2016 Year in Review / 2017 Preview

Last year, we had a fun time reminiscing about our 2015 and making our plans for 2016 around this time. So we decided to do it again!

2016 was a tough year for plenty of people, that's no secret. It seems like there are infinite memes on the Facebook about how much 2016 sucked.

Since we are fans of MMA...
Mr. Marathon's brother is an MMA fighter!

For all the fans of Grey's, Scandal, etc. HAH!

But for us, we actually had a pretty decent year. Let's review, shall we??

Just a collage of some of our fun run-ventures of 2016!

In the winter, we traveled to Charleston in January for the Charleston Marathon (and both hit personal records!), he ran 105 miles in one week for the the What's Your Wall? challenge again, he nailed the rail and I ran it, and we got to do the Martinsville Half Marathon again. Then in spring, participated in the Blue Ridge Marathon & Star K 10K then hopped a plane to BOSTON! Then we had a really busy month of May! In the summer, I did the Runner's World Summer Run Streak (and then some!) and we got to do a new 4th of July race! Fall rolled around and he did some running and Spartan-ing, and I did some running. In November, we did our second marathon of the year and I achieved my marathon goal (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I got pneumonia that sidelined me for several weeks, and he completed his second 24-hour ultramarathon! My pneumonia also derailed my 100+ miles a month goal, but I made it November 2015-October 2016 (12 consecutive months) before I had to cut back in November and December due to doctor's orders.

Here are my monthly totals during my 100+ mile/month streak!

And now for our total running mileage from this calendar year:
HIS: 1,762.56 total miles in 2016

Hubby's "Best Nine" (most liked) pictures from Instagram in 2016

HERS: 1,122.68 total miles in 2016

My "Best Nine" from Instagram

PHEW! I'm exhausted just recapping all of this! As this year comes to a close, we realize just how much we have accomplished this year, in running as well as other aspects of our lives. Mr. Marathon is halfway through his Bachelor's degree, and I got a job teaching at a new school this past August!

We are so proud of all that we have done in 2016! In 2017, we have a few plans already in place. We will be traveling back to Boston for mister to run the Boston Marathon (4/17/17) again, and he plans to do the Blue Ridge Marathon (4/22/17). We also have plans to stay active, have fun, run a lot, exercise as much as we can, and take on other challenges/races as they come.

We wish you all a very happy new year and many happy miles in 2017!

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 !

Slumps and Spartans

Hello, everybody. We (I) haven't been blogging lately for a multitude of reasons. First of all, we haven't been racing a lot due to our summer slump because it's been hot and muggy and storming and ew, which makes it hard to stay motivated and keep going consistently. Second of all, we haven't done had many races to do because it's summer and therefore NOT race season, thus contributing to the summer slump. Finally, for the past two weeks, I have been in the midst of a personal struggle. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram or know me at all in person, you know that I lost a close friend two and a half weeks ago, which has been very difficult to cope with. I have been in an even bigger slump, not just in running, but in all aspects of my life. I have been slowly stumbling back to my feeble attempt at being normal. So, in that regard, I'm going to do some catch-up here on the blog. Here we go! But first, enjoy these then and now pictures of me and my bff since second grade who I will always remember fondly, while doing a random smile....

Ok so, the main thing that I haven't talked about on the blog that I feel like I need to is that Mr. Marathon is going for the Spartan Trifecta, which means he has to complete a sprint, super, and beast, which are varying distances of Spartan races, within a calendar year.

Back in April, he completed the Charlotte Spartan Sprint, which we never blogged about (shame, shame, I know). He ran it with a friend, and had tons of fun. Here are some pictures!

MUD

Looking TOUGH!

Jumping over hot coals

Victorious (and muddy) Spartans!

Showing off their bling

Last month, on August 22, we traveled to beautiful Wintergreen, VA for the Virginia Spartan Super race. It was a fun day, good weather, and a challenging course. I say it was a fun day for me because I didn't do it and I got to ride the ski lift up and down the mountain. Yes, I said mountain. For those of you who don't know, Wintergreen is a ski resort. Which means the entire course was on an actual mountain. Turns out, this is the reason that the Virginia Super is like, the hardest one. Leave it to hubbs to find the hardest one to do. Anyway, he and  his friend who did the Charlotte Sprint with him came to do the Super and brought his brother along. Here are some pictures!

The gang before getting muddied up

Climbing the cargo net

Artistic photograph of the cargo net climb

Climbing up a wall! Like a boss!

That obstacle that hubbs is too skinny to do:
There was a pulley with a sandbag that may or may not be heavier than his whole entire body.

  

Ridin' dirty on the ski lift

Panoramic view of the party zone

One of the most challenging obstacles

Rope climb over a mud pit

Jumping over the *huge* firepit OoOoOo So HaRdCoRe

His medals from the Sprint and the Super...
all that's missing is the BEAST!

Yesterday, he participated in the Patriot Triathlon which I will blog about soon. As for upcoming events, Mr. Marathon is currently running cross country for his college, Averett University, so they have meets until about November, and we will both be participating in the Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon in October.We have some exciting stuff coming up, so hopefully I'll actually blog about it and not fail miserably...!

wazUPwid our month-long hiatus?

Um, so we haven't posted in over a month. Let's take a moment for me to facepalm because of my lack of blogging.

This is me, sitting in front of the computer,
realizing I have stunk at blogging lately.

George Costanza knows how it is.

and in the spirit of Easter coming up....

Sorry bout that! But it's not because we haven't been up to anything, by any means.

In fact, before we even went to Ft. Lauderdale, Mr. Marathon tackled the wazUPwidis (hence the title of this post) Urban Run and Stair Challenge, but we were so busy in our preparations for Florida, we forgot to post about it! This race was an interesting change of pace. I was not brave enough to attempt it, especially the week before my marathon, but of course, my mister said....

.... and we headed north to Roanoke for this Urban Run and Stair challenge. This race was in downtown Roanoke and was a very interesting concept. It started on the street, but it ended up running through parking lots, parking garages, up and down stairs of buildings, across bridges throughout town, and on all kinds of urban terrain. It was roughly a 5K distance, factoring in all the elevation changes. He enjoyed the challenge, and won third place in his age group!

After the wazUPwidis Challenge and Ft. Lauderdale, we have tried to maintain our training fairly consistently, and one of us (ahem, not me...) is doing better with this than the other. He's been running with his STRIDE boys' running team, our running friends, with other friends he's gotten into running, and by himself. He has stayed plenty busy with his running! 

All 5 years' awards/finishers' swag

He decided that he had to keep his streak going with running one of our wonderful local races, the Martinsville Half Marathon (see previous years' posts 2014 and 2013). He has run it every year since the inaugural run on March 26, 2011, which adds up to 5 times running it! I have run it twice, but decided to sit it out this year. My time-challenged husband almost accidentally sat it out this year too, though. He pulled up to the starting area with 15 minutes to spare (or so he thought). Then, him being the social butterfly that he is, he started chatting with fellow runners, and getting ready at a nice, leisurely rate. Then, he decided to hit the portapotties. While in the portapotties, he heard "GO!" and he assumed that must have been a practice GO, or it must have been the 5K start....

LEFT: Original half marathon starting photo. RIGHT: For effect, we have edited Alfredo in, as if he was actually present at the official start

NOPE. It was the half start. He missed it, and he was still wearing his hoodie and sweatpants. Right at the start line, his clothes were off in a flash (well, his over-clothes... he kept on his running clothes... barely... just kidding!.... maybe....) and he took off. He started about 2 or 3 minutes behind everybody else, but ended up catching up with the front of the pack around mile 4, settling in at around 8th place. He ended up finishing 6th overall, 1st in his age group! What a way to go out with a bang, considering he had a birthday this week and moved up from 20-24 to the 25-29 age group!!!!

This race is like a birthday tradition at this point....
It always falls right around this birthday!

Race staff helping him quickly undress before the race...
I'm not sure how I feel about this...!?

Lonely start....

Catching up

Mile 7ish

Mile 9ish

Victorious finish, nonetheless

He has some upcoming events, including a Spartan Sprint race, the Blue Ridge Marathon, and the Off The Rails Sprint Triathlon coming up this spring, and hopefully I won't forget to blog about all of these exciting events!