Light Up the Night 5K and Announcement-that-everybody-already-knows #2

This past Saturday night was one of the most exciting races Martinsville and Henry County puts on! The Light Up the Night 5K! This race benefits Girls on the Run and STRIDE, and as you know my mister and I have been coaches for these programs. Obviously we are supporters of these programs and what they stand for. We both had changes in jobs and school, so neither of us were able to coach this season. Regardless, Mr. Marathon decided to come out and support the cause and run this great race, which ended up being Miles in Martinsville's BIGGEST race to date with well over 500 people! That is so exciting to have so much support from the community for these wonderful programs! Teams were present from not only within Martinsville and Henry County, but it has spread to other surrounding counties as well! WOW!!!! So Mr. Marathon enjoyed the run and ended up placing 2nd overall with a NEW PR OF 18:17 WHAT IN THE WORLD OMG!!!!!!!!!! Ok, so that was really weird but it does express my excitement for him!!! YAY!

Flying in to the finish!

2nd place overall! 

And I feel the need to answer this question publicly because I was asked this so many times: Why didn't I run?
Unfortunately, I haven't been doing speed workouts or enough hill workouts to conquer that course. I have been focusing on distance, mainly. I did go out and volunteer, though. Oh, and I was sick the entire week before. Oh, and although I was sick I had to do my 7 mile training run Saturday morning before the race. But I was so happy to still be a part of this event. Maybe next time! :)



So on to the second part of this post: Announcement-that-everybody-already-knows #2. We meant to make this a big grand blog post, but we needed to go ahead and begin advertising on Facebook before we got around to blogging about it, so our here is the post that was supposed to announce it.

Mr. and Mrs. Marathon invite you to run to see and hear the good news! Christmastime is all about Jesus, right? Jesus is the reason for the season! Jingle for Jesus is a Christmas Eve 5K run, walk, or run/walk to see the birth of Jesus. Obviously not like literally, but there will be a LIVE NATIVITY SCENE at mile 1.5 of the run. Come on out and get your jingle on and celebrate the birth of Jesus! And if you don't feel like running, we'd love for you to help out and volunteer! Hey, you. Yeah you! I can tell you're interested, so email jingleforjesus5K@gmail.com for more info! See you there!

Race flier... feel free to share this with friends, family, strangers, whoever! (PDF version can be obtained by emailing jingleforjesus5K@gmail.com if you want a better copy)

Registration form (PDF version can be obtained by emailing jingleforjesus5K@gmail.com if you want a better copy....
or you can just a form on race day!)

Turkey Day 5K + Announcement #1

As many of you are aware, Thanksgiving was a few days ago (ok, like a week and a half ago, but who's counting????). Mr. Marathon and I participated in our hometown Turkey Day 5K again this year. We ran it last year (and didn't blog about it- gasp!) and we had such a great time that we ran it again this year! This race was merely a shake out recovery run for Mr. Marathon as he had just completed the 24 Hour Ultra (but he still placed 2nd in his age group). And I... finished... so there's that.

One of our nieces running! (she's bib 1276)

Coming in to the finish

Alfredo Garcia's results: 2nd place in age group

Elizabeth Garcia's results: 7th place in age group

Showing off his award

Another niece ran as well! 3rd place in her age group!

Ahem, anyway, obviously the holidays are a busy time, and busy time leads to some people having less time to blog (cough cough ME). And this year is no exception. I mean, come on, it has taken me a week and a half to blog about the Turkey Day 5K! But this time this year, some of you may have figured out what's been taking up most of our time here lately. Both my mister and I have started talking a little bit about our next big race. If you have talked to us in person lately, or if you follow either of us on any social media platform, you may have heard us talking about Charleston, or seen us use the hashtag #trainingforcharleston. And that's because we are indeed training for something in Charleston-- we are going to run the 2016 Charleston Marathon in January! We are super excited and we are now 6 weeks out from race day. I have been on a training plan since October after rebuilding my mileage all summer (recovering from Ft. Lauderdale and running burnout), and of course hubbs has just been running nonstop anyway. Regardless, we are looking forward to our upcoming marathon, and in case you didn't figure it out, this was one of our big announcements that we have been alluding to at the end of our posts. But stay tuned, because there is another one... coming soon.... ok soon-ish... I promise!

And now, to end on a thankful note since it is (ok, was) Thanksgiving. Here are a few pictures of things/people we are especially thankful for here lately.

Our parents

Being able to enjoy the beauty of nature
and all that cheesy stuff while we are out running

Having healthy bodies that we can push to reach our goals

I'm thankful for how photogenic I am...
PSYCH
but seriously all my race photos look like this.

And of course, we are thankful for each other--
we are built in buddies so we never have to go it alone,
motivational coaches,
and support staff for each other
in running and in everything else.

Crooked Road 24 Hour Ultra with a Dash of Star City Half Marathon

Last weekend sure was a busy one for a weekend that neither of us had official plans to participate in any races whatsoever. Like I had mentioned in previous posts, Mr. Marathon was able to participate in the Crooked Road 24 Hour Ultra Marathon at like the last minute due to someone who dropped out. This run took place in Rocky Mount, VA, which is only 30-45 minutes north of where we live. It is so crazy that such a splendid 24-hour event like this is located so close to home! Well, hubbs wasn't allowed to have all the fun, and I had a long run on the schedule, so I signed up on a whim to do the Star City Half Marathon in beautiful (hilly) Roanoke. I did the Star City Half Marathon in 2013, and it was rough, so I was very hesitant to do it, but I am glad that I did!

It was cold in Roanoke!

So let me run you through our entire weekend (HAHAHA GET IT? RUN!!!) . It all started bright (dark actually) and early Saturday morning when we both woke up before the sun and parted ways around 6:30 am: me to Roanoke, him Rocky Mount. I arrived at the starting line in Roanoke with just (barely) enough time to hit the porta potty and warm up/thaw out before the chilly start of the race. While I was preparing for my race, mister was preparing for his. He took off with the group at 8:00 am to start the 24 hours of laps around the 1.18 mile loop around a quaint little park that was tucked away behind the city.

My finisher's medal!

Fast forward a couple of hours and quite a few miles later for both of us (13.1 for me, approximately 16 for him). I had a good run, finishing at a satisfactory time of 2:31:19. It was an improvement of over 6 minutes from Myrtle Beach with significantly more elevation change, so I'll take it! Anyway, I had finished my run and was on my way to Rocky Mount for hubby's event. He called to check on my and see how I did (insert AWWWWWs here so sweet I know blah blah), and he informed me that he forgot to pack his extra shoes and his current shoes had begun to give him blisters already! So he was on his way back home to pick up shoes and come right back to continue on running.

He ran like this the whole time, prancing about and whatnot.

So I'm going to break away from the narrative of the day to explain a little bit about this 24 hour event. It is a really great concept: the event goes from 8:00 am Saturday to 8:00 am Sunday. Like I mentioned, the course is a 1.18 mile loop that runners do laps on. The running club that puts on this event has great volunteers who mark the laps as runners come through. The best part about this event is that participants don't have to run for the entire 24 hours! They can take a break, take a nap, go eat, go home if they forgot something, whatever! So obviously that's what Mr. Marathon ended up doing.

Such a gorgeous little park!

After Mr. Marathon returned to the park with several pairs of shoes in hand (foot?), he took off again. And he ran. And ran. Oh, and he ran some more. He kept on running until mid afternoon, when we were planning on heading back home yet again for our Christmas Parade at 5:00 pm. We headed home and watched the parade, got our jollies, and then we returned yet again to the park where Mr. Marathon and I set up camp for the night, literally. We set up a tent so that he could take nap breaks and then go running so he could meet his goal of 50 miles. Throughout the night, I cheered him on from my slumber. It was very cold, so it was even more challenging to wake up every few hours, change clothes, and go run in the pitch black night! I wouldn't know, but that's just what he told me. Anyway, he got up to run at various times throughout the night at approximately 11:00 pm and 3:00 am to go run. I, on the other hand, did not. Regardless, he ended up finishing his miles and smashing his goal to little bitty pieces by around 5:30 am when he clocked in at ***drum roll please***......

Selfie with the 100K! Which he finished at like 3:15 am!
(he waited until the sun came up to take this picture, obvs)

He is very happy with his mileage total for this event. His goal kind of evolved in the days leading up to the event and during the actual event. At first, he thought he just wanted to run the longest distance he's ever run, which would be anything over 31.1 miles/50K. Well he secretly wanted to do more, so he set a goal to do 50 miles, which he ended up getting at around 1:00 am. He still had 7 hours of the event, so obviously the next logical step is to just keep running, which he did. He kept on going and decided to aim for the 100K mark, which is 62.1 miles. In order to get credit for his 100K, he had to finish the lap he was on, which gave him 62.6 miles. Contrary to what most normal people would have done (um, pass out??) he realized that he forgot to take pictures along the course! Now that the sun was coming up, he pranced off for another lap to get pictures. Then, when I finally woke up, he felt bad that I didn't get to see the course, so I walked part of his last lap with him. By this point, he had racked up 64.98 miles! Crazy guy!

He blew past this milestone around 1:00 pm!

He flew past the 50K mark by 4:00!

Our tent!
NOT PICTURED: our generator and space heater.... :)

We survived camping out!

Finishing off his last lap with 3 minutes to spare!

Taking a picture with
ultra marathon runner legend, Tom Green

He ran 55 laps, and he never got
tired of looking at this cute little waterfall!
Gorgeous!

The 24 hour event was definitely one of the best experiences we've ever had at a running event. It had a super friendly, encouraging atmosphere, and it was accessible to ultra marathoners of all levels! Not to mention, they had awesome food throughout the day, including candy, cookies, pickles, olives, pizza, hamburgers, peanut butter and jellies, cinnamon rolls, quesadillas, soups, sodas, and so so much more! And of course they had wonderful volunteers to provide these foods and of course they had great volunteers to keep tallies for the laps. It is just so amazing that we have such a world-class event hidden away right in our own backyard! This race is something that we (yes, we) are putting on our (yes, our) race docket for next year.

The face you make after running 100K+ and hardly sleeping
and you desperately need real food
and your wife says "Wait let me get a picture!"

My precious little ultra-marathoner!

Rest and recovery is the best part!

Because of the holidays, I fell off the blogging bandwagon, but hopefully I'll catch up soon. Mr. Marathon and I participated in the Turkey Day 5K a couple of days ago on Thursday, so we'll do a quick post about that soon, and those announcement posts that I keep alluding to at the end of each post are coming, I promise...!!!!! So stay tuned!

Spartan Sprint + Spartan Super + Spartan BEAST = SPARTAN TRIFECTA

As mentioned in a previous post, Mr. Marathon decided to tackle the Spartan race series with a friend of his. Now, they started out just saying "Hey, it'll be cool if we do a Spartan sprint race! Yeah!" and then it turned into "We did the sprint, we can totally do the Super!" which turned in to "Well now that we've done the Super we might as well do the Beast to make it the Trifecta!" which is when a racer completes all 3 distances in a calendar year. This is quite the honor in the Spartan community, and many racers aim for the Trifecta and will even complete multiple Trifectas.

So of course the boys had to do just that. They managed to complete all 3 distances within this calendar year this past weekend when we traveled to Winnsboro, SC for the Beast of the Carolinas. For those of you normal humans who don't know what exactly a Spartan Beast race entails, it is 12-14 miles of running, sprinkled with around 30 obstacles throughout the course. This particular Beast was a good choice, according to Mr. Marathon. It wasn't too terribly hilly (or mountainous like the Super....) and so it was a fairly fast course. The obstacles weren't bad, and he only had to do burpees at three obstacles (one must do 30 burpees when the obstacle is not completed): the rope climb, the one where they have to lift sandbags on a pulley (because the sandbags weighed well over half of his body weight) and the obstacle where he had to remember something that he didn't know he had to remember (...?). Anyway, it was a fun journey and now he has a cool huge medal where all 3 pieces of his trifecta puzzle come together and give him magical powers... jk.... or am I???? And now, pictures!

Taking selfies while stuck in parking traffic! We're so presh!

Start line and random strangers! Heyyyyy..!

Is this a Spartan race or a waiting room?
But that's none of my business...

Climbing the inverted wall

Now Dasher, now Dancer!
Now Prancer and....
Alfredo?

Climbing over the vertical cargo net

Spartan flag flying high

My little Spartan throwing spears, looking tough!
So adorbs!

um hay i'm a spartan

Finish time: 2:20:24! 2nd place in his age group,
despite having to wait in line for many obstacles.

All 3 finisher's medals and his TRIFECTA MEDAL!

 As for upcoming events, this weekend (as in 3 days from now) Mr. Marathon will be participating in the Crooked Road 24 Hour Ultra and I will be doing the Star City Half Marathon (signed up on a whim just tonight!) and as mentioned in other posts, we do have some other exciting things coming up... Be on the lookout for a couple of announcement posts coming !