Marathon. Been there. Done that.

So here I am in my first ever marathon. This is the White Rock Marathon in Dallas to be precise. Can you see me in this video? Ha! Yeah right! The race was organized in waves according to our estimated finishing times. I was in group "N," as in the 14th letter in the alphabet. There were 22,000 runners that day. I'm way back in the back beyond camera view.

So really, here I am.

My results are below.

This race was a once in a lifetime experience for me. Thanks Kevin for helping me make it happen! We have so many great stories that came out of training for this race and just as many surround the event itself. And thank the Lord we're not too worse for wear. For posterity's sake, I'm going to give you the blow-by-blow of the race day. Several funny/absurd/interesting things happened that I don't want to forget. So here we go!

Early Wake Up Call
Kevin and I both woke up at 5:00 am the morning of the race. We got dressed and I put on my new tights that I bought especially for the occasion. My plan was to wear tights with shorts on top, a long sleeve wicking shirt, a short sleeve wicking shirt, arunning jacket, and then a trash back on top. I had also planned to bring my water belt (with Gaterade), my stretchy bib holder with bib number, and my electronic chip already tied to my shoe the night before. We left Kevin's uncle's house at 5:30 after I crammed down about 5 rice cakes with jelly. Thanks Alan for driving!!! We had a few comments in the car about "why are we doing this again," and "why are we here," but I've heard worse. :)

The Wait
We got to Fair Park about 2 hours before the race, so we hung out in the car and stayed warm for a bit. We watched people in shorts get out of their cars and jump up and down as though they were warming up (I'll say it again: 2 hours before the race). After hanging in the car, we decide it's finally time to brave the crowds and make sure we knew were we were supposed to wait. This includes my 20 minute wait in line to go to the bathroom where several nice ladies were sharing their kleenex. Thank goodness more toilet paper arrived just before I stepped into the stall. We were originally going to meet with other family members who were running the relay, but we quickly realized that it wasn't going to be feasible. So then we hung out for a bit in one of the staging areas (in doors) until they started making announcements outside. Then Kevin and I split up and I went looking for sign "N" and waited with my group.

The Race Begins
I didn't start the race until an hour after the starting gun went off because of the staggered start. The "elite" group went first, then group "A" then "B" then "C" and on an on. Keep in mind that the temperature was in the 30s-40s around this time. So I'm trying not to waste too much energy, but I can't help but shiver and waste energy. I felt the need to go to the bathroom about 30 minutes into to wait, but I was afraid I'd miss out on the start. So, I made some nice conversation with one of the ladies waiting with me. She said that this was her second marathon, she ran one in Austin, and she was hoping to just break 6 hours. After hearing this, I decided to make my way to the front of the pack as we got closer to the start. No sense in having to pass a lot of people. Right before my group got to the start (like 5 minutes before), I found an empty port-a-potty. Impeccable timing.

On the Road
Minus the wait in the beginning, this was one of the best organized races I've ever seen. Every aide station had Gatorade and water. People handing out the drinks would often encourage me by name (it was on my bib). There's nothing better than hearing your name in a race! Some guys at one aide station all dressed up like women. They must have had at least 10 to 15 different bands playing along the way, most of them playing in people's front yards. Some people held up generic signs encouraging everyone. Others were more specific. One said "I love holding up signs!" Another one said, "Because Running 26.3 miles Would be Crazy." In big races like this, some runners also wear interesting outfits and unique t-shirts. I passed one girl diressed up like a carton of french fries and on her back it said something like, "At 100 calories per mile, you'd have to run 26.2 miles to burn off 2 large french fries from MacDonalds." I told her that I thought she was making a great statement. I saw several women with tutus. Not sure what that was about. Saw a couple of interesting wigs too. Several people saw my t-shirt and assumed it was my team name or something. Nah. It's just a local running club. :)

My friend.

At about mile 10 I felt the need for a bathroom. And low and behold, a port-a-potty appeared on the left side of the road. Only one person was in the bathroom, so I waited a bit. While I waited, I looked around at the houses in the neighborhood and caught my breath. Then it just dawned on me that this wasn't a racing pit stop. This was set up for construction on one of the houses. Ha! Oh well.... Had to get the job done.

As expected, the first 13.1 felt better than the last. My left foot started to hurt a bit like I expected during the last 8 or so miles, but everything else hurt just the same in the end. I had just enough Gatorade and honey along the way that I never felt like my legs were cramping. I have a feeling it might have something to do with the formula of Gatorade they used too (Pro Endurance). I felt pretty good, and I even sprinted towards the end and across the finish line after I saw Trina, Kayla, Brian, Cheryl, Kevin, and Seth. Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better marathon experience. I didn't meet my goal, which was to finish in under 5. But I'm not so sure it's worth it to train for another 6 months just to chop out 2 more minutes. I'm pretty satisfied.

After the Race

Medals and bibs looked like this.

This guy put a "finishers" medal around my neck and said to me "This is it. This is what you've been working for," or something very similar. I would have cried I think had I not told myself that I wouldn't cry just earlier that morning. It was a pretty emotional experience. But first things first, I went to the bathroom. Then I picked up my finishers t-shirt, some oranges (they gave me two, but I took 4), and then I went to find my family. Kevin gave me the biggest hug! I think that was what I was waiting for; the medal was just a consolation prize. I'm only sorry that our family of relay racers missed the buses to the hand-off points! But now they're all inspired to run their own marathon. And I'm sure glad they were there and could cheer us on.

After the race, I was sore. I walked dreadfully slow. But I didn't have any collapsing issues. We took a nap after the race and ate with abandon. Alan made the best tacos I've ever tasted. Ever. I can still taste them. With their beefy, corn chipy, tomatoey, lettucey goodness. I must qualify this statement, though, by saying that I think Alan could have made us oatmeal and we would have been in heaven. Kevin had more strength than I did after our nap so he packed up our supplies and drove the first section home. I was so very thankful.

The trusty travel mobile.

Day after the race
I felt pretty good! A little sore, but not too bad. Kevin's usually more sore than I am, but my worse days are usually the day of the run. So I made sure we had plenty of food. And we did nothing. Not a thing. The whole day.



The week after

I got the worst cold I've had in years. But we hear that getting sick after a marathon is pretty typical. I've still got symptoms, but at least I'm back at work and I'm able to run a bit again. My athlete's foot is back again, so that tells me two things: (1) yes, my imune system is fairly low (2) still haven't gotten rid of the nasty fungus that Kaiya shared with us last year at the exact same time. Lovely. Yet another reason for me to be thankful for the marathon experience, and yet never do it again.

Two weeks later
I ran two miles on monday in the 9s. Felt pretty tired still, but it's mainly because of the sicknessessess. Then yesterday I ran 2 miles in 16:06. That's an 8:03 pace. Wahoo! I'm looking forward to working on more speed rather than distance. I think I've got distance down. :) Unfortunately, Kevin's now sick with a cold. So I'll repeat this for his benifit: "Yet another reason for me to be thankful for the marathon experience, and yet never do it again."

Future
Not sure what we're planning on doing next in terms of exercise. But for now, we're going to relax! We're done! We did it! Been there. Done that.

White Rock Marathon This Weekend!

Kent: "Can I eat it? Will it move? Can I chase it?

I'm baaaaaccckkk! :)

See our new Christmas Tree? That means it's time to run! This Sunday, December 5, I will be attempting my first ever (and probably last) marathon in Dallas, TX and Kevin will be attempting this 3rd. We've been training hard. We've been eating good. We've rested up various injuries. Now is the time to perform. I'm excited, but very nervous.

Shiny! Must touch shiny!

The Run
Kevin and I have been talking and we've come to several conclusions about this race:

1. We're not going to do a marathon again, if not for a very long time.
2. We're bringing our own food for the day before the race, so no potty trots, headaches, or loss of lung capacity due to funky foods in the gut.
3. If Kevin's going to meet his goal race pace, it'll be because he's having a good running day and he's eaten that magic quantity and type of food that sits well on his stomach, so flip a coin.
4. If I'm going to beat my goal race pace, I'm going to need to pay extra attention to my race pace at ALL TIMES, which is hard to do when I normally like to zone out and just run.
5. I'm going to need to ignore foot pain for around half of the race. I'll see a doctor later if I need to.

#1 and #2 are pretty certain. Everything else is going to depend on us. I just hope to finish in under 5 hours.

The Food
In terms of food. I'm going to be cooking up some rice and bringing along some turkey and a few other easy to digest things for Saturday. I personally have to stay away from fiber the day before an extremely long run otherwise I'll end up spending more time in a port-a-potty than on the pavement. Kevin's probably going to follow my example as well. For the morning of the race, I'll be eating rice cakes with jam. Tasty? Not so much. But it's pure carb and pure sugar. So my inner chef is going to be on vacation, and in her place is Katherine "the machine."

For all the family peoples who will be running the marathon relay, hope y'all all have a good race and lots of fun!

Turkey Day Vaca

"I'm a beauty!"

I'm out for Turkey day, but I'll come back to blog the week after Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Ready for Some Relaxation

I don't know about y'all, but Kevin and I are tired and ready for a break from marathon training, house work, yard work, work work. A few holiday breaks will definitely help. Kaiya needs a break too. She's got it rough.

My new lap dog. She barely fits!

One Pot Wonders



Gingery Chinese Wonderland



I was born into a household of one-pot wonders, microwaves, TV dinners, 30-minute meals, and leftovers. Don't get me wrong, all the food was hand picked to be rotated often and it was all healthy. But food was always made to minimize time in the kitchen and maximize time elsewhere in life. So in case you're wondering, that is why I quite often create a lot of one pot wonders. Thanks mom!

Like the one above.

This one is courtesy of the shrimp my parents brought the last time they were here (thanks Mom and Dad!) and some fresh ginger that my mom chopped up and placed in our freezer (easy to use and way more tasty than the dried powdery stuff). Yummy!

Ginger Fried Shrimp
Ingredients
1 lb pealed shrimp
2 chopped bell peppers
1 chopped large onion
1 can of salt-free tomatoes
1 tsp of chopped ginger root
1 tsp of salt
1 tbl spoon of grape seed oil

Chop up all the veggies and fry them at the same time. When the potatoes are almost cooked, add the tomatoes and shrimp and stir well before the final cooking. Tastes great on spaghetti squash, vegan Mac and Cheese (with added goat cheese), rice, or spinach leaves! Serves 5 (leftovers, yeah!!!).

We used vegan Mac and Cheese

Cream-Cheese made out of Goat Milk makes this Stuff Taste Good!

On the Running Front
During my shorter runs in the middle of the week, I'm running a lot faster. I'm averaging in the 8s. That's just insane! If you think about it, I did my two mile run yesterday in less time than it took me to run my first mile, which took me around 16 minutes, in 2007. Never thought it would happen. Ever! Thanks Kevin! You said in the beginning that I could get it down in the 8s if I tried really hard. And I did!

Of course I've got two great motivators on my runs right now:



Muddy Buddies


The brown nose on the left is particularly helpful. Kent's still pulling a lot in the beginning. Kaiya (right) is more of a casual jogger like myself. She likes to stop and sniff the flowers (and poop) on the side of the road. No, I don't sniff poop. That's all Kaiya. I'm not a poop sniffer. No sir.

We are a day and a month away from my first marathon. We'll be tapering off a bit as time goes on (running more frequent 3-5 milers in the middle of the week and less extra-long distances on the weekends). Our final 22-miler will be two weekends from now. If we can survive that, we'll be ready for the White Rock! I'm pretty confident that I'll beat my expected race pace of 11 minutes per mile. My 20-miler (RP) was at a 10:35 pace and my last 11-miler (FP) was at a 9:53. Yeah!!! Whoop, whoop!

Miscellaneous
Next on our list of first-time home ownership is to purchase our first Christmas Tree! I'm excited!!! Doing the Katherine celebration dance! La la la la la! The tree we're looking at looks a lot like this one at Target (but ours is not going to be that expensive).

Quick Fix Tacos and Allergy Mythbusters

Fast beefy goodness.

There may be a good reason why people with food allergies are often the objects of ridicule in movies and other works of fiction. How we treat and mitigate our food allergies is not an exact science. So many bodily functions are interrelated to food allergies that I might not be 100% even if I stay away from the foods that bother me the most. Also, I can say that I know what will push me over my threshold, but that may be very different for someone else or it may even change over time for me. So where does that lead us?

To some good practices and some absurd rituals and myths.

For example one day: "Oh, I've been getting lots of headaches lately! This is a sign that I'm eating something wrong. What have I eaten in the past few days that's new? Or possibly old but problematic? Throw them out, throw them out! The ship is sinking! Abandon ship! Let's eat nothing but acorn squash and baked chicken for forever! That does my body good."

Two days later: "I have no energy! Need carbs! Food not digesting! Slowly melting, melting, melting...oh wait...I just had my period...that must have been the problem. Oops."

While it's good to utilize the elimination diet to get rid of bad symptoms, if used improperly it can screw up my life. In order to determine allergy fact from fiction, I always need to keep two people in mind: the Mythbusters.



Yeah, these guys are rock awesome.

Back in the earlier episodes they had this specialist, Heather Josheph-Witham, who'd help describe the background to the myths that there were about to test. She's a "folklorist." Below is an example of something she might say.

"Women's bodies, particularly their breasts, have been held in high esteem since the beginning of time. This is due to our ability have babies and provide them with life through a mother's milk. Our children then go on to idolize milk and milk products to the point that now, milk is in everything. It's a comfort food to which we are all emotionally attached. This is in a large part why we use that old adage 'No sense crying over spilt milk,' largely because we have to remind ourselves that milk really isn't that important." [And then they go on to test whether people cry when they spill milk.]

Yes, I wrote that in jest, not Heather. :)

But the history of an "adage" doesn't make a myth true, just like my known history with a certain food doesn't make my diet the law. While I might throw out one problematic food I might throw out five good foods at the same time. While I might be tempted to stick with certain foods, allergy medications, exercise, etc that have worked before, I could be limiting myself to a safe but very boring place and hurting myself in ways I can't even imagine.

It's no wonder our rituals are made fun of in movies and fiction. They look silly even to a person with allergies. There's a lot of truth to our quirky eating habits, but there's a lot of myth too!

To avoid living my life based on ridiculously stretched reasoning like those in my examples, I've got to keep an open, yet scientific mind while self medicating. I've got to be a Mythbuster and a scientist! I need to make sure that I'm only eliminating one thing from my diet at a time. I need to make sure that I don't grab onto one food like my life depends on it. When a doctor suggests only eating certain foods during certain pollen seasons, I've got to test it out for myself with no preconceived notions. I need to test and retest and retest my theories again, no matter how old my food traditions may be or how much I fear the pain! Because who knows, I might pleasantly surprise myself. Just like I've done a hundred times before.

So, here's a prayer for all of us with allergies, food and pollen. May God inspire us to constantly re-examine our rituals and never let us settle for traditions because their just "comfortable."

Quick Fix Tacos
Here's a tasty recipe for a quick and easy Microwave taco meat. You can substitute Turkey for Beef and throw in even more veggies if you'd like. Just make sure to cut up every thing small and stir often so that everything cooks uniformly. We like to make lots of toppings for our tacos while the meat is cooking. Or we use all the toppings as part of a salad instead of tacos.

Sides cut up the way Momma taught me.

Ingredients:
1 lb low fat beef
1 small onion (chopped)
1 bell pepper (chopped)
1/4 tsp salt
pepper to taste

Directions:
Microwave all in a Pyrex dish (so it doesn't melt the plastic) on high for 2 minutes. Stir and then microwave for another 2 minutes. Make sure you have a breathable lid on top to contain any splattery messes. Continue to microwave and stir until all meat has turned brown.

Eating Out this Weekend

I rarely rant, so please bare with me...

We should have done something similar...

The Conversation as it Happened this Saturday:
Waiter: What can I get for you?
Me: I'd like the BLT salad with
Waiter: No you don't.
Me: Yeah, I do. I'd like the BLT salad with
Waiter: No you don't. Really you don't. It's not one of our best items.
Me: Well, uh, I have several food allergies and I'd like to avoid them by ordering the salad.
Waiter: We're going to work on your food allergies here because that salad is not that good.
Me: I just want the BLT salad with the grilled chicken and a side of potato with nothing on it. Is that okay? [I can't believe I asked this as a question]
Waiter: That's like a $4 plain baked potato. You'll end up spending like $15 on no taste.
Me: Right, no butter or anything.
Waiter: Any dressing?
Me: Nope.
Waiter: Okaaayyy...[moves on to next order, while I excuse myself to the bathroom so I can cry]

What would have been fun if I didn't have self control:
Waiter: What can I get for you?
Me: I'd like the BLT salad with
Waiter: No you don't
Me: Yeah, I do. I'd like the BLT salad with
Waiter: No you don't. Really you don't. It's not one of our best items.
Me: Well, uh, I have several food allergies and I'd like to avoid them by ordering the salad.
Waiter: Well we're going to work on your food allergies here because that salad is not that good.
Me: Look you JERK, I've been "working" on my friggin allergies since I was eating solid food and pooping in diapers and it doesn't take a genius to realize that I might know a bit more about what I can and cannot eat when I look at a menu. I'm not an idiot. I'm not timid about trying new things like those high school kids in the corner. And you're not funny! Sure, I could have your steak, but your sides are either battered, buttered, or cheesed all of which I'd be happy to eat as long as you get to suffer with me to see how it feels to have a headache and diarrhea for three days. No? Oh, you don't want three days of torture? Oh, so you want to see if we can change another menu item to suit my needs instead?

NO!

See, I also learned at a very early age that you waiters have a limited amount of RAM when it comes to "special orders." You forget to leave off certain things if the list is longer than 2-3 items, which my list would be considering the amount of crap you have on this menu; the amount of crap that fills almost all restaurant menus. It may be tasty, but it's crap for all I care. Then I'll have to send back your pile of poo twice while my family finishes eating and I'm staring at their gravy, cheese, and chicken fried whatevers. Then someone will mention how great their food tastes; "mmm...this is good." Then I'll excuse myself so I can go outside and eat dirt from the front flowerbed to fill up my hungry gut.

I DON'T THINK SO.

No, I'd like to order something else. Something like maybe a SALAD and POTATO. You can't kill a salad or a potato when you order them plain. People like to eat out. People like to eat to socialize. I realize that. I'm hear to visit with my family not value what I eat, especially not YOUR food you righteous, pompous horse's rear-end. I will never enjoy eating out as much as I enjoy eating in. Ever! It's always, "let's modify this" and "let's cut out that." Until we have something with no taste that I could have made for $2 in the comfort of our home.

Do you think I LOVE salads? Does anyone just say instead of this mouth-watering chicken fried steak with gravy, buttery mashed potatoes, breaded okra, and mac n' cheese, I'll have this salad DRY? NO! But because I see crap that I can't have on your food and I know there's crap that I can't see on your food, I choose to eat salad when I go out. Unless by some miracle my 28 years of food allergies decide to take wing and fly away at this very moment, eating out sucks. It sucks! And so do YOU and all RESTAURANTS. But I do this for my family and friends. So give me the LAME salad and potato and MOVE ON! ...IDIOT!

INCONSIDERATE MORON WHO THINKS HE'S FUNNY BECAUSE HE'S TALKING BACK TO ME LIKE THIS IS WILL AND GRACE, AND HE'S WILL AND I'M GRACE. CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE AND GET AWAY FROM ME.

What should have happened (because what I said above would have been, of course, hypocritical):
Waiter: What can I get for you?
Me: I'd like the BLT salad with the grilled chicken with a plain baked potato
Waiter: Are you sure you just want a salad? We're really great at steaks, mashed potatoes, gravy...
Me: Yes, I'm sure.
Waiter: Any dressing on that salad?
Me: Nope.
Waiter: Okay, and for you sir...

What would also have been acceptable:
Me: I'm sorry, I can't do this. Let's leave.

Or:
Me: I'd like to speak with your manager.