Mother Racer

Wednesday: Today was another day of babysitting, errands, cleaning and putting the neighbor’s little gifts together. Our Christmas activity for the day was putting together the little gifts.

We put a lot together! Shortly after, I went with Rebecca and Rick Carter from the Clarion Gardens to some mansion in the Salt Lake area for a catering event. It was a beautiful and very large home.

We catered for a political party for Governor Herbert.

The catering went well and very smoothly. It was interesting to hear what the politicians had to say.

We didn’t get back until late!

Thursday: I watched my friends little girl for a little while this morning…

… Then I headed off to my daughter’s kindergarten class to help with testing…

Corom went to our 1st grader’s (2nd child) class and read a Christmas book to the class and then made a candy cane reindeer.

For our Christmas activity, we took the neighbor’s gifts around…

It’s nice that my kids are old enough to run to the doors… It saves time and I can be lazy sitting in the car. 🙂 We headed over to Rachelle’s place (my running buddy). A few other friends- Amber, Melissa, Scott, Amber, Megan & Travis and all the kids (yes we all run together) came too and we swam, ate and hung out in her community pool place. It was great! And warm!

The girls went to bed (at 7) and I went to help the Carter’s at the Clarion again for another Christmas work dinner. Corom had to leave to for a church meeting (a neighbor came and stayed with the girls). I did lots of dishes tonight. 🙂 Another late night… Good thing I am not getting up in the morning for a run.

Monday: Well I slept in until 6:30 (when my kids got up)… That gave us 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Of course I took the day off of running. I plan on taking the entire week off of running. I need the break physically and mentally! I have had so many emotions run through me today. I am excited that I was able to get a PR in the marathon. And I know that I should be extremely happy about it but I am still bummed about the outcome of the race. I just keep thinking, why was I not strong enough to push through that last 4 miles! That’s all I had left, just 24 minutes left of my race… But of course the 24 min turned into 30 minutes and I lost the pace that I was on. I know that each and every runner goes through the same trial and we all go through the same mental issues… But that is the beautiful thing about us runners; we understand each other and we are always lifting each other up. I have had so many wonderful people call, text, stop by, etc, with nothing but praise and encouragement! Half of them coming from the HS cross country team… Good kids! Well… The race is over and now it is time to take a break. But, in a couple of weeks I will be starting all over again and now I know where I need to work on. I have a couple of races in mind… One of them being Grandmas in Minnesota again. I want this more than I did before CIM. 🙂 For my day today… I felt like a zombie. I was tired but had no time to nap. My 2nd child came home early from school because she wasn’t feeling well.

We just hung around the house all day. We put a couple of packages together for the military as our Christmas activity. It is nothing big, just a box full of treats.

In the evening, Corom and I went to his work Christmas party. The food was good and there were tons of people!

We headed home, both wiped out.

Tuesday: Another morning of no running and totally being fine with it. 🙂 I babysat today, worked in my 1st graders classroom…

, went Visiting Teaching while our kids played…

, then headed back to school for PTO stuff. We have a little too much fun with all the school stuff.

We have a good group of people on the board! It was a busy afternoon with many people dropping by tonight. Corom had church meetings and then went to a movie with a couple of friends. Camille came over and her and I watched a movie and hung out. It was nice and I stayed up late… 🙂 It’s been awhile since I’ve done that.

Today is race day… Our wake up call came at 4 a.m. I was able to wake up real quick! So were the other 2. We all had the nervous, jittery thing going on. We caught the elite bus at 5 to head on up to the starting line.

It was a good morning, nice cool weather, 100% humidity (which was a bit much but ok) and I felt good. The starting line was amazing… The atmosphere of many of us trying to qualify.

The race started right at 7… We had a pacer with us the entire way… Chris Mocko and Kim Conley (ran 20 miles) the Olympian. They were 2 of the best pacers I have ever ran with! So great and motivating!!! The first few miles we all felt great and there were about 30 women in the pack.

Amber Green was right there with the pack and Emily Jameson pulled ahead after the 3rd mile. At about mile 8, I see Corom there cheering me on and then I noticed a sign with all my girls names on them! I was a little confused because I already passed Corom up but as I got closer, I noticed Rachelle Wardle and Amber Dunford there (my running buddies from home). They surprised me by driving to California the day before. I was so shocked and so happy! Such amazing friends. I saw the 3 of them throughout the course a few more times… I came across the 1/2 marathon at 1:21.21. At mile 16, I started to go through a mental breakdown and I fell a little behind from the pack. I noticed that there were not too many women left in the pack (about 8).

It took about a minute or 2 to realize this is way to early to be dropping from the pack, so I somehow got a “2nd wind” (with a little pep talk to myself) and caught back up. At that moment I knew I had it! I kept thinking… This is the day! I felt good and I only had 10 miles left! Soon… A 10k left and I still felt good… Still with the pacer, going strong. At mile 21 1/2 to 22… Ahhh… A different story. I Hit The Freakin’ Wall!!! I kept telling myself to dig deep, and I can do this… Well I couldn’t do it! 😦 I was mentally struggling along with the physical. At mile 25… I see Rachelle and she ran a little ahead of me to give me someone to chase (she didn’t want to run with me so I wouldn’t get disqualified but at that point I didn’t care about anything except for finishing). I was able to pick up the pace a little seeing her in front but my legs were done! (That’s Rachelle in the blue.) 🙂

I finally finished with a time of 2:48.43 (I believe)… A 6 minute PR but 5 minutes away from qualifying! A bitter/sweet race. As I was finishing I heard my parents cheering me in. 🙂 I looked over and it was so good to see my dad give me a thumbs up sign. At that time I was feeling so down, so it did put a smile on my face.

I was able to find Amber G. and Emily J… Emily was so sad about her race. She had to pull out at mile 17 and Amber was 43 seconds short of qualifying. So bummed for the 2 of them!!! We were all happy to have had the opportunity to be with each other and to get to know each other. But it is so hard to train so hard for 1 race and not have it come together! Very emotionally draining. I was happy to be done but wish I could go back to the last 4.2 miles (but don’t we all). I had a great support system and was around amazing people.

After the whole marathon ending experience, I showered up and Amber D, Rachelle, my parents, Corom and I went to a late lunch. We soon left to visit Corom’s brother and his family for a little bit and then off we left for home. We drove back with Rachelle and Amber. 🙂 We made a few stops on the way home… One was to McDonalds. I ordered our food and realized Corom had the card, so he made me run into the bathroom (no one was in there) to get it… He took a picture of me as I opened up his stall, so I took a picture of him. Sorry! 😉

We didn’t leave until 4:30 California time (5:30 for Utah). Yep it’s going to be a long drive home. It’s about a 10 hour drive. I will update this post if any exciting thing happens or if any new pictures are taken. Well it’s been quite a few hours after the race and I am still bummed about my race but a lot more happy about it too!!! Thanks everyone for the support! There is always a next time.

The cross country team and I headed for the Footlocker 5k race at 7 a.m. There were 12 different race categories and each race started 15 minutes apart. Hundreds of runners per race. A fun meet to be at. They do have a open race for anyone not in high school… I have always ran that race but not this year. I was a little sad about that but the other coach (coach Thompson) ran it. 🙂 The kids love seeing the coaches race.

Our high school kids ran well. This is a tough course with major hills. We had a senior in the seeded race… He ran very well!

Now that their race is over… They are going to Disneyland the rest of the day. Corom and I packed up our stuff and began our 6 hour drive to Sacramento. It was a nice drive other than the fact I had to stop and use the restroom every hour and a half. I am trying to drink a lot more water than what I usually do but I seriously have to go to the bathroom all the time! (I really only drink a glass of water a day if even that… I am horrible!!!) We finally made it to the expo… CIM here we are. We met up with Emily Jameson, Amber Green and Walter Brown. All phenomenal runners!

We walked around the expo, went to the “meeting” for runners that are trying to run at a faster pace :), walked around town, & ate dinner.

We eventually made it back to our hotel at the late hour of 7:30. 😉 Of course we stayed up and talked for awhile. These 2 women are so amazing!!!! Very uplifting and encouraging… I want the best for these 2 and so hope they qualify and reach their goals!!! And as I was writing this… Amber have Emily a little gift. 🙂

Well… Here we go… We shall see how tomorrow goes… Thanks everyone for your support. Be thinking 2:42!!!

Thursday: My alarm went off at 4:50 a.m. and off I went on a 4.1 mile run in 31.40 (7:42 pace). It was a nice recovery run and a nice run before the long bus ride to California with the HS cross country team. I got back around 5:30 to help get everything (kids, lunches, backpacks, Corom and myself) ready… The bus leaves by 7. We took the girls to a neighbor and off Corom and I went!

48 kids and 6 adults (chaperones and coaches) on the bus… It was fun… Is that sad to admit? 🙂 We did play the game I-Pod ideal. You put headphones in, turn the music all the way up and sing. You can’t hear yourself sing… Yes you sound horrible. Even the good singers didn’t sound that good. Me… I am a horrible singer and doing this made it even worse. I started off to “set the tone”… Yep not high standards but I made it so everyone else felt comfortable.

I really wish I could put videos up but I can’t so you don’t get to hear it. 🙂 Feel blessed! Once we arrived to our hotel, we went on an “adventure” run. Corom led the pack. Not a good idea. He took them over walls, dumpsters, railings, through neighborhoods-with Christmas caroling to a few houses-, though garage parking lots and side roads up the ally’s… 🙂

The kids loved it. I hung back with the kids in the back… It felt good to do a run after being on the bus. The jumping over things wasn’t part of my workout tonight. 😦 We later went to dinner (the adults)… I have no self control when it comes to food…

Carbs, veggies and salt, right? 🙂 Bed checks were at 10 in the hotel and off to bed I went.

Friday: We (the team) woke up early and went to check out the race course and to pick up packets. There were areas on the course that were too muddy so we had to talk them through the course.

It’s a tough but fun 5k course! I was able to pull away for a 5 1/2 mile run as they were getting their packets. I ran the 5 with 6 x 100 strides. My miles were way too fast (a 6:45 average pace). What do you do… tomorrow will be extra easy!!! The kids filled their time while waiting in line…

After, we all headed to the beach. We have a few kids that have never been to the ocean before. They were all sorts of excited! The day was fun. I did not get into the water for the sake of the marathon and because it was cold!

Once we got back to the hotel… We went to dinner…

… Then bed checks and bed!