and sweeper on his bike.  Of course, for me, the best part was the beer and conversation afterwards.  Mad Fox will be hosting the run … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Altra Running, hot, Mad Fox, Mainly Marathons

TOTR: Hot weather running + Timex GPS watch giveaway

June 9, 2015 by MCM Mama 72 Comments

TOTR: Hot weather running + Timex GPS watch giveaway

Baby, it's hot outside! OK, maybe I shouldn't complain because my Tuesdays on the Run partners in crime, April and Patty, live in Florida and Arizona. They know hot.  But since our topic for the week is hot weather running, I'm going to talk to you about my training plans and give you some tips on how to survive running in the heat. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: hot, summer, tips, training, Tuesdays on the Run

Strip marathoning and I chose to do this

April 29, 2015 by MCM Mama 12 Comments

Strip marathoning and I chose to do this

My brain is going about a million miles a minute right now. Too bad I can't run that fast LOL. So, I'm hooking up with Amanda at Running with Spoons again for Thinking Out Loud Thursday. 1. As I expected, the weather here has started to warm up. We are looking at starting temps around 50, going up to 70. The big question, of course, is how fast will it go up that high? I'm hoping not until at least noon since the races start at 6am. 2. The beauty of the Mainly Marathons races is that the course is a loop that you do multiple times (14 for marathoners on the courses I'm doing.) This means I can take off layers as necessary and change things up if needed. As Beer Geek said to another spectator at one of the Riverboat races last … [Read more...]

Filed Under: heat, hot, Mainly Marathons, marathon, race schedule

I’m an expert…

November 26, 2014 by MCM Mama 55 Comments

I’m an expert…

Sometimes life is too serious and we need to laugh at ourselves. I saw this topic on A Lady Goes West yesterday and it made me laugh... and think about what I'm an expert in. After all, we all have skills. Some of them we learned, some of them we come by naturally. Some of them are "party tricks", some are actually useful. Many of them are entertaining. [Tweet "Let's have some fun! What are you an expert at doing? I'm an expert at finding hilly races! #runchat #uselessskills"] So here's what I'm an expert in: … [Read more...]

Filed Under: challenge, half marathons, hills, hot, Ragnar

What a lovely day for a run… or not

November 18, 2014 by MCM Mama 30 Comments

What a lovely day for a run… or not

Pouring rain? Thunder and lightning? Code red air quality? High heat? Freezing cold?  Winds that could blow you off the planet? Which one of these have you raced in? That's right, today's topic for Tuesdays on the Run, is "Worst Race Conditions."  When Patty, April, and I started discussing this topic, I was like "oh, that's easy." And then I realized that it wasn't.  Why? Because I have raced in just about every awful condition except sleet.  Yep, not only am I the Queen of Hilly Races, I'm also apparently the Princess of Bad Weather.  (To be fair, because I run so many races, I've also had some absolutely beautiful races.) So, here are some of my highlights (lowlights?) in pictures... My very first race (yeah, I started … [Read more...]

Filed Under: cold, hot, Tuesdays on the Run

TTT: Kindrunner, hot running, and bye bye Jeep Cherokee

July 18, 2013 by MCM Mama 7 Comments

TTT: Kindrunner, hot running, and bye bye Jeep Cherokee

1.  Kindrunner has been around for a month and to celebrate  they've decided to pay the kindness forward. Kindrunner.com announces "48 Hours of Paying Forward the Kindness!" We are so confident that anyone who experiences our website and learns our mission will want to take part that we are willing, for the first time ever, to pay the Kindnessforward. We have now been in existence for just over a month, and want to share our mission with as many runners as possible. From now until we leave the office on Friday (7pm EST) anyone who registers for Kindrunner will receive a $10 Kindness Cash Rewards Credit towards a future purchase of ANY brand and ANY item! Simply register on our site, treat your feet when the time comes, and remember … [Read more...]

Filed Under: heat, hot, kindness

I need to be independently wealthy

July 15, 2013 by MCM Mama 11 Comments

I need to be independently wealthy

Why?  Because I need a cabin or cottage or beach house in the north in the summer.  I mean, Beer Geek works from home four days a week.  It would work.  He could fly up every Wednesday night, work from our summer home and then fly home on Tuesday evening to be in the office for his Wednesday meetings.  That sounds perfectly reasonable, right? So, who wants to share their lottery winnings?  Or family money?  Or pay me a million a year to run and blog? No? Guess I'm stuck in the land of hot.  At least the boys and I get to run off to Wisconsin for a big chunk of August.  (Sorry, Beer Geek.  Remember to feed the gecko while we are gone.) We have at least a couple of weeks every summer that look like the above.  And every summer, I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Best Body Boot Camp, heat, hot

Virginia Summer + Foodie Pen Pal!

June 28, 2013 by MCM Mama 3 Comments

Virginia Summer + Foodie Pen Pal!

Virginia is hot and stupid humid in the summer.  This is not breaking news.  But this year, Virginia has been kind enough to throw in some low humidity days and some cooler weeks.  For example, last year's end of school picnics were all cut short because of 100* weather and air quality advisories.  This year, we had cold 1st graders when they got wet playing a sponge game at their picnic. But that's ok, Virginia is making up for it now.  This week has been all high 80s to low 90s, with matching humidity.  It's like trying to breathe soup. As you can imagine, my run did not go well yesterday.  It wasn't that hot when I went out at 8am, but the humidity was 96%.  I could.not.breathe.  I planned to run 4-6 miles at an easy pace.  I ran … [Read more...]

Filed Under: foodie penpals, heat, hot

Cutting the cheese for WIAW

April 10, 2013 by MCM Mama 9 Comments

Cutting the cheese for WIAW

No, I'm not talking about flatulence... I'm talking about actually cutting cheese out of my diet. Dairy and I have a rocky past. Both of my boys had milk allergies as babies, so I had to cut all dairy while nursing. (Yes, even the trace stuff in processed foods. Yes, it sucked.  And it sucked for almost 3 years while nursing Jones and more than a year with Shoo).  I'm not sure I could ever go back to that strict elimination and I have zero intention of giving up my milk in my coffee or the occasional bowl of Greek yogurt, but it's time to decrease the amount of cheese I eat. I'm a Wisconsin girl and I firmly believe that everything tastes better with cheese, but quite frankly, it's not the best kind of fat and it's taking up too … [Read more...]

Filed Under: hot, WIAW

Blue Ridge Half Marathon Race Report

April 23, 2012 by MCM Mama 23 Comments

Blue Ridge Half Marathon Race Report

The Blue Ridge Marathon bills itself as "American's Toughest Marathon." I'm here to tell you that the half marathon is no joke either. It was definitely the hardest race course I've ever run on. Short story: I finished in 2:20:48 (my slowest half where I wasn't pacing someone), 13th in my age group and darned proud of my finish. At the end, I felt like I'd run a full marathon, not a half. Long story: I caught a ride down to Roanoke with some runner friends. We stopped at a brewpub for lunch and a couple more for tastings. Thanks to small country roads (and the stops), it took us 6 hours instead of 4, but we finally got there. They dropped me off at my hotel where I immediately met up with T and R. We quickly picked up our … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blue Ridge Marathon, half marathons, hills, hot, Tough chik, vibram five fingers

100% humidity

August 22, 2009 by MCM Mama 11 Comments

100% humidity

In some place, 100% humidity would mean it was actually raining. Not in Virginia. Here it meant that all the rain we got last night was coming up from the ground and making it feel like I was running underwater. Since I've never really perfected that breathing water thing, it was a pretty miserable run. I did manage to finish four miles at about a 9:30 pace. After my lovely (NOT) run, I gave blood. When I was getting the initial workup done, the technician took a look at my driver's license and at me and said "how'd you do it?" I looked blank and she pointed to the license and said "It looks like a different person." Oh, that. Well, I was 7.5 months pregnant with Shoo when I got my license renewed. Guess all the running since then … [Read more...]

Filed Under: hot

No tempo for me

August 15, 2009 by MCM Mama 11 Comments

Yesterday, a very generous friend offered to take both boys (she has one boy Jones' age) so that I could go for a run. I took her up on it and headed out for a run around 2:30 pm in 86 degree weather. I had my handheld filled with berry nuun and didn't push myself and it still sucked. Even going at a 10 minute pace was hell. After I got home, it took me forever to stop sweating. I figured today's run had to be better. I was wrong. Within the first few minutes, I had to adjust my speed goals. At the end of the first mile (9:56), I knew a tempo of any sort was out of the question, so decided to try for a progressive run. While I did manage that (9:50, 9:48, 9:35, 9:27), it was quite possibly the worst run ever. I had to remind … [Read more...]

Filed Under: beer, hot

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Who is MCM Mama?
A slightly obnoxious mom and wife who loves good beer and running, who struggles a bit with depression especially in the winter and when running isn’t allowed, who’d rather go on a fun vacation than upgrade the kitchen or add a master bath, and has a minor addiction to the Marine Corps Marathon.

Recent Posts

  • Half Marathon #85: Appalachian Series – South Carolina
  • Half Marathon #84: Appalachian Series – Georgia
  • Coffee with a side of rain
  • Half Marathon #83:Appalachian Series – Alabama
  • Hotel Coffee is better than no coffee…
  • Training for Back to Back to Back Half Marathons
  • Runfessions of a Really Cold Runner
  • Kicking off the year with coffee!

Archives

A slightly obnoxious mom and wife who loves good beer and running, who struggles a bit with depression especially in the winter and when running isn’t allowed, who’d rather go on a fun vacation than upgrade the kitchen or add a master bath. Read More…

Half Marathon #85: Appalachian Series – South Carolina

Half Marathon #85: Appalachian Series – South Carolina

Mainly Marathons Appalachian Series – South CarolinaMarch 27, 20222:47:45 What I wore: hat, tank top, long sleeve quarter zip, capris, and Altra Rivera Location: Seneca, SC (State #41!) Let’s just start out with the truth – this race was the hardest of the races and pretty much sucked. I chose to do the early start […]

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