Over the puddles and through the woods....

a warrior dash training we go.
Our feet help us run, we're having such fun

And we hope we break no bo-ones

(that word is bones, stretched out......sing it to "Over the River and Through the Woods" in case you were confused)

So.  Less than a week to go.  And I've been beyond delinquent with posting.  I do have a valid, legitimate excuse though, at least in my opinion.  I've been rent-a-nanny for the past few weeks on and off.

My brother is stationed at Fort Dix right now, and is a single father of a very active three year old boy.  He's currently in air traffic control, and is working his butt off, but is on shift work which consists of two weeks of days and two weeks of nights.  During his weeks of nights, he goes in at 3 and gets home around 11, so normally his son goes into a baby sitter's house and falls asleep there until Kevin is able to pick him up.  Enter Auntie :)

I've gone down three times in the last four weeks to help out with Colton (his son) so that they could have some home cooked meals and quality time.  I'm loving the proximity and the fact that I get to see my brother and nephew more, and get to help out.  That said, it's fairly exhausting parenting a toddler, so I've been negligent with my postings because by the time I get him bathed and down to bed I'm about ready to crash and usually do.

Training has been going wonderfully now that we have the expanded terrain/area on which we go.  It's such a help having the extension of ground to cover to make it as close to the dash as humanly possible.  Rich (the guy with whom I'm running) is just in amazing shape.  He sets the pace for going up the hill and I do my best to try to catch him.  He stays about 5-8 minutes ahead of me, and I try to keep him in sight distance.  Unfortunately, every time I get closer, he pushes himself to try to lose me.  It's a fun game of cat and mouse that has really stepped up our run.  We're able to do the whole 3+ miles in 43 minutes.  I realize that sounds horribly lame, but if I had been able to get a video of the road on which we train, you'd understand it's much more of a steep hike than a flat jog around a level track, so keeping the pace and time that we have has made us very proud. 

I'm anxious to run/hike/jog the dash again this year, knowing what I'm facing.  Last year I completed it in one hour, one minute, twenty seconds.  My goal was to knock off at least 20 seconds this year, but I'll do the best I can.  I'm doing light training this week, drinking protein packed chocolate milk (mmmmm, milk) and picking up our team shirts. Yes, you read right, team shirts. 

I have a former business associate who owns a screen printing company.  He and his business are awesome.  Visit it at http://www.mixtureprints.com/ .  Chris does individual custom screen printing if you have a self design or only need a singular or few shirts made.  So tomorrow I get the LBC Warrior tanks that were made so we can be matching on Saturday.  We're going to have LBC Warriors on the front and our names on the back with the dates we're running.  I'll have last year's and this year's, and Rich will have this year's dates.  Every event we do, and every date we run we'll have added to the back of the tanks.  And if we have anyone else join the ranks, they'll get shirts too with their names and dates on the backs of them. 

I'm exhausted at this point, but cautiously optimistic about the run.  I'm hoping I do better this year but again, having had surgery in January, as long as I finish I'll be happy.  And with surgery about a month away, I'm cramming as much into my remaining weeks as possible.  As is, I have no clue how long it'll take my body to fully recover from this one and if I'll have full mobility afterward. 

So I'll try to update once more with the pic of the shirts.  And then, on Saturday at 9am, we run, we hike, we conquer.  And I'll do a post update for y'all with pics :)  

Thanks for your love, support, and prayers.  It means the world to me. 

Love ya,

B 

she'll be climbing up the mountain when she comes.....yee haw!

Oh.

My.

Word. 

What have I gotten myself into again?  I've reflected several times this year on having done the dash last year, and whether I would have actually gone through with it if I had known what I know now about it.  Truthfully, I was as unprepared as a person could be (even though I thought I was) and yet somehow with no partner, pushed through and finished.  From what I can gather, it was only by the grace of God.  And my sheer stubbornness. 

Rich, Sarah, and I have started walking Old Indian Road, as it's pretty much a mountain doppelganger to Windham, just shorter.  Starting in mid May we walked the hill once up and once down (it's 3/4 of a mile each way) after church.  After almost passing out with the extreme heat we'd had, we've now switched our time to early Saturday mornings.  Throughout June we have been walking full up, halfway down, back up to the top again, and then full down, which is the equivalent of 3/4 of the dash.  Thing is, we're doing it with wrist and ankle weights on, so that when we actually get ready to do the dash it will be easier on our bodies.  Talk about ultimate strengthening.  Or just being plain nuts.  Either way....

We're able to do do the up, half, half, down, in 40 minutes, which isn't terribly bad with weights on.  What I'm hoping is to be able to knock a few minutes off my time from last year.  Again, though, having had surgery in Jan, as long as I finish I'll be a happy happy girl.  I'll see if I can do a vid this Saturday and post it so you get an idea of how steep the hill that we're training on is.  It has this one point where we kind of have to hike it or we'd roll. 

The awesome thing is, I've resumed chocolate milk after exercise mandate, so we all get to thoroughly enjoy Stewart's chocolate milk upon completion. 

What we're going to do is round out June with the full, half, half, full.  We'll do July with two full ups (we'll do a car exchange thingie to make it as realistic as possible) followed by two full downs.  And for the first week in August, we'll take off the weights and see just how fast we can do the whole thing start to finish, knowing that we'll be running on on August 13.  Well, Rich and I will be running it.  Sarah is just doing the training for fun, but says that next year she'll run it with us.  Next year, though, I'm threatening both the dash AND tough mudder as long as I don't need yet another surgery....

So.  I'm going to start running the smaller hills around my house again.   I've clocked it, and I'm coming in at 30 seconds faster than last year on my mile, at 9:30, so I'm a bit encouraged about that.  And though I plan to hike up Windham this year and not kill myself attempting to run, I know I can run any little flats and the full downhill to make up time, and that excites me. 

Have heard I haven't updated this enough lately, so I'll try to start posting weekly with run updates, training tips, etc.  OH, and I went to my first ostomy support group meeting.  I'll blog that separately next, but how very interesting. 

Love ya!

B