Maui Marathon Dreaming

I am a dreamer and I am dreaming.  I've been wanting to do a get away marathon but it really just isn't in our budget.  But a couple of crazy posts on Facebook got me dreaming and the wheels are spinning.

There's a marathon on Maui http://www.mauimarathonhawaii.com on September 21, 2014 and if I sign up in the next few days the entry fee is only 26 bucks!  As you know I am a sucker for $1 a mile deals and have already been suckered in by this ploy two times!!!

A friend of mine "A" had a post on Facebook about this and I of course had to do some investigating.  After visiting their website I toyed with the idea of signing up but the price of the whole she-bang woke up the realist in me and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it.  That's when my friend "M" piped up and said,

"Dats Y! You need to do a lot of baking gurl! Get those fundraisers starting! You get one year! Just go sign up. If doesn't pan out, then, all thats lost is $26 dollars. But, if you don't try, you won't know. C'mon! I'm rooting for yah!"

And that's when the dreamer in me started dreaming, the planner in me started planning, and the me that loves a challenge began thinking that it would be fun to see if I could think of a cool way to fundraise for this!!!




So....the current plan is to sign up and then come up with a creative spin to spark interest in my attempt to "RUN AWAY FROM HOME."  I am actually quite excited to use my creative juices to get my butt to Maui.  Actually training and running 26.2 miles will come afterwards.

Susan Komen Race for the Cure

On October 20th I will be racing for the Cure with hundreds of others.  This will be my third year captaining a team and it's something I am proud to do.

Breast Cancer has touched my life in too many ways.  We need to find a cure.

If you are able to, please donate to the cause and if you are interested, please join my team, "Balanced."

Click here for info about donating to the cause

Windward Half Marathon 9.8.13

Life has been absolutely insane.  We are in the midst of the Fall Sports season and N is playing soccer and D is playing soccer and softball.  Yesterday we started with a 9:00 and 10:30 double header of softball and followed it up with a 12:30 soccer game for one kid and 1:00 for the other kid. All in all that was 4 games, 3 fields, 6 hours and tons of sun.  Admittedly I didn't put any sunscreen on and didn't hydrate like I had planned to.

This was a recipe for disaster going into today's race.  It would be my 2nd half marathon in 15 days and in between the crazy sports schedule and the intensity at work I just haven't had the time to prepare mentally of physically for racing.

When I woke up this morning at 3:40 the negative thoughts flooded my mind,  "why the HELL am I doing a marathon again?"  "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"  "Enough already!"  I just was not in the mood for training but got dressed up in the cute Lulu outfit anyway.  We reached our destination with plenty of time and met up with new and old running friends.  This seemed to ease some of the negativity in my mind.  As we stood in line for the race the whistle went off unexpectedly and we took off running.

This is the 2nd time running this race and since I don't know the area well, it's just a little crazy.  We run through a lot of residential areas and up and down a few rolling hills as well as through traffic.  The constant turns keep my mind engaged and distracted.  All of my friends think it's weird that I don't run to music but for me, this is my quiet time to be alone with the thoughts in my head.  I talk to myself a lot...call me crazy but it's my time for reflection, planning, problem solving.

I ran the race pretty well, starting off with a 10:07 pace and eventually getting it to just under 10 minutes.  I've lost a lot of speed with my tender knee that's been bothering me off and on since the North Shore Marathon.  While not feeling fast I felt relatively strong in spite of the heat and humidity.  13 is actually a pretty good distance for me physically and mentally and I was happy to quickly get to my mental milestones:  half way point, single digits point, 5K point.  With about 2 miles left I began my kick.  I began counting people that I passed and was up to about 15 when I saw a man down on the side of the road.  He had just fallen and other runners had gone to his aid.  He was bleeding from his head but seemed to be conscious.  I am not first aid trained and there were many there so I continued running.

Honestly, I did not have much of a kick left but at the last half mile I passed number 20 and ran hard to the finish line.  Unlike previous races I didn't look at my Garmin or try to determine anything.  I was very happy to see that I made it in at 2:08 which is a minute faster than last week's Half and only a minute slower than I ran last year at this race.


And just like that, Half Marathon # 8 is in the books. I came in at 12th in my age group and feel pretty good considering that mommy hood has taken a huge front seat to all my personal goals.  No matter, it's time to make sure the kids are able to reach theirs too.  :)