There and Back Again Part 1

One Sept. 22 I ran the “Love the Half” half marathon in Irving, Texas. Now, this race weekend holds a special place in my heart since I ran my very first half marathon last year at the same place. Last year it was called “Heels and Hills and Him” the duded-up version on the “Heels and Hills” women’s half held in March. Anyway, all that info is pointless because they’ve killed the Him and changed the name. I signed up for the race because I thought the logo was adorable to this Yankee forced to live in Texas:

Sweet, yes?

I also had half an idea to make this my annual half marathon to celebrate how far I’ve come, blah blah blah. So I was signed up. A couple months later when I decided to do the whole, the marathon program I am using recommends doing a half marathon race as part of the training to get used to how if feels to race and the time between Love the Half and the Dallas marathon fit right in the training plan just by dumb luck, so yay for dumb luck!

Pre Race

On Friday I hauled the little boys out to pick up my packet, where you get your bib and timing chip and free shirt, and where, according to the website, “Free goodies await those that pick up early at the hotel! Also, this is your chance to purchase Love the Half gear and apparel.” Since I loved the logo it seemed like a no brainer that I would make the hour drive each way to visit this land of milk and honey and moisture wicking goodness. So Friday I loaded the boys in the car and made the drove. It was raining because apparently two tropical systems hooked up over Texas and were making rain babies all over Dallas. Let me tell you, getting out beast strollers and strapping boys who were missing naps into said stroller in said downpour is not a thing that is filled with awesomeness. Anyway.

I have been doing a lot of running blog reading and attended the Rock n Roll half, a running machine that is designed to suck as much money out of you as possible and so I’ve gone to one major race expo and read about the horrors thrills that accompany the clusterfrick well organized runDisney expos, and, well, Love the Half expo is nothing like that. It’s a meeting room at a Holiday Inn. Not like a ballroom. No, it’s a back room with a folding table. No goodies, no swag, to merchandise. I asked where the gear was the rather vague response I got was, “I don’t think she’s doing that this year.” Who’s She? Why not? Why promise me these things?! I mean I was all

And they were all, “LOL, Nope!.” So I left with my packet and a huge feeling of overall disorganization and a long drive for nothing that couldn’t have been done race day morning if there weren’t expo goodies. I got in the car trying not to be too annoyed  because in the grand scheme of life it doesn’t actually matter. Shake it off, Megan.

I bet its brains are still inside

This is not the first blog I have attempted, but hopefully it’ll be one that I can keep up with. I’m sure if you look to the sidebar you will see the littering of abandoned blogs. Don’t worry about reading them. Visiting them would be like going to the elephant graveyard (minus the hyenas). They are lifeless and not updated, so I am going to put my effort into making this one. Like anything else, I’m gong to have to work out a system of how and when I’m going to post. The problem will be that between the four kids, full time college and marathon training I sometime have to squeeze minutes out of the day just to brush my hair. So sometimes there will be several posts in one day, but hopefully there won’t ever be more than a couple weeks between posts. I think if I realize that not every post has to be a novella I will be more likely to think it’s okay to write what I have time for, instead of skipping it entirely because there isn’t time for bunches of ramblings!

Here’s to hoping, anyway …

Not all who wander are lost

I have a friend whom I have known forever and love dearly. She is a marathon runner and has been a huge support to me in all of this distance accumulation I have been doing. During one conversation I was mentioning to her how short runs are difficult for me. I don’t know why, but 2 miles is more difficult for me to do than 8. Her response was, “Like it or not, you’re a distance runner, sweetie!” It made me laugh, but I think it’s kind of true. For longer runs I just settle into the fact that I’m going to be doing this for the next few hours and go. With short runs I never get the chance to shake off the stiffness and fall into a rhythm. By the time I feel good to go, I’m done and didn’t really enjoy the experience. Just another one of those things in life that longer is better, I guess 😉

Now every time I go for a short run, I think of this scene from Cutting Edge (more specifically, the last 20 seconds):

two and a half minutes long