B.O.T. Bridge

2010-09-19

The Wil­son Bridge Half Marathon is now finished.

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I am not sure there are too many things to say, other than it was a fan­tas­tic day!  Ok, well–you know me well enough to know that I always have some­thing else to say…so here are the gory details:

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I met MCM Mama early (as in, it was still dark early) near the porta pot­ties near the grounds of our good old Mount Ver­non.  The good news is that the lines for these spa like lava­to­ries (ha!) were short.  There was more good news. The tem­per­a­ture was per­fect.  The mood was good.  We were ready.

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MCM Mama, in case you do not know her…is awe­some.  She is kind and hys­ter­i­cal funny and we got to know each other as we ran down the GW Park­way. From chil­dren to work to all sorts of other girly talk, the time passed quickly.  Until of course, my stom­ach decided that it NEEDED to stop and that find­ing a porta potty was of utmost impor­tance.  Finally we found some…or maybe I should be spe­cific: each porta potty stop had 2.   Which means, that we had to wait our turn in line.  As in, we waited for about five min­utes.  I did feel much better…but five min­utes?  There went my goal time.

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And so we kept going. I took my Power Gel Dou­ble Latte’s, we walked through the water stops to stay hydrated, and even­tu­ally we got to the Wil­son Bridge. As we approached I looked off to the right–and there it was– the National Har­bor in all it’s glory.  It looked so decep­tively close. I knew better…but wow, it looks SO close!  And then.…came the bridge. The myth­i­cal Wil­son Bridge.  It was as if we were going into war.  As we started pass­ing peo­ple, MCM Mama kindly asked me if I needed to slow down. I could not tell her in that moment (as we were pass­ing another run­ner) that I was too excited to be pass­ing peo­ple that there was NO way we would slow down.  I will admit, had MCM Mama not been with me, I can­not say with 100% cer­tainty that I would have taken on the bridge so well.  But we did.  We even had a medic take a pic of us towards the mid­dle of the bridge!

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Com­ing off the bridge is a bit like spi­ral­ing down a wed­ding cake– down and around one side, back up, and then down and around another side.  With the National Har­bor get­ting closer, we even saw Principessa, Rocket, Cara Mamma the Elder, and Papi the Brain (aka: my crew).  They said I looked great.  As we approached them, I got closer to Principessa, and prob­a­bly stopped mov­ing for a few sec­onds as she handed me a peb­ble.  Look­ing back, that was a bad idea. Other than some foot pain, I had been feel­ing good…until then.  Just a few yards after see­ing them, some­thing in me hit a wall.…and I actu­ally had to walk for just a bit.  But with MCM Mama’s encour­age­ment, on we went.  And finally, the path along the river gave way to one last short uphill…and the fin­ish chute lined with spec­ta­tors was upon us.  I moved in those last sec­onds.  The pic­tures– despite my pained face– are prob­a­bly some of the first run­ning pic­tures of me EVER that make me look like I was mov­ing with any speed.

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And so…we fin­ished. We fin­ished strong.  I did not hit my goal time range– but I did what I came to do. I ran the entire Wil­son Bridge. Not just that, but we passed peo­ple as we ran it.  And as Principessa said, “every­one was a win­ner” today.

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And as an added bonus, I even found a won­der­ful per­son to help me get a deeper stretch.  She pro­vided just the right amount of addi­tional pressure!

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So what now?  Oh wait.  There is another bridge. The 14th Street bridge at the end of the Army 10 Miler in one month.  The good news there is that 10 will seem like noth­ing com­pared to 13.1.  Bring it on 14th St. Bridge.…after the Wil­son Bridge, you have no power over me

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The Wil­son Bridge half marathon is just over 12 hours away.

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We are sit­u­ated at the Westin National Har­bor, ready to go have din­ner in a bit. My run­ning clothes are out, all three poten­tial out­fits. My new playlist is loaded, and I have my power gels with extra caffeine.

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But really… All I can do is look out the win­dow. The Wil­son Bridge really does not seem that steep when your drive over it. But let me tell you, I am seri­ously start­ing to believe that the race orga­niz­ers have no com­pas­sion. It is a seri­ous incline!!! And shows up at mile 10! Just when your legs are get­ting tired and you are try­ing to con­vince your­self that you can rock the last 3.1 miles.…you face the bridge.

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And so… I will bat­tle the bridge with all I have got. It may fight a good fight…but it will be mine

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9/12/2010

6 days.  That is all that is left. Tomorrow will be five days.  You can count to five on one hand.  Seriously people, this time next week, I will be home and relaxing after having completed my half marathon.  Which means of course, that then it will be time to gear up for the 10 miler–and yet another bridge, one month later.

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Week 7 of my Wilson Bridge Half Marathon Bring on the Bridge Training is complete.  I ran.  Twice. Don’t roll your eyes at me….I am supposed to be tapering. 

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Anyway, I was able to get in a treadmill run during the middle of the week.  The good news is that not only did I get it in, but I ran hard.  50 minutes that included 40 of intervals, including upping the incline.  I was sweaty, but I did it.

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On tap for Saturday was an 11 mile run.  I scurried around Friday evening to find new gels to fuel up during the run.  I bought two types: Power Gel and Gu.  The winner, after trying both during my run was the Double Latte Power Gel.  The Gu was thick. As in, very very very thick.  The Power Gel was yummy (yes, I said yummy)–how could it not be with a coffee taste and double the espresso?

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Oh right…my run.  I went to the Washington & Old Dominion Trail.  I started in Vienna (there is a community center…which means a clean toilet.  And a clean toilet before a long run is crucial).  The beauty of the morning was that it was cold.  And by cold I mean that my hands did not warm up until the 4th or 5th mile.  Truth be told, I felt good.  I also planned my gel consumption to coincide with a crazy steep hill at the 4th mile…and then again on my way back. Yes, I walked the hill. But really, it was steep.  Really really steep.  Other than the bridge, I ran…and ran, and ran.

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According to my trust watch and GPS, I got slower as the miles went on.  Like 30 seconds per mile slower.  But I am ok with that.  I ran the full 11 miles and actually felt good afterwards.  In fact, as I was headed back after the turn around it felt like time was passing quickly.  I contemplated for a brief moment trying to add on a mile, but I did not want to blow a good thing.

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So, Wilson Bridge….I am ready. Well ok, I have not run the full 13.1 miles…..but after 11, I am going to count on adrenaline to get me through.  That and a new playlist on my ipod.  Oh and a restful night of sleep at the Westin National Harbor.  And if I am lucky, the cool fall weather from this weekend will be replicated next Sunday.  And even if I end up hobbling across the finish, I will finish. Not finishing is not an option.

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Some of you may be wondering about my goal finishing time. I also know that I can pretend that time will not matter to me…even though, it will.  I know myself well enough to know that I do have a magic time in my head that will make me happy. What is that time?  Well…I ran 11 in 1 hour and 59 minutes (and 16 seconds).  So adding two more miles at 11 minutes per mile would bring me to 2 hours and 22 minutes.  I am hoping to be faster than that. In 2008, I ran the Philadelphia Distance Run (a half marathon) in 2:15: 14. In 2001, I ran that same race in 2:36.  Knowing that I am faster than I was in 2001, but not quite as fast as 2008…my goal is 2:15-2:20.

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Maybe I will hit it, maybe I won’t.  But I will feel good about it… there is no point to running races if I cannot feel good about them.  I don’t have to be happy about my results…I can use the race as a baseline to work from.  This should be obvious…but the truth is that in the past, I have berated myself for my race performance.  I got upset (and I mean very very very upset) with myself for being 45 seconds off my goal time once.  So my resolution to feel good is new for me.  I can do it. I think. 

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9/05/2010

Week 6…13 days left.

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I am ok with admitting that  I had a huge failure of a week.  And truthfully, there is only so much I can say as far as excuses…it just happened.  I went back to work.  The first week back for teachers is one despite not having students, is EXHAUSTING. I had great intentions…I tried waking up early. No go.  I had my bag with running gear in the car each day. Also a no go.  And so, five days later….there was officially no running.

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And then of course, I was supposed to run 11 miles this weekend.  Notice I wrote “supposed to.”  It did not happen.  In part because I was in Norfolk, and so was in unfamiliar territory. In part because I had not prepared by bringing any Gu gels. In part because I did not have my iopd and headphones.  Clearly, I justified it with a zillion excuses–none of them really good.  So I did what I do best…and I came up with a new- modified plan.  If I could run five miles, at least I would feel as if I was doing something.

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With the help of a friend of my parents, I mapped out a course.  There were right turns, left turns, paths, bridges…. I never even found the first road that I was supposed to find.  I did find the trail.  I did find the bridges.  The five miles were really 4.92 because I missed my first road….but in the end, I got in the mileage, at a decent pace.  And it felt good.

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And so…what does one do after a failed week?  I regroup.  I get myself on the treadmill after school as planned….and then on Saturday, I complete 11 miles.  There are no excuses, there is no more time.  There is no more wiggle room.  If I don’t do what I need to do, the bridge will not be mine. And I need the bridge to be mine.  I need to cross it- running.  Especially because I convinced my family to get rooms at the Westin the night before so that we did not have to get up at the crack of dawn.  We can’t exactly let two rooms go to waste.  So yes, I am going hard core.  I will run this week. Exhausted or not.  I will not over do it- there will be two runs during the week, lots and lots of water, and getting to bed earlier than 10:30 each night.  Saturday will come, and I will run.  I will feel strong….(or not).  But I will do it. I have to.

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And if I don’t…well that ought to make an interesting Bring on the Bridge Week 7 recap. 

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8-30-2010

Week 5, 21 days to go.  Yikes, 21 days???

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This week was.… suc­cess­ful.  I think. 

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I took a few days off because of my long run last Monday…to make sure that my legs could be ready for my long run today.  The end result was:

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• Wednes­day: 4.5 mile out­side run in 47 minutes.
• Fri­day: 52 min­utes tread­mill run– with 25 min­utes of intervals.
• Sun­day: my long run day.  10.25 miles in 1 hour and 51 minutes.

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I felt great dur­ing my first loop around Burke lake. I added in a mile by run­ning up to a camp ground…which let me just say, has a HUGE hill.  Even with the hill, my pace was con­sis­tent as I lis­tened to my new playlist on my iPod shuf­fle.  Mak­ing my way around the lake was com­fort­able, and I took my very last Carb Boom Tan­ger­ine gel,with CAFFEINE (as in, they don’t make it anymore..this was the last one in my pos­ses­sion. Kind of a sad Gu gel day.).…anyway, I took the gel at about 47 minutes.

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Fin­ish­ing the first loop I stopped at my car for water (see, I can be smart on occa­sion) and then headed back out– this time going counter clock­wise.  Accord­ing to my watch stats, the gel must have taken effect because other than slow­ing down to play with my music, I was cruis­ing. (ok, yes, I know—long run…means slow.  But this was a slow cruis­ing, I promise).  As I neared the 8 mile marker, I started feel­ing my knees a wee bit.  Ok, more than a wee bit.  But I kept going…though I did walk for about a minute on and off.  I was clearly get­ting tired. It was clear to me that based on my train­ing up until now, I have a pretty good 6–8 mile base…beyond that is not quite there yet.  Back to there being 21 days to race day.  Have I said “yikes” yet?

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The last two miles were…well, I was not feel­ing it.  I finished–and actu­ally eeked out .25 more than my goal, but there were some def­i­nite (but short) walk breaks as I fin­ished the loop. Oddly enough, even with the walk breaks, my pace for those miles was 11.15-ish–which means that when I was running…I was prob­a­bly going a teeny weensy bit too fast (which is really funny–because going fast is not what peo­ple asso­ciate when they think of my run­ning). (which brings me to the question…if i was feel­ing so good to go at a decent pace, why did I feel so tired that I felt the need to walk.  The answer my friends is that I prob­a­bly did not need the walk breaks.  I wimped out.  But for today, I am ok with hav­ing wimped out).

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Anyway.…back at the car, my coconut water and remain­ing water were my stretch­ing part­ners and by the time I made it home, I had this strange sen­sa­tion of feeling.…good.  As in, I won­der how if I have time to run tomorrow-good.  No, no…I know.  Tomor­row is an off day.  In part because it is my first day back at work, and I already have a zil­lion things to do afterwards.…but also because I know my body, and it is going to need a rest day.

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So now, I have a full day ahead.  In case you are inter­ested in a nice town­house in the north­ern Vir­ginia area, we are hav­ing an open house this afternoon…which also means that Rocket and I need to vacate the premises.  What does one do when they have to be out of the house on a beau­ti­ful sunny Sun­day after­noon?  There was an option of the pool.  There was the idea of play­ing ten­nis (we decided this might not have been bril­liant given my run).…and so, we decided to sac­ri­fice our­selves.  Our des­ti­na­tion: Bar­rel Oak Win­ery. Yes, a win­ery.  To taste wine.  Woo hoo.  The only thing that would make the day bet­ter would be for some­one to fall in love with my house and offer our ask­ing price.

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A girl can dream can’t she??

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2010-08-23

Accord­ing to my handy dandy widget, the Wil­son Bridge Half marathon is now 26 days away, and I am in week four of my Bring on the Bridge mis­sion. I have been doing alot of think­ing about my run­ning– why I run, when I run, and how it impacts my life.  Dur­ing BlogHer, the amaz­ing Car­men of Diets in Review asked var­i­ous run­ners about how they made the time given their busy sched­ules as moms on video. Check out these amaz­ing tips:

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I real­ized that for me, it took my need to get over the mommy guilt asso­ci­ated with giv­ing up time with Principessa to get a run in.  But I real­ized then, as I real­ize now– that my run­ning makes me a bet­ter mamma.  I am hap­pier when I run.  Even when I busy beyond busy and should prob­a­bly take a few things off my plate, run­ning can­not be one of those things.  And the races?  I cer­tainly do not run races to win, but the excite­ment of a race is a motivator.

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Oh yeah–back to my train­ing for this race.  My goal this week, set by MCM Mama,  was to run twice, cross train (or run again) once, and then com­plete a long run of 8 miles.

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My progress:

I ran an out­side run of 4.83 miles and then an inside, tread­mill run of 4 miles. The out­side run went ok…it was hot and I was sweaty.  As in drip drip.  The inside run con­sisted of inter­vals includ­ing speed and incline.  I have to admit, despite the heat and humid­ity, I am enjoy­ing my out­side runs more than ever now that I get to play with my very cool Garmin gad­get.  It is my very own Inspec­tor Gad­get Garmin Watch!  All I have to do is click on my go-go gad­get train­ing but­ton, it locates the satel­lites, and I am off.  When I get home, I upload the data, and voila! There is my run…in all it’s data glory.

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My long run was also (thank­fully) a suc­cess.  I ran 8.0 miles on the Wash­ing­ton & Old Domin­ion trail.  I made sure to start ear­lier this time…even though it was a much cooler day.  Off I went.…with a new playlist on my iPhone, and a Carb Boom Gel to take just before mile 4.

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I ran out 3.  The first three were easy. I kept telling myself that my pace needed to be slow enough where I felt as if I could run for­ever.  It worked.  I and con­tem­plated going until 4 before turn­ing around, but the trail was through a neigh­bor­hood (and looked a bit hilly)–so I turned around. Sip­ping my sticky gooey Carb Boom dou­ble espresso gel (yeah for caf­feine!) around mile 4, I was a bit thirsty– wish­ing that I had water, but over­all, con­tin­ued to feel strong.   Get­ting back to where I started (mark­ing the 6 mile mark), I went out another mile (and found a water fountain–woo hoo!) and then turned back, bring­ing me to the magic num­ber of 8.

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The­o­ret­i­cally, I was sup­posed to run 8.25 miles for MCM Mama’s vir­tual race, to cel­e­brate her birthday.…but I decided to fol­low direc­tions for once and run only 8.  Tech­ni­cally speak­ing with my cool down, I did 8.25…with a time of 90 minutes.

(also tech­ni­cally speak­ing one of the options was to run 4 miles…so if we go with that sce­nario, I ran 4 miles in 43:17.  That sounds bet­ter than 8.25 in 90 minutes.)

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I ran it in 86 min­utes with an aver­age pace of 10:48.  So not only did I run the mileage, but I was suc­cess­ful in slow­ing down (but not quite to tur­tle speeds).

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Back at my car, I opened my Zico cocunut water, and sipped it as I cooled down by walk­ing around the park­ing lot.  Despite the cooler temps, I was a sweaty mess.  Oh well, it is good that one does not need to look good while run­ning to be able to do it.  Beyond the sweat (and seri­ously, there was alot of it) and runny nose (run­ning some­how makes me snotty).…I felt good…successful, and con­fi­dent that I might actu­ally be able to take on the bridge in 26 days.

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2010-08-16
It has been three weeks since I started my Bring on the Bridge train­ing plan. The won­der­ful MCM Mama has been duti­fully feed­ing me my goals for the week. The good news is that I did GREAT the first week.  The sec­ond week? Not so much.  I attended a Fit­ness Blog­ging ses­sion at Blogher10, where Roni of Roni’s Weigh talked about being trans­par­ent and hon­est about our fit­ness ups and downs.….so here it is folks:  I slept in today instead of march­ing out in the rain to run my 7.5 miles.  I feel bad about it…kind of.  I did the Gold’s Gym Dance Workout instead.  Not the same as run­ning I know, but wow, did I sweat.

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So.…to recap:

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Week 1:

5 mile long run…check, check.

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Week 2:

Long run goal of 6–7 miles.  Given that I was head­ing off to NYC for my BlogHer10 adven­ture, I knew that I needed to get my run in dur­ing the week.  And since it was too humid to even breathe out­side, I opted for the tread­mill.  6.42 miles inside on a tread­mill, not the most excit­ing thing in the world.  But I did it.  Not only that, but I went to weigh in at Weight Watch­ers right after, and made my life­time goal.  Woo hoo (pretty easy after sweat­ing pro­fusely for over and hour!).  I capped off the week with a few shorter runs and spin class.  I even man­aged to get in two, 3 mile runs in Cen­tral Park. (well ok, one of them, I ended up on the phone, and so walked back).

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Week 3 (last week):

Again, I was head­ing back to NYC for the Eat, Pray, Love premiere…so I made the most of my week with spin on Mon­day, a 4.5 mile run on Thurs­day, and a 4 mile run on Fri­day.  The best part of my runs was using my new toy:  my  Garmin 405cx GPS watch…that allows me to mon­i­tor any­thing and every­thing as I plod along.  It is def­i­nitely a motivator.

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Sun­day was sup­posed to be my long run day.  I was plan­ning on head­ing to the Wash­ing­ton & Old Domin­ion Trail…I even went to bed early to pre­pare.  My alarm went off at 7:00 am.…but my hand went on autopi­lot and turned my alarm off. Poor Rocket tried to con­vince me to get out of bed.  I sim­ply did not want to. It did not help that my head was feel­ing less than opti­mal or that I heard it rain­ing out­side.  The most ironic thing is that my Rocket got out of bed at 8:00 am and headed out to run.  With­out me.  Around 9:30 I finally decided to become a pro­duc­tive mem­ber of soci­ety and got dressed…and decided that sweat­ing it out on the Wii was at least something.

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My new plan:  7.5 on Mon­day (as in today!). Mon­day is kind of close to the week­end right? And had I really run the 7.5 on Sun­day, I would have taken Mon­day off.  So I would be almost even. ( I just can’t take Tues­day off).…. Plus this next week­end we will be bring­ing Principessa to Nor­folk, so I will have to do my long run on Monday…so the way I fig­ure it was a per­fect plan!

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Fast for­ward to now.  I woke up really not want­ing to get up again.  My alarm was set for 7 am.…(I should prob­a­bly know bet­ter by now)—I promptly ignored the annoy­ing buzz of the alarm and stayed in bed until 8:00.  By 8:30 I was out the door and by 8:45 I was on the trail.  The first 2.5 miles were great…I was sweat­ing  but felt strong (76 degrees are not bad, but the 90% humid­ity, not so good). My watch told me that I was main­tain­ing a nice pace under 10:30/mile.…which did leave me a bit per­plexed.  Wasn’t it bet­ter maybe to start slower and then speed up towards the end?)   Then as if an inner alarm sounded deep in my brain won­der­ing what in the world I was doing to myself,  I started feel­ing the heat.  At 3 miles I had to attach my car key to my shoelaces (it was both­er­ing my in my pocket) and when I leaned over, I noticed for the first time how much I was really sweat­ing. I am not talk­ing a few drips.  It was as if I had just stepped out of the shower–or maybe, I was still in the shower.  I started debat­ing whether going another .75 mile was really a good idea before turn­ing around…fearing that I might have to crawl back.

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So, with­out too much thought,I turned around and headed back.  The prob­lem was now that I had that brief stop to tie my key to my shoe, I real­ized how exhausted I really was as I tried to keep up with my 10:30/min/mile pace.  The end result is that I walked a bit here, a bit there—probably about 5 min­utes on and off dur­ing the three miles back.  I was able to sprint the very last teensy weensy bit…but even then, I thought I might throw up by the end.  Once my car was unlocked (I had not even undone the key from my shoe lace), I had downed 12 oz of coconut water.  It helped.  At least I did not feel nau­seous any­more.  I would bet that if I had gone to weigh in today at Weight Watch­ers I would be down another three or four pounds from all the lost water!

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You can see my run for your­self on my super cool new train­ing tool.…my Garmin Con­nect:

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So.…7.5 did not hap­pen.  I am pretty bummed about it.  I fig­ure that to make up for it, I will need to run sev­eral 6 mile runs this week, and then go for 8 next Mon­day.  Oh right, and the race…the 13.1 that I am sup­pos­edly going to run.…is now a month away. Yikes!!!

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2010-08-01

I am run­ning a half marathon in Sep­tem­ber and a 10 miler in Octo­ber.  The Wil­son Bridge Half Marathon and Army 10 Miler to be exact.  The real­iza­tion hit me ear­lier this week that this race is less than two months away, and my longest run in the last three months or so has been…four miles. Uh-oh.  So, as any well inten­tioned run­ner does, I set out my clothes Fri­day night and set my alarm for 7:05 on Sat­ur­day, so that I could be out the door and ready to run at least five miles.  Well, it did not hap­pen. Appar­ently I slept through my alarm, and Rocket who did hear it, did not want to wake me.  Instead of get­ting out of bed at 9:00 am and doing my run any­way, I decided I would try again on Sunday.

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Fast for­ward to today.

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I did get up at 7:05 this morn­ing– as did Rocket (well ok, he got out of bed a few min­utes later), and we got our­selves together.  On tap, a loop around Burke Lake.

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Now, you should know that I have a love hate rela­tion­ship with this 4.8 mile loop around a pic­turesque lake.  I used to think it was inhab­ited by run­ning demons…mainly me, myself, and I. (For the com­plete story: read Angels and Demons. I promise it is a good read).  But today, as we parked in the marina park­ing lot, I noticed a run­ning group, and a tall lanky run­ner who looked fright­en­ingly famil­iar.  My old coach. The man that coached me through two marathons, two half marathons, and sev­eral ten mil­ers.  The man that sent me weekly emails that spec­i­fied down to every last detail, what I would need to do that week.  This man was also the one that on days that the Burke Lake run­ning demons seemed to taunt me, and forced me to plod along in tears, made me cry even harder.  He was not the most sup­port­ive of coaches.  Or maybe he was– to the fast mem­bers of our group. Maybe in the end he was even sup­port­ive of me, just with a tough love slant.  In any case, Coach R. was there.  And he rec­og­nized me.  There was rem­i­nisc­ing and chat­ting as we caught up on the last six years.  You see, I met Principessa’s dad while train­ing with Coach R, and we became one of the many mar­riages spawned by the pro­gram.  Until of course, that mar­riage ended.

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..But I digress (shock­ing, I know).

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And so, Rocket and I, made our way to the trail. I have to admit, as I walked away from Coach R., I started to doubt my run around the lake. Would I be able to do it?  And then it hit me, of course I was going to run suc­cess­fully around the lake.  The trail was no longer a demon that I cared to pay atten­tion to, and the mem­ory of Coach R’s tough love was cer­tainly some­thing to not just ignore– but to sink into the depths of the lake.

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We made it, quite suc­cess­fully in fact.  Rocket, who did not think he was going to run the whole loop, did. I ran the loop plus two loops around the park­ing lot, bring­ing me to five miles.  And as we made it back, there again was Coach R, wait­ing as he always does for his run­ners to loop around, grab some water, and then head out for more.  This time, I looked at him not with fear, or self doubt, but with pride.  I have come a long way with my run­ning.  I am faster than I was (but just to be clear:  am still slow), and though my train­ing has not always been con­sis­tent, a good run is still the best med­i­cine for any­thing and everything.

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And as if our good run, and my final bur­ial of my Burke Lake demons was not enough, I am excited to announce that MCM Mama is going to put me through the paces and coach me all the way through my half marathon in Sep­tem­ber.  The mis­sion:  to get C.Mom to the bridge on time.  Well ok, not exactly– to get me to the fin­ish line feel­ing good, and hope­fully in under 2:15 (no, not 2 min­utes and fif­teen sec­onds silly:  2 hours and 15 min­utes).  And since both the half marathon and ten miler have a bridge close to the fin­ish, the name of this new mis­sion and train­ing plan is: Bring on the Bridge (BOTB)!

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I am going to attempt to get all orga­nized with a Bring on the Bridge badge (any­one really good at that and want to make it for me?)- and will post weekly updates on my BOTB progress.… and for any­one else that is fac­ing a sim­i­lar race challenge–will cre­ate a link up for you to share your stories!

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Run on!

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xo

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C.Mom