Humbug

October 31, 2013

When I was a kid, I loved Halloween. What kid doesn’t? But once I outgrew Mom making my costumes, I sort of fell out of love with the holiday. I wasn’t big on it in college, and it’s still not really my thing now. It’s been years since I dressed up, and it’s just not my thing.

When I moved into my first place post-college, I was all ready for trick-or-treaters. It sounded like so much fun! But no one came. Perils of a condo building. Same thing with my apartment building. So once I bought a house, I was pumped!

I am a total old fuddy duddy, as it turns out, because after five hours of my doorbell ringing, I was done with this holiday. (Yes, five hours.) The little kids show up early and are awesome. But then the older kids showed up. My policy is that if they’re in costume, it doesn’t matter if they’re 8 or 18, they get candy. But I had girls showing up in their “going out” clothes holding out their purses for candy.

I don’t think so.

Also, when I was a kid, porch lights were the sign. If the porch lights were off, those people weren’t home or weren’t giving out anything. Doesn’t work at my house. I turn my lights off when I go to bed and the bell keeps ringing til at least 11 at night.

So annoying.

But I remember the joy of Halloween, so tonight, I will be giving out SunRype bars (as part of my Active Ambassadorship with them – the kids will probably hate me) until I head out for swim practice at 7. At that point, I’ll leave the bowl on my porch and that’s that. I just hope the bell stops ringing by the time I get home!

Friday yet?

October 30, 2013

I know, I know. It’s only Wednesday. Yes, I have already heard the Hump Day commercial. But I am so very ready for the weekend.

October was a crazy month for me. I got back from my cruise at the end of September and then jumped straight into crazytown. Every weekend involved a race that I either ran, volunteered at, or cheered. While it made for an amazing month, I am TIRED.

So this weekend, I have zero plans and I love it.

Well, okay, I do have plans. They involve running 13 miles and cleaning the heck out of the house. Because the fur tumbleweeds have returned and I am running out of clean clothes.

Is it sad that I’m excited about these weekend plans? Does this mean that I have finally evolved into an adult?

Or maybe I just like the thought of a clean house and finally checking off some of the things on my to-do list. Wait, that sounds very grown-up too.

Marathon training continues

October 29, 2013

Marathon training is officially moving forward. Saturday’s long run was 12 miles, which I figured wouldn’t be too bad, since two weeks prior, I ran the Baltimore Half.

I was wrong. It was not a pretty run.

I kept up my intervals, but I could just feel my body fighting it starting around mile 8 and really feeling it around mile 10.

Part of the problem could have been the utter lack of training on the weekdays beforehand. I knew it was going to be a rough week with work, and I let that affect my training schedule.

But I got in the miles and that’s what counts. It was slow, and I realized that if I want to have a chance at a PR at Space Coast, I need to step up my game. Admittedly, I’m not doing a ton of speedwork in preparation for that tentative goal. I got the idea after I had such a great race at last year’s Philly Half. Because I was at 16 or 17 miles in my marathon training, 13.1 was a significant stepback and it felt great all race. I wasn’t too far off my PR that race without even thinking about time. So I thought “Hey, maybe I can do that this year and actually get a PR.”

Not the proper way to go about it. But again, this training is about the marathon, not about the races along the way.

This weekend’s run is 13 miles. I’m actually looking forward to it. The weather has cooled off and the running temps are perfect (to me, anyway). And I ended my last Zombies!Run mission on a slight cliffhanger, so I’m eager to find out what Runner 5 does next.

Marine Corps Marathon Cheerstravaganza!

October 28, 2013

This weekend, I didn’t race. It was glorious. Instead, I headed down to the Pentagon on Sunday morning to cheer for friends and strangers running the Marine Corps Marathon.

We were definitely aware of the added security. Rather than travel through the Pentagon area with our bags and cooler, we headed to Pentagon City and walked. Not a whole lot further, to be honest, but we wanted to avoid all of the bag check hassle. We had a lot of stuff.

The security was definitely heavier than in previous years. Before the race, Laura and I were filling little snack bags with pretzels and one of the Marines asked us if we were going to be handing them out to runners and we said yes. He told us that they were required to stop people from handing out snacks to the runners because the snacks might be poisoned.

Wow. Again, I wasn’t going to argue with this guy, but just the though that that is even an issue… I don’t even know what to say.

Thankfully, we were still allowed to hand out things to our friends, and we decided if someone came us and asked us if we had something, we would consider that person a new friend, but we couldn’t just stand there with our hands outstretched with pretzels or candy or beer.

(This also means I have half a case of beer and three pounds of gummy bears leftover. Party time.)

Apparently, the typical fences that usually separate runners from spectators at the start and finish area had barbed wire this year as well.

But the day was still a blast! I didn’t take a ton of pictures because I was too busy yelling and screaming and handing out snacks.

We cheered on the 10K runners, and saw some famous names, including Carlos Arredondo (the “Boston Cowboy Hat Hero”). He was carrying a pair of combat boots with a photo button on them for his son and wearing a Boston shirt with his trademark hat. He wasn’t doing anything to really call attention to himself, but the boots caught my eye, and the hat and hair made me think it was him (a quick check of the results verified it). He could use what he did to call attention to himself and his cause and yet he doesn’t, and I think that makes what he did even that much more awesome.

We watched the wheelchair racers come through and then it was time for the lead runner.

Hey, what’s that leading the runners?

It can’t be.

It’s the Duck Boat!

Yes, the duck boat was leading the runners. I hope this race didn’t involve any swimming.

And then the runners came through and the camera went away and I got lots and lots of sweaty hugs and have no voice today.

If you have never cheered for a race, go do it. It’s awesome.

Runnerbox Ambassador

October 26, 2013

Just a quick drive-by post to let you know that I’m a new Runnerbox Ambassador. This is my favorite of all the running boxes (I actually get the Tri Box, but they’re quite similar).

And!

Use code GLITTERRB for 10% off your boxes! I will do a full review later this week, but wanted to get the code out there ASAP.