Teddy Bear Run

Hey guys! I've got a couple of minutes before "lunch" is over so I figured I should update the old blog. We're cranking out the final bits of painting our kitchen so any free time I get at home is spent RELAXING which does NOT include a computer! It involves a couch, a blanket and my two boys (Pips & B). I would like to see more of this "relaxation" thing, I hear it's wonderful!!!

SO, rewind to last weekend. We had 21 miles on the register and I'm pleased to report I ran 22.25. I figure for all the weeks I've cut back training I might as well add on when it counts! We carb-ed up on Friday night, bought some new rugs and got to bed at a fairly decent hour. The alarm went off WAY early and we were out the door about 6:45 to try to make it to the stadium (1.75 miles) by 7. Well, of course we barely missed it. As we were running under the interstate we saw the mass of runners leaving the parking lot. Although it's always a lovely sight to see a crowd overtake the streets we wanted to be a LITTLE closer. And a short break would've been nice. =) So, we followed the mass through downtown and picked off a few people. We were running comfortably and once we left the downtown/Farmers Market area we were in brand new running territory. This particular run hosted by the local club took you through miles 11-26 of the Country Music Marathon course (plus some extra at the beginning to get you there). I've always heard the back half of the CMM course is a little "boring" but if by boring they meant you were going to tour every ghetto and industrial area in Nashville then I guess they were right. UGH! It's so obvious Elite Racing is focusing on the half, I can't believe we even get Kenyans to run this marathon course.

So, we chatted about whatever to make the time pass. Brent is always funny on long runs and usually has a few good comments to liven the process up. Around mile 6 for us this lady was running RIGHT ON our heels. I mean, really, either pass or give us our space. At one point Brent turned around and jokingly said "I hope you're not trying to draft off us!". I mean, if you are going to be THAT close to me you'd better bring something to the table. Snacks, interesting conversation, provide some tunes for us - SOMETHING. We ditched our "friend" at a water stop and then headed out on the most boring greenway ever. It's next to the river and a barge owned by a company I once worked for was floating by and we were able to get their attention and get some waves. Then we came upon an area where there was cotton all over the trail and riverbanks. So strange. I asked Brent why he thought there might be so much cotton here - his witty reply "I bet that's a teddy bear factory". For some reason that struck me as the most hilarious thing I had ever heard. From the greenway we ran past the giant inflatable Titans indoor practice arena and decided if we got a huge group together with scissors we could totally climb the fence, poke a whole in it, and deflate the whole thing. This my friends is you what you talk about on a really long run.

We made it out of the Metrocenter projects and made our way past downtown again and into our own East Nashville projects. It was good to feel closer to home. Once we made our way into Shelby Park we started seeing all the faster runners heading back out, and saw others we knew. We made it around the lake and as we were heading back out Brent was starting to slow down so I headed on on my own. Until I rounded a corner and a black lab saw me and started running full force towards me. SO, I turned and ran as fast as I could because I just don't mess with dogs in the projects. He wasn't barking but that didn't mean he wouldn't bite. Brent wasn't far behind so he chased the dog, using his last bits of energy, and we were all fine. I kept booking it with this other kid who was constantly lost. He was trying to keep up with me, but what I hated to tell him was that I felt great and was picking up speed. We talked about food, which is always my fave thing to talk about at the end of a run. I kept him going and when we finished he thanked me for keeping him moving. We made it to the Titans lot at exactly 20 miles. My last mile was my fastest - 8:49 and mile 19 was 2nd fastest at 9:10. Our overall pace for the 20 miles was 9:45.

I waited on Brent and we chatted with a former coworker and some other runners. It had been a cool morning but perfect for running. Wind chills were from 32-40, so it felt great. As we were talking it started to rain and a friend offered us a ride home. I could tell Brent wanted it so bad so I said "sure" and once we got home I finished my miles on the treadmill. I thought about running until I had 26.2 miles but I was watching food network and "square face" was making these chocolate dipped gelato balls and I HAD to have ice cream. So I called it a day at 22.25 miles, feeling strong.

Lunch is OVER, have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rae

44,000 crazies

Hi all! I wish I could tell you the rest of Brent's weekend improved.....Sat morning's stomach bug became Sat evening's stomach bug. Sunday he felt better, and even walked with Pips and I the 1 mile round trip journey to get coffee. It was bright and sunny and in the low 20's. The sun can be SO deceptive. That afternoon he was helping me paint in the kitchen when he slammed his head (guillotine style) in between the legs of our antique kitchen table. MAJOR ow. I'm not sure WHY he stuck his head underneath it like that to push the legs together as we were removing the extra leafs, but he now has a purple ear on one side and a big knot on his head on the other. I had visions of me having to call 911 to have them help me remove my husband from the table!

And FINALLY it has gotten warmer here in Mid TN! Monday our temps climbed nearly 40 degrees and yesterday it was SEVENTY on my way home!! The past couple of nights I've had the back door wide open while I cook dinner, and Pips is loving playing in the yard. Saturday is going to be perfect for a long run. We're not trying to race bandit or news bandit this weekend, we're just going to run the CMM training run with the local running club. They're doing 18 miles so we're going to start from our house and run to/from the stadium which should give us 21 miles. The hardest part will likely be us getting up and running so early - the training run starts at 7. Ugh. BUT, having the company of prob 80-100 other runners as well as water/Gatorade will help a LOT.

This week I hit over 44,000 visits on this blog!! Is that ridiculous or what?? In Feb of last year I was super excited when I hit 10,000, so to think 34,000 people have visited in the past 12 months is just insane. Who are you people???? On Monday alone I had 162 hits.......it blows my mind to think that people find our odd little adventures interesting. It's always strange when I find people who link here that have never left a comment or said hello. I know it takes a lot of time to comment, and I'm certainly getting worse about it myself but all comments are appreciated. Well, maybe not all comments. However without this blog I would've never know that I was a total racist since I found a certain political ad to be more annoying than offensive or that I have zero taste in reviewing Italian restaurants and should stick to reviewing Indian restaurants because they don't want my business anyway. Who knew?? So anyway, thanks for your visits and I assure you our strange adventures will continue for many, many years. Drop a comment! If we ever get our email going where we can respond to people again I just might drop you a line!

Lunch time is over, so I'll chat at you later!!

Rae

I'd say the camera adds 20 pounds

So, when last I wrote I told you how today's long run had a brilliant forecast of snow, sleet and ice. And the weather people were pretty much spot on on that one. Pippin is a dog of MASSIVE schedule. Every morning we let him out around 7, which is when we normally leave for work. So, each and every Saturday morning he feels it is his turn to wake us up at 7. And I am really not good at falling back to sleep. I eventually gave up and got up around 7:30. We'd gotten about a half an inch of snow and the white stuff was still falling in big pretty flakes. I flipped on NewsChannel 5 to catch the morning's forecast in high definition TV (they're the first station in our area to begin broadcasting their entire news in HDTV - it's quite entertaining). They started doing their "news reporters about town" segments, showing our mass quantities of snow in various areas of the city. They had the reporter north of town showing some idiot stuck in a ditch on perfectly clear roads, some other interstate camera views - and then the one that caught my eye. A reporter was standing on the James Robertson bridge showing the downtown snowfall. I jumped up off the couch, told Brent to get out of bed because we were going to GET ON TV! I know I heard him grumble something mean. I fixed breakfast for us and made him come watch the news reports. That got him going a bit more, so we geared up, set TiVo to record the news broadcast "just in case" and headed out. She was only about 2 miles from our house, and there was about 30 minutes of broadcast left to go - so we knew we had a slim shot.

Honestly, I didn't think today was nearly as cold as last week, but maybe that's because I was on a mission. The temp was 28 with a windchill of 19. We were bundled up nicely and the sidewalks were pretty much deserted. The snow had been falling pretty hard for the past hour and we were up to about an inch of snow, which is where we always max out. We booked it over to the bridge, and were starting to feel a little disappointed because we didn't see them......until.....just as we were nearing the end of the bridge we saw some lights....and then the tell-tale news satellites and the van. Sweet!! As we were reaching the top arch of the bridge we saw them get out of the truck and thought we might have a good shot at being in the background of the shot. As we got closer they motioned for us to come over - they wanted to interview us! Score!!!! We pretended to be shocked they were there, she asked us some questions about "why in the world we would be out there" and then asked if we would mind hanging around a minute to be on the air. Well of course we wouldn't mind!!! A couple of minutes later we went live and made our tv interview debut!! She asked us why we were out, how far we were running, just a couple of questions about basically why we're crazy enough to be out on a day like today when we didn't have to be. We were both SO nervous!! We've pranced around behind reporters doing their live shots before and even been caught running a time or two in news footage but never interviewed!! Afterwards she thanked us for our time and we headed on our merry way, in complete disbelief that our plan had worked!




From there we headed over to the Bicentennial Mall/Farmers Market to enjoy a snowy view of our state capital and then we decided to run down to Centennial Park to see if the lake had frozen. There weren't many people out, and we didn't see another runner until we made it to Centennial. Brent was not feeling good - him stomach was giving him major issues and he was feeling really sick. I've actually never seen him that sick on a run before, and we were a good 5 miles from home. He decided to rest for a bit while I did a few of the one mile loop paths there at the park. When we started heading back he was really cold which worried me because it had "warmed up" to 36 and I was feeling toasty. If I'm toasty and someone else is cold - something is wrong. He actually kept a great pace going back, and we stopped to walk up 2nd avenue because the cobblestone sidewalk is ridiculously slippery with snow on it. As we got closer to home his stomach was starting to rumble again so we took our time. We ended up with somewhere between 13 and 14 miles today - my GPS was constantly dropping out due to all the snow and tall buildings! A deadly combo, I guess. I know it's not 20 but my trail shoes were killing my feet (my Mizunos do NOT work on snow!!!) and Brent was feeling horrible.

As I unloaded my Fuel Belt I noticed I had a new voicemail from my parents. I had completely forgotten they get some Nashville TV stations - they had seen us on the news and couldn't believe it! Well, when I called them they had already talked to Brent's parents who had not seen it but several of their friends/family members had and had called them immediately. And my parents had called my brother - in Cincinnati - to tell him! Hilarious. My mom was concerned that I didn't have a hat on like Brent did. (I wear an ear thingie and my hair keeps my head quite warm). My dad was hoping they would replay it on the evening news. I assured him that probably would not happen. He was also quite interested to know if we taped the segment earlier or if it was actually live. It was live. We really didn't guess anyone we knew saw it, but I guess we were wrong!! We have it on TiVo, but our software to convert TiVo files to our computer is on our desktop computer that has recently crashed. Our laptop isn't in great shape either - our Office license has expired so I can't respond to any emails we get unless I log onto our email via the Internet. Very frustrating. So, we're going to have to download some software to lappy before we can post it for you guys.

Since our exciting TV appearance I've been painting the kitchen and Brent hung a new chandelier in our bathroom. It snowed all afternoon but it was 34 degrees so nothing stuck. Around dark it turned to sleet and for some reason we decided to go to Opry Mills - a horrible touristy mall. I was having overwhelming needs to purchase new bathroom accessories for our guest bath and somehow that overshadowed slick roads and the Saturday night redneck crowd at this mall that could be a city within itself. We did get some cute stuff but made a promise to each other we would only go back there on weeknights. Several salt trucks were out on our way back. In the hour we were in the store it's amazing how much ice was starting to accumulate on the roads. We had a really tough time getting our car into the garage - it was REALLY slick. After about 4 or 5 tries we were able to make it back in. (On a side note - we have a 2 car detached garage. Since our house was built in the 1890's there were no attached garages and with our historical overlay you can't build an attached one. We can have detached ones, on the back of our property. We have don't have driveways we have alleyways behind the houses, so we pull into the alley and then into our garage. I had a clicker to the garage but no key to get from our backyard into the garage if my car was inside. It was always a fear that Brent would accidentally lock the garage door behind himself and I'd have no way to get to my car in the garage!)

Brent still hasn't felt good all night. A little while ago he started to get sick again and made really good friends with the bathroom floor. He's in bed now with a wet washcloth, a glass of Sprite and a trash can. I really hope he doesn't have the flu.

I hope everyone else is having a great weekend!!

Rachel

The Best

TGIF Everyone!! I hope you all had a great week, this one has FLOWN by!

I hope you all had a great Valentines Day. I had a wonderful one - sweets all day at work and then a great surf n turf dinner at home. Brent got me THE best gift ever - an electric blanket!! I am the coldest natured person ever, so it's a wonderful gift for me. It even has his and hers controls, so I can set my side to "Blazing Inferno" and he can have his side at something more moderate. I guess after nearly twelve years together he's tired of hearing me whine about being cold year round. He also got me my very own key to our garage. =)

It's absolutely frigid here now. We didn't get any of the snow that the Midwest and North got, just the cold temps. This morning the thermometer said 7 degrees when I got up and the weather guy said the wind chill was negative. Early tomorrow morning we're supposed to get mix of snow, ice and sleet. The great news is that we're finally going to have more normal temps later next week. Yay!!!! Tonight we gorged ourselves at a Chinese buffet and have been relaxing on the couch, drinking coffee and catching up on TiVo ever since - Pippin snoring away in the middle. The weather will get to determine the length of our long run tomorrow, and hopefully we can get some more paint up in our kitchen. Last weekend we bought several new light fixtures and haven't had a chance to get them all up this week since it's dark most of the hours we're at home.

Today's pic is Pippin destroying a toy. Ripping stuffing and a squeaker out of a toy is like sheer heaven for him.

Race Bandits.....

W'sup???? Do you have all your V-day purchases ready??

So.......Brent and I were race bandits for the very first time last Saturday. Friday night we went out with friends A & A to local hot spot Virago. This place has won tons of local awards so we thought it was worth a try. The food was good.......but where was it??? Brent got a tiny steak he had to cook himself on a rock. And my beef stir-fry with rice was less food than I normally serve Pippin. And the rice - about a tablespoon's worth. Not the carbs I was looking for. We also spilt an order of sushi that was great.....but still not much! We left there STARVED. So, we went to Panera Bread and stuffed ourselves for $16 vs the $50 we had already spent. Crazy.

Saturday morning it was cold. As always. I think the windchill was 13 when we started out. I'm pretty much over that and I really did NOT want to run. I am so ready to be done with marathon training and do whatever I want, whenever. Stay out late on Fridays, sleep in on Saturdays. The past couple of weeks would've been perfect morning for warm PJs, pancakes, and a lit fireplace. And when I'm REALLY not in the mood to run then it's just not going to end well. Running is so mental for me. The physical part is easy. We started out downtown, nice and slow. (On a side note my buns were freezing. I wore my thin running pants since I still don't have tights.) We ran through downtown and just so happened to end up by the GEC about 10 minutes before the race started. Hmmmmm......When you don't want to run it really is nice to have some company. Like 2,500 people about to run the Nashville Predators Fangtastic 5K. So we decided to jump in the race corral. Why not?? We had our own water, so we weren't taking anything from the race management. I think Brent was really nervous about it, he kept saying people were staring at us. They prob were, but more so because we had massive quantities of water with us. And you know it's a strange group of racers when a guy wearing pajama pants with a massive beer gut has lined up on the front row. People were wearing about 5 layers of clothes and huge jackets. This was really a race for the public and not so much the regular runner. I ran it last year, and it was fun. The free hockey tickets are also a major draw, esp this year when the Preds ROCK. The gun went off and the mass chaos of this race followed. We ran slowly with the crowd, and enjoyed the antics of the group. One guy asked how he was supposed to know where to go??? I'd say follow the hundreds in front of you.....Brent kept telling me to slow down, and I tried to take it easy. It was certainly my worst 5K time in a long, long time. When we came to the final .1 push we made our way to the outside left and headed straight when the racers turned left to run through the finish line. A volunteer looked at us and said "Keep on going, you need to finish!" I told her we weren't in the race, and we had about 15 more miles to go before we were done! She was a little.....shocked. We kept on trucking up to Music Row and stopped at the piano statue for some Clif Bloks. I tried the margarita flavor and spit it out. WAY too salty for me. With all of our company gone I was bored again, and cold and grouchy. We ran through some of the Music Row neighborhoods for a few miles and then decided to cut the run short and stop in at the brand new urban HG Hills store at the bottom of a new condo/loft building downtown. Very cool! They have lots of fresh veggies, a great selection of fresh meat and cheeses, some AWESOME looking desserts and just an overall nice selection for a small store. There's also guest parking in the parking garage for anyone who wants to visit the store and not find a meter or spot downtown. I REALLY wanted to buy a Butterfinger cake dessert but I only had $3 and it was $2.99. I would have happily carried it the 2.5 miles we still had to run home!! But, since our sales tax is 9.25%, there's no way I could get it. Oh well. We finished the run up, and ended up with somewhere around 13 miles. The best part was jumping in the race, for sure!! I more than made up for my missing miles with my run on Sunday.

And of course more cold temps & snow are predicted for this weekend. How did we go from global warming in December and early January to having "18 of the last 23 days below average temps" (according to the weather ppl)? I just don't do well in cold, and I really wish Atlanta was this weekend because I'm really ready to just run the race and then focus on shorter distances like the half and just run for fun.

Another Excellent Use of the Treadmill

Treadmill or Tanning Bed? You decide.
I tried it out myself today and I have to admit he's on to something. There's nothing quite like stretching out in the sun indoors while it's 20-something degrees outside.

I hope you're all having a great weekend! I have loads to tell you about someday such as how Brent and I may (or may not) have been race bandits today, how the word "Virago" means "good food, tiny portions, big price tag" and about our shopping spree at Home Depot! But for now, all that news has me beat!

Rae

Just say no to Man Tights

Hey all! Hope your week is going well and the best part is it's almost half over!! Come on weekend!

SO, back to last weekend. Sat morning was our 15 mile long run. Just like the rest of the country we were under "Winter Blast 07" watch and it was hella cold. I think it was around 23 degrees around 9:30 when we headed out to run. FAR too cold for me!! (And I know it's been a lot colder than that where a lot of you guys live but it's all relative! This is the South!!) As soon as we started out I knew it was going to be a LONG run - the wind was making me tear up involuntarily, making me voluntarily want to tear up! We ran the same route we ran last week, but added on the 4 mile loop we skipped. So, once again we ran from our house, past the Stadium, into downtown, up Music Row, past Belmont Univ, on to Athlete's House to refill our water bottles and enjoy some of their Gatorade and then out to a little 4-mile neighborhood loop before heading out. The great thing about this course is that most of it is part of the Country Music Half Marathon course. It's also great training for Atlanta because Nashville is hilly and so is the Georgia course. On our way out we ran into the wind, mostly uphill, around 10 min miles. On the return trip we ran with the wind at our backs, more downs than ups, around 9.30 miles. We split up to run our own paces for the last 1.5 miles and I finished my last mile sub 9 mins, uphill. Go me!! There's a long hill in Georgia from mile 23 to 24, so I'm working long ups into the last portion of our runs. That's really not hard because no matter which direction you head back to our house it's a long, steep uphill. It was a cold run, challenging course, and I felt good at the end. I could've run 11 more miles, even on such a brutal day. But there was one thing bothering me.....

I don't have a nice pair of running tights. They're so pricey and since we don't have very many truly cold days I've never invested in them. I have some lighter weight running pants and some super thick fleece lined running pants but no tights. Brent has TWO pairs of tights. So, Sat morning I asked him if I could wear a pair. He was nice and let me wear his good Mizuno ones. From the get-go I could tell they were a little uncomfortable in my non-man parts. As the run went on they were more and more uncomfortable, and my last miles were probably faster because I wanted to be rid of them ASAP. But wow, I had NO clue. Let's just say the degree of chafing I had in a very personal area was pretty unbelievable and insanely painful. Brent was a little sore and chafed in various places post run, but all weekend he started sentences about his aches and pains with "I know you're hurting more, BUT.....". Thankfully time and loose pants has greatly helped because I was NOT looking forward to the very embarrassing and personal visit to a doc for THAT one. I'm not sure what's different about man tights but I will never be wearing them again. And don't bother asking for pics, because there won't be any!

Sunday morning I was shocked to see a fresh coating of snow on the ground!! I quickly laced up my trail shoes, thanked Pippin for waking me up far earlier than I needed to get up, and headed out for a quick run. It was truly just a dusting - MAYBE a half inch - but enough for me to enjoy! I think it was 17 degrees or something ridiculous. I grabbed my cell phone and bundled up. In most spots in our neighborhood I was the first pair of tracks through the snow. Every once in a while I'd meet a dog walker - one called me "crazy" - but wasn't he out there too??? I looped our neighborhood and the lake at Shelby Park to make a quick 3.6 mile run. When I got back Brent was up so we took Pippin for a quick walk so Brent could enjoy the snow, too. By the end of my run most of it was already starting to melt!! There wasn't enough for a snowman but we did have a decent snowball fight.





















As much fun as we've had in our two tiny snows I am ready for spring and short sleeves and tank tops and yardwork!! And I'm scared to death about what our next heating bill is going to be!!!!!!!

My fave pic from Sunday's snow: These two boys headed to the park to sled on .5 inch of rapidly melting snow. It really doesn't take much snow here to create a sledding frenzy. I was the same way growing up.













Take care!
Rachel

WIDTW-
Sun - 3.6 mile run, .8 mile walk with Pips
Mon - 45 mins Killer Butt, .6 mile walk with Pips
Tues - 4.25 mile run, .6 mile walk with Pips

Winderwonderland

Hello! Happy February everyone and I hope wherever you are you're warmer than I am right now. BRRRR! I have a serious problem with my bum being cold all the time in the winter. What's the deal??? On a Racheal Ray episode I was watching last night a girl asked Dr Manny why her hands and feet were cold all the time and he said she had too much caffeine (and she admitted being a caffeine-aholic). Considering I RARELY have caffeine (maybe one glass of soda every other week, and only decaf coffee for me, about once a week) what's my problem?? If there's something I could eat or not eat to warm this bum up I would. It's ridiculous.

SO, back to "Winter Blast 07", which is what the news dubbed the expected Armageddon of snow we were to get Wed night. It's huge people, check this out:














I know, that's a ton of snow!!! What a disappointment. Counties to our south got a little more snow, and some of them closed school for absolutely no reason. Half the schools in our part of the state had been closed most of the week for the FLU anyway. Huh??? I never got out of school for things like the flu. It's no wonder our schools are rated so low nationally. It's pretty hard to get educated when you're closed all time for rain, flu, and microscopic snow.

Thursday night the weather peeps said we might get "a little snow". Whenever they say that it means we are definitely going to get snow. When I woke up Friday morning I peeked out the window and everything was white. YAY!! It was still coming down lightly. We ended up getting about an inch of snow, nowhere near enough for an adult snow day. It was so beautiful!! With no reason not to be able to make it work we headed out and kept our fingers crossed that it wouldn't melt while we were slaving away for the man all day. I swear Friday was the LONGEST.DAY.EVER. I'm nowhere near a window so I took a few field trips to the closest window a few times throughout the day for a "snow status update". Snow was still on benches and tree limbs, so I was hopeful until Brent said he'd gone out at lunch and most of it was gone. Driving home was so heartbreaking, most of the snow was gone and I knew our snowman building chances would be practically nill. Most of the snow was gone from our front yard, but the shady parts of our back still had a little. Brent got home a few minutes after I did and once we all bundled up we went out to play in what we still had. We built two of the tiniest snowmen ever. Reeses and M&Ms made eyes and our baby carrots gave them some very large noses. Transporting them to the front porch was pretty easy work.




















Pippin is not a big fan of snow. He spent about two minutes in the snow, ate part of a snowball and then wanted inside BADLY. He hasn't minded walking in the cold this week, but just standing around in the snow was not for him. We've been sure to keep him bundled in his sweater when we walk this week, esp since his one leg is still quite hairless! 22 days post surgery and he's doing great. He uses all 4 legs about 95% of the time and is becoming very active. He's jumped on and off furniture a couple of times and taken the deck stairs a few times before we could catch him. One more week and we can start leaving him uncrated some of time while we're gone and increase his "freedom" around the house.

So what is "Winderwonderland"? I'm not exactly sure myself. Even this tiny amount of snow creates massive amounts of excitement here in TN. Everyone is talking about it, including my mother. "Winderwonderland" was the title of the last email she sent me, yesterday, where she talked about the snow in their part of TN and sent some pictures. She's not a speller. Maybe she's trying to learn German. =)





And for my fave pic from "Winter Blast 07"...........because you just never know when the snow is gonna melt and the sun is going to heat up:









I hope you all had a great weekend thus far! We ran a COLD 15 miles this morning that I'll talk about in my next post.....it was a bit.....eventful. Running it was the easy part today! Take care!

WIDTW:
Wed (post blog):20 mins abs
Thurs: 4.75 mile run, .6 mile walk with Pips
Fri: rest day, .6 mile walk with Pips
Sat: 15 mile run, .6 mile walk with Pips