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.