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!

Crooked Road 24 Hour Ultra 2016

A lot has been going on lately! Both of us have been super busy with the end of the semester, finals, and school coming to a close before Christmas break! But before Thanksgiving, we were supposed to tackle the Crooked Road 24 Hour Ultra on November 19! I say supposed to because one of us (ahem... ME) got pneumonia and couldn't participate. The other one got to go, and so we are finally getting around to doing the blog post... 3 weeks later. Whoops! Anyway, here we go!

Mr. Marathon had to leave me at home for this event, and I was just devastated. I was at home, coughing and being miserable. I was diagnosed with a sinus infection, bronchitis, and pneumonia on the Friday, the day before the event. We had come up with a game plan, and by game plan I mean I would stay at home eating soup and being sad and he got to go run in the event. He drove up to Rocky Mount which is about 30 minutes from where we are, and he got there ready for the 8:00 AM start on Saturday morning. The weather wasn't bad (yet) and they were off!

So as the race started, there were a few people who started at a nice pace. Mr. Marathon was not tracking his mileage with his GPS watch, but rather he was just keeping up with the time. He was just keeping pace with the guys at the front of the pack. He said it felt fast, but why not?? After a few laps (each lap was 1.2 miles) the other guys that were up front started slowing down, and Mr. Marathon managed to stay steady. His first break was at the half marathon mark and he took a rest lap and just walked it.

Then he started back at it. As he was running, he decided his next break would be at the marathon mark. Throughout the run, since the event had a very nice fueling station right beside the course that all runners ran by during each and every lap, he could grab Gatorade, water, and snacks of all kinds and just keeping on running. As he approached the marathon mark, he decided to take a 15-20 minute break to really get some good fueling in rather than just eating on the run. He got to take some layers off because the weather had warmed up into the 60s! People were running in tank tops and shorts, or even shirtless!

It was time for him to get back to running until he hit the 50K mark. At this point in the day, it was late morning, and he was already beginning to notice some aches and pains, specifically in his foot, knee, and hip. He had noticed these aches and pains beginning to pop up since before we ran the Marshall University Marathon in mid-October when our training was still pretty intense. Despite his aches, he kept on going.


After the 50K mark, on towards the 40 mile mark, the wind started to pick up and the temperature started to drop significantly around noon. He had to start putting back on the layers that he had just taken off. The aches and pains were definitely there and started to get to him. Fortunately there were some familiar faces that had arrived. As he was walking past the aid station, or more importantly the SNACK STATION!, a little kid ran up to him and grabbed hold of his leg. Why does this kid look so familiar???? he asked himself. Turns out, it was his nephew! Then he looked up to the parking lot and saw his mom, his sister, and his niece! Not only did they bring their presence, but they brought FOOD! Hot soup and hot tea... mmmmmmmm! So he got to camp out in the back of their car and enjoy this awesome surprise! He had to put on a brave act and pretend that everything was fine so his family wouldn't worry about him. He said his goodbyes and hit the trail running again.


For the next 10 miles, he was trying to rest up but definitely keep moving. He finally hit 50 miles at around 6:00 PM. The aches and pains were still very much present and hurting him pretty badly, so he took a break before he did any more. After about 15 minutes he started trying to run/walk but mostly run to stay warm! He was feeling very drained and needed some energy or rest. So he passed by the snack bar (lol) and grabbed a handful of cookies. And by a handful of cookies, I mean like 12 (full size) cookies.... WHAT. He said he "needed the energy".... Anyway, this was at 55 miles, and so he snuggled up (with his precious cookies) in my car that he took (since it was big enough to blow up the air mattress in the back!) and he took a nap that he did not officially consent to.... Ok so then he woke up from this surprise nap shivering with handful of cookies. Bless his little heart. He looked at his watch and noticed that it was around 7:40 PM and he Facetimed me! He was very disheartened due to all of his aches and fatigue, and he really wanted to stop. At this point, I was trying to be encouraging to help him make it to the distance he ran last year (64.98 miles). I didn't really know what he was enduring, but all I did know was that I was freezing cold inside our house because of the cold wind that had moved into our area, so I can only imagine trying to run in it.

After we hung up, he was feeling discouraged because he was hurting so bad but he knew he had to keep going to 65 miles. That was the new goal at this point. It was about 8:15 PM, and it was dark and windy and cold and miserable. That made it all that much harder to get out and run, but he did! He changed into his tights (he had been wearing shorts up until this point!) and put on a few extra layers on top and a beanie and some gloves and got out and got walking to try to warm up (lol) his body.

When he made it to the 100K (62 miles) it was 38 degrees with 28 windchill! Brr! You also have to keep in mind that the weather earlier in the week was in the 60s pretty much every day. This was a rude (and very cold!) wake up call! His body was warmed up and he was trying to stay moving and wasn't going to stop until he reached his 65 miles. His body was still hurting, but he noticed that it was aching less when he tried to run as opposed to just walking. Granted, aching less doesn't mean it didn't hurt when he was running. Just a more tolerable pain.

As he hit 65 miles, he was walking with a few jokesters who were very encouraging in great spirits despite the conditions. They were carrying on having a jolly old time! So Mr. Marathon was able to keep on keeping on. At this point he decided to hit 70 miles as his new goal. As he was running he was thinking that he stopped at 62 miles last time so he should stop again at 72 miles. He hit the 72 miles mark with about 4 and a half hours left. He knew that he had to stay moving if he wanted to hit the 100 mile mark, which was a goal that was in the back of his mind this whole time. He got a burst of motivation and decided that he was going to run! He felt that he was running at like a 5 or 6 min/mile pace (his usual). Remember, he was not tracking his distance or pace with his GPS watch. But since there were people keeping up with laps and timing and yelling out lap count, they also yelled out his pace... and he was moving at a 10:05 min/mile pace. Which is a little different that 5 or 6 min/mile pace. He couldn't believe it, since he was pushing SO HARD, He decided to continue and just keep pushing and giving it all he had, even if it was a 10:05 min/mile pace.

He did a vlog series on his Instagram 
every so often... check it out!

Finally, he decided to stop and calculate how far he was and how long he had. He was at 81.5 miles. He did the math and he had 3 and a half hours left. And his body was hurting bad, still. He knew that he wouldn't be able to maintain the 10ish minute miles, and with 18.5 miles left, so he knew he would have to maintain at least an 11:30 min/mile pace. (He had plenty of time to do math to occupy his brain!) He knew he wouldn't be able to keep that up, especially since he hadn't even gotten to take a break from the last 10 miles he finished. He had to think: What's going to be harder? That I stop now? Or keep going and come just shy of 100 miles after going through all of this extra pain? At this point, he decided to valiantly bow out and accept his great accomplishment of completing 81.5 miles. This is 16.5 miles more than he did last year, and the total mileage was just a little over the equivalent of 3 full marathons! He also wanted to get home to his sickly wife (cough cough). So he said his goodbyes, and arrived home at 6:00 AM Sunday morning. He took a hot shower immediately trying to thaw out a little bit, then went to SLEEP!

Final thoughts: He fell short of his crazy far-fetched goal of 100 miles that he says he could have probably reached if he had started more conservatively earlier in the day. However, the aches and pains that he had would have probably still hit him because of the hard races that he had leading up to this event (cross country races, Spartan race, and the MUM). He is glad that he was able to recognize his limitations and not push himself to the point of serious injury. This just prolongs the 100 mile. Til we meet again, Crooked Road.

Long sleeve tech shirt with the logo!

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!

No More Mr. Marathon....

...because I am now Mr. ULTRAAAAAAAAAAAA MARATHON!  Yesterday I ran my very first ultra-marathon (50K).  We made a friend about a month ago at a 5K who had told me about this race, who was also going to run it.  Of course, I had to do it, too!  So, my chauffeur, Mrs. Marathon, drove me all the way to Fries, VA, which is two hours away, yesterday at 5:15 AM.  We arrived at the New River Trail State Park at about 7:15 AM before the sun even came up!  Luckily, I love the cold weather.  Not.  35 degrees is a little bit chilly for me... as in FREEZING.  Upon our arrival, this was the actual temperature.  I am NOT exaggerating.  Anyway, when we got there, I picked up my packet and prepared for the biggest challenge of my running career thus far.  I was well prepared for the weather conditions, though.  I stayed plenty warm and plenty comfortable, unlike some other runners wearing tank tops and shorts.  I was wearing a pull-over, running tights, and a beanie.  And everything I was wearing was thermal and intended to keep me warm!  Once the race had begun, it was a little difficult for me to set a pace so I had to start off slow.  I am not used to running on a trail, since all of my races and training occur on paved ground.  Once I found my trail-running groove, I ran at a good pace and I was feeling good.  Except for the fact that one of my ankles had started to hurt a little bit.  Regardless, I kept on running, and I ran all the way to the turnaround point (about 15 miles in), where I found my beautiful wifey  (A.K.A. my personal photographer) waiting there for me!  Then I got confused and kept running instead of turning around.  I got myself all turned around the right way to head back for the second half of the race.  I kept going strong until around the 20-mile marker.  Between cramps on my stomach and thighs, my right knee giving out, and both of my ankles and the tops of my feet hurting, I was struggling.  However, the course was beautiful, so I had plenty of scenery to admire, which was a nice (and welcome) distraction, despite my internal pain and suffering.  I was tired and hurting, but my body was still going.  Finally my feet were not allowing me to run anymore, but I was not going to stop.  I had to power-walk because I was not about to stop moving after all the hard work that I had just invested into this race.  Every second I felt like I could run, I would not hesitate to do so.  I finally got to the marathon split (at 3 hours and 45 minutes), and after that, my lower body was DONE.  I could not have asked for a better trail to run on because it was nice and flat, but it was still a trail, with loose rocks and gravel.  The rocks weren't big, but they sure were a big obstacle for my feet.  I had to continue to power-walk and run when I was able for the last stretch.  I absolutely hate walking because once I get a taste, I just want to keep on doing it.  Anyway, I eventually made it to the finish line in about 4 hours and 45 minutes.  I am very glad that I managed to finish the race and earn the title of ultra-marathoner!

Mr. and Mrs. Marathon

So first of all, allow me, Mrs. Marathon, emphasize that I am NOT running a marathon (yet!).  My current goal is a HALF MARATHON.  It just sounds super catchy.  And I might want to run a marathon... eventually (no promises though!).  But Mr. Marathon is currently training for the Richmond Marathon in Virginia.  He is running this marathon because his goal is to qualify for the Boston Marathon!  Hence the "From Bassett to Boston" part of the blog title.  This means that he must complete the Richmond Marathon in 3:05:00 or faster in order to qualify.  He has made a goal to run 100 miles in the month of September and 150 miles in the month of October in order to be prepared come November, when the Richmond Marathon is held.  He feels as though he might have a chance with the proper training!

I, on the other hand, am training for a half marathon as I mentioned above.  But this is not any ordinary half marathon.  This is the DISNEY'S PRINCESS HALF MARATHON.  Hence the "From Southern Belle to Disney's Belle" part of the blog title.  Even though I don't know if I am going to dress up like Belle yet.  I have been told I resemble Cinderella.  And Sleeping Beauty.  But I like Jasmine.  I don't know.... tough decisions!  Anyway, I began running last August and have been running 5Ks and 10Ks with some intense training and lots of motivation and inspiration from my marathoning hubby!  I feel like I will be ready to tackle 13.1 miles come February when we get to make the big trip from our little town of Bassett, Virginia, to Orlando, Florida!

We started this blog together to keep us motivated and keep track of our progress towards our current goals.  We will record our runs and experiences here, so we can reflect on our progress and remain encouraged throughout our training.