I ran my 41st half marathon last weekend, the Dallas 13.1 Series. Pretty cool to have run as many as I am old. It’s been a crazy week or I would have posted about it sooner, but Peggy and I had a blast not sweating like pigs because it is 112 degrees outside. The run was good too . . . I didn’t start to even feel it until mile ten. Baby steps, Internet People, baby steps.

After the half, I jumped in the shower and headed north to play with my Martini Twin. But this time playtime was called paint the former bedroom and currently new wine room the color of Cabernet Franc. So, not only did I get lower body workout, my arms and shoulders got a workout too. We did pretty awesome if I do say so myself! Daisy approves, it is her new favorite room.

And now that I am finally rid of my gross bacteria, I have e.coli. [Insert big sigh here] [And big glass of wine here]

Yesterday Peggy and I ran the Tour des Fleurs 20k. It took us a while but we each sweated out the toxins and finished the race. Peggy was fantastic and she could have run much faster, but she was a trooper and stuck with me and my colon. She’s nice like that. I’m okay with going slow for the time being, I haven’t even been wearing a watch because my goal is to just get healthy, have fun and finish. Oh, and as always, we stayed true to the stay cute goal. Look how cute we are in our matchy, matchy TDF shirts:

I really wanted to stay longer after the race and check out the Dallas Arboretum, but our shuttle but was heading out. So, instead I’ll let you tour the RS arboretum. I’ve been making stairs. I put my heart rock collection in the top concreted area – because I’m fancy like that.  It’s only three steps, but I’m so proud of myself – it’s like a staircase to heaven. Except, ya know, it isn’t because they are smack dab in the middle of the gas patch . . . but if I hold my breath and close my ears, I can pretend for just a little while. I should totally take up professional staircase making! Stair making outside the gas patch!! And stair making with extra exclamation points!!!!

The first marathon I’ve run since Chicago 2008. I can’t believe so many years have gone by since I’ve run a marathon. I was on a roll for a while – 1-2 marathons per year since 2004. Then I crapped out.

This was probably the toughest marathon I’ve ever run.  It was hilly, humid, hot and windy. All my favorite things combined into one blissful marathon day. Of course, I’m sure not training and being 20 pounds overweight had a little to do with the agony. But I finished, and I was so happy that I ran a marathon I didn’t even care that it took me 5 hours and 49 minutes. There is a lot to be said for being in constant motion for that long. My favorite spectator sign during the race: “That isn’t sweat, it’s your fat cells crying.”

Mr. Thin Trade was kind enough to travel to Fort Worth and run the world’s slowest marathon with me. He would have run much faster if he had run his own race, but he was kind and stuck with me. And I’m glad he did – because my secret plan was to bail at the half.

The first half of the marathon was slow, but I felt really good. I felt even better at mile 16.5 when we approached a kind spectator’s smorgasbord of bananas, power bars, fruit snacks and beer. I often see people handing out beer to runners along the course, but this was the first time I actually partook – and I have to say, that was the most refreshing beer I’ve ever had. And I enjoyed another somewhere around the 20-mile range as well. It kept me going until the end. Proof:

This was the first marathon I’ve ever run that I didn’t end up with chafing all over my body. I’m attributing this to the near full stick of body glide I applied that morning. The only place I missed gliding I ended up with a mighty blood blister. And, oddly, I didn’t even know I had it until I took my shoes off when we got home.

Of course, you know what is coming up now. Pretty, eh?

The finisher shirt and medal were pretty cool too. I think the medal might also be a weapon?!?

But it wasn’t all running. There were plenty of social excursions over the weekend. The Modern, The Kimball, The Japanese Botanical Gardens, The 6^th Floor Museum, the wine, the beer, the food and my pyromaniac Chef’s campfire. A full and fun weekend.

Half’s are great, but nothing compares to the feeling of finishing 26.2 miles. I’d do it all again, I miss marathons. But I think I’d like to put in a few more miles of training before I do.

And in case you are wondering, running a marathon is a lot easier than fighting gas.

Sister Runner Amy and I ran the White Rock Half Marathon on Sunday. It was cold, we dated Galloway more than we didn’t, but we finished. At this point in my life, putting one foot in front of the other and moving in a forward direction is my goal.

Goal accomplished.

And then SRA made me work until my fingers nearly dropped off.

I needed a break, so I self-suspended my blog. I know, I know. But now I’m back and I’m going to try and be really good at balancing my life. It’s hard when you have bad gas, but I trust my lovely Internet People will keep me in line.

So, what have I have I been up to besides fighting bad gas and prioritizing my life? Well, let me tell you.

Sumy Designs got a much-needed makeover.  I like to think the entire world is powered by Apples, but sadly it is not, so take a look around and give me some honest-to-goodness feedback on all the pages.

And then, there was the Muddy Buddy. And it was muddy and I had buddies, but most of all I had a really fantastic time. I learned some really important things that day – like I need to be me and I need to make taking care of myself a priority – now is not the time to compromise my health. But most of all, I need to let my hair down a little more often; it’s good for my soul. And my soul is in need of some desperate healing.

In the midst of all the things going on in my life I sometimes forget how far one day of fun can take me. I forgot that I don’t smile very often these days, but with a little help form my friends that changed for a day.

Call me crazy, but when was the last time you danced in the kitchen to the Gap Band while chopping veggies just because it was fun? Or was on a mission – because someone, somewhere out there needed a beer – and who are you to deny anyone a much needed beer? Why not deliver those beers while riding a mountain bike for the first time without pedals  wearing a dress and a tutu?

Internet People, especially those around my neck of the woods with really bad gas, if I can give you one piece of advice it would be to take a break and do something fun or wild or crazy.  Take your friends and give yourself a little mind some piece of mind to let loose and know that the world will be a better place for what we are doing. We have to believe this, it is what keeps us going.

So let’s talk about that crazy. Crazy like I’ve registered for the White Rock Half Mary in December with Sister Runner Amy, and crazy like I’m going to run the Cowtown full marathon with Mr. Thintrade in February and the craziest of all is that I’ve registered the for the Galveston Half-Ironman in April with my Muddy Buddies.

I need to get back on track, my mind and body are aching for normalcy. So, Internet People, I need your help. I need you to keep me on track and spank me when I mess up, love me when I do good and most of all, tell me when I get too gassy.

You can view the rest of the Muddy Buddy Photos here.

Every now and then, scattered about the science fiction novel that is our life, there are a few good days – and today was one of them. It’s a great time in life when our babies are finally old enough to run the races with us. Today, Kenza and I ran, swam, clawed and climbed our way through the Run the Jailbreak Adventure race.

And adventurous it was – by the time we got to the course the announcers were already shouting warnings because there had already been one broken arm, one broken leg and one serious accident.

When did broken bones stop counting as serious?

With that in mind, Kenza and I had a plan – stick together. Of course one mudslide and a waterfall later stick together turned into leave slow, old Mom in the mud and wait for her at the finish line. That’s my baby girl.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love that baby girl?

If you remember last year, my Martini Twin and I did our first tri together – it was great, except for the part where I didn’t know how to swim and freaked out.

Totally and completely freaked out.

Which, having never really swam before, was a completely understandable thing to do. But I was determined to finish – in all my years of running and racing, I’ve yet to DNF. I’ve walked, crawled and cried over a few finish lines, but I’ve always finished. That may not necessarily be a good thing, but as long as my legs are in tack, it’s a record I aim to keep.

I’d be damned if I was going to let a small thing like not know how to swim keep me from having fun at my next tri. So, in January of this year, in preparation for that next tri, I started taking swimming lessons, 3 times a week. And, Internet People, believe it or not I learned how to swim. Nothing record breaking, but I got to where I wasn’t constantly choking on water.  I actually got to a point where I even ENJOYED going to swim.  Take that evil water! It’s the small miracles in life that make my world go round.

So last Saturday, the Chef and I loaded up the bikes, all the gear and Cherry Berry and headed to Oklahoma for my second tri – the Lighthouse Sprint Tri. We drove for three hours with Cherry Berry loving us, without restraint, every mile of the way. The drive was just as annoying as the gif –>.

We arrived. We picked up packets. We planned. We modeled our cute new outfits. We had a fantastic dinner that night with the husbands – at a restaurant that apparently was run by some secret underground vampire clan. Really. Then we had more fun.

See. Girl fun. Boy fun. We do look good in vampire red!

Who do you want to party with? Horny red vampire girls or smiley cycling boys?

I rest my case.

We got up the next morning and headed to the start line. I felt great, having prepared for six months for the 500-yard swim so I felt pretty confident. In fact, oozing with confidence one might say.

Where’s Waldo?

But the strangest thing happened as I jumped in the water – I forgot how to swim – completely and totally. AGAIN. It was as if I had never touched water in my entire life.

I’m not exactly sure what happened, except I panicked. And I couldn’t breathe because there was all this water – and people touching me and splashing me. If there is one thing I’ve learned in my 40 years, it is that breathing is better than not breathing and if you splash me I will hit you. So I pulled over to the side, hung onto the rope and let everyone pass me – I was the last person out of the water.  My time was actually almost a minute slower this year with six months of swimming lessons than it was last year when I didn’t know how to do more than dog paddle.

Dead last is humbling, to say the least.

I have no clue what happened. But, I blame gas. I blame everything on gas these days – and rightly so, I might add. Gas sucks.

Anyhoo, the bike went fine. I was slow and tired, but I made it fun.

The run went fine – except for the fact that at the last minute I decided to wear the concrete blocks I refer to as Nike Frees after training in the Vibrams for the last month. I can’t believe it, but I love the Vibrams – even if they are dorkier than dorky looking.

My personal advice to you: never wear these with a cocktail dress – stick with stilettos.

Whatever the case – Martini Tri Twins were the cutest on the course! Of course!

The husbands were the best photographers on the course and best of all was the Rombauer they had waiting for us at the finish line!

I had fun – so much fun – despite my intense fear of not breathing, and having all my hail damage enhanced with wet, shiny, skintight spanky pants.Will I do another tri? Probably. Will I freak out in the water?  Probably.

Whatcha gonna do? Have fun I reckon.

(Please note Chef’s triangle is hogging the photo.)

My friends are fun. I miss fun in my life.  Gas has taken away my fun, and I need some back. I need a little more of me back, for myself and my family.

Cherry Berry had fun too, but she wasn’t very Cherry on the ride home after spending time with her equally as spastic friend, Daisy.

The long runs training for the Oklahoma City Marathon have been getting loooongerer, 19 miles this week, 21 miles next week, then 23, etc . . . you guys have been there, you know the drill.  So, last Saturday the Martini Twins© had 19-miles to run. And what a better way to run 19-miles than sandwich a half-marathon between two 3-mile runs. Saying it that way sounds like three much shorter runs – and anytime you sandwich something it just makes it funny, I’m a 13-year-old boy like that.

Months ago Michelle and I registered for the Fort Worth Cowtown Half Marathon and we worked it into our training schedule. Since we’ve started this marathon training we’ve ate, hydrated and rested like we are training for a marathon. With special emphasis on hydrated – my pee has been a lovely shade of clear for weeks.  We have been the picture perfect epitome of training.

Friday night we were in bed by 9 PM. We woke at 4:45 AM, drank some coffee, ate some our chia infested oatmeal, dressed and were on the road. We arrived at the interstate off ramp in downtown Fort Worth at 6:25 AM – over an hour early for the half. We stayed on that off ramp not moving for nearly three hours. And I have no clue why – we were so early. Runners were abandoning their cars on the off-ramp bridge and running to the start line. Really. My Candy Car was not getting left on a ramp, so we entertained ourselves the best we could; face-booked our ridiculous status, we car danced, took pictures and made videos for as long as two girls trapped in a car for 3 hours and hydrated to run 19-miles could. For your car-dancing pleasure:

Cowtown Traffic from Runner Susan on Vimeo.

By the time we actually parked the car and got to the start line, the half course was being taken down. Bye, bye sandwiched half marathon.

Car-fatigued, frustrated and hungry, since it was almost lunch time at this point, we decided to make the best of the situation – we needed to run, it was a gorgeous day and we were right next to the Trinity Trail – a beautiful place to run along the river. We knew we couldn’t do the distance with the water or fuel we had on hand, so our plan was to run as far as we could and enjoy the beautiful day. See, here we are enjoying the beautiful day in our hot pink and hot peach matchy, matchy outfits:

For about 4 miles there wasn’t a soul in sight and then our trail merged into another trail and we saw runners. Lots of runners. So many runners we thought we might be dreaming. Runners with bibs and chips. We got closer and noticed ULTRA on the bib. ULTRA? I didn’t know they were running an Ultra-marathon as an event for Cowtown. Oh well, we decided to follow the Ultra course for a bit and head back to the car, and at this point if we could get ten miles run, we’d be good.

We chug along, and then before we knew it these hippy-looking, water-vested and often barefooted ultra distance runners were giving our cute, neon-dressed selves a “great job, girls” and thumbs up all over the place. I look down and we still have our timing chips on. These insanely happy ultra runners think we are a part of the ultra-marathon. I turn to Michelle and say “let’s just finish the Ultra”. We had a brief discussion about whether these runners are insanely happy or just insane. We had no clue at that point how long it would be to the finish, but decided we didn’t care, we liked the happy runners and we kept going.

So it wasn’t really “our” mile 29, but we were having 29 miles of fun.

We weren’t expecting to get coronated with medals and t-shirts as we crossed the finish line, but then again, we never received our half shirts or medals. By the time we finished the entire day was just comical. We ended up running at least 14 miles and Gallowaying another 4-5 miles. A perfectly unexpected day of training.

We topped off our weekend by doing out best to dehydrate ourselves with good wine and stuff ourselves silly with shopping and good food. One of the best girl weekends I’ve ever had. Who other than the Martini Twins could miss a half-marathon, crash an ultra-marathon and finish with a marathon medal?

Are we not in Texas anymore? They said the windchill around White Rock Lake was -2 degrees. Wind blowing sideways. Really. Sideways. The bridges were covered with ice. Ice, in Texas. Ice. Real, live icy stuff. Where is global warming when you need it? I don’t know if that is accurate or not, but it seriously felt like we were in Antarctica. I have never, ever, ever, ever been so cold. The last four miles of the race absolutely brutal – there wasn’t a place on my body that wasn’t numb. I’m still cold. Really. And I’m chaffed so bad I’m still oozing puss. Gross, I know.

My time: 2:14:05 – which, considering the wind was blowing sideways and it was either move or die of frostbite, I’m okay with. If it wasn’t for Jeanne and Nod I would have bailed. I’m so glad they are here!! And I can’t wait to share our shopping extravaganza reports with you.

Are we the cutest Popsicles on the planet or what? Jeanne did great, Nod did great, Donkey did great, I did great. When in Antarctica, survival is the only thing that matters.

More photos here. And funny thing is, this was the smallest part of our vacation. I almost forgot we ran a half marathon. Silly  me. More on that later. Fun. Fun. Fun. I love them both – I want to adopt them and force them to live with me.

I can’t believe I’m a week late in posting this report. Last Saturday, I ran the Dorothy’s Dash 5k with my 5k buddies, Deanna and Cindy and Cindy’s sweet daughter, Alex (the 13 yo taller than all of us). But, before I ran the 5k, I ran 7 miles with T and S at 5 AM, then I ran the 5k. Twice. Why? Well, I helped coach the junior high run club, so I ran with 41 kids who entered the race. I ran it, then I went back and re-ran it to pick up a few of my walking kids.

All the kids finished and they all had a blast. Our school even picked up 1st place girl in our age group and 3rd place boy. It was so much fun. 28:33 for me, not a PR, but I sure got a lot of miles in that day! Next 5k is the Jiggle Butt Run, because I must have that T-shirt. And, hopefully, the Devil will be running with us.

Also know as the last minute 5k Runner Susan almost puked during miles 1 – 3. I reckon I was channeling sweet little Cherry Berry this morning – although I’d never swallow an entire rawhide treat without chewing – I’m a professional chewer, I know better.

Unofficial result: 31:51, not a PR – but I’ll take it since I haven’t done much in the ways of running about a month.

It was fabulous to spend time with my 5k buddies Cindy and Deana! We always have a great time at our races – and this race was no exception, especially since it came with post-race breakfast wine!

Give me a marathon any day, I say. Hey, give me back-to-back marathons everyday for the rest of my life and then let me come home and clean dog poop off my sofa. Let me do all those things and then rip off my arms and beat me with them, because that would be better than any form of swimming. Any. And all. Amen.

So I did my first triathlon and I didn’t die and I didn’t drown. It certainly wasn’t pretty and I’ll let the pictures tell the story, but I will insert this bit: I used every single ounce of energy I had in the swim and I had nothing left to give the rest of the race. There were only two people in the pool after me when I finished and I was practically crawling from the pool to my bike. Totally. Exhausted. And when did swimming become a contact sport? Please, don’t touch my fat! One would assume that since I am built like a buoy that I’d have a natural advantage in the pool. So. Not. True.

I’m thinking my fish friend, Michelle, might force me to take a swim lesson or two before my next tri. Wait, did I just say next one? What I meant to say was my back-to-back thousands of marathons with my legs tied together through a desert full of snakes with no water stations. Actually, I think that place is in Australia somewhere for real.

Total Time: 1:40:31
500-yard Swim: 19:09 T1: 2:05 13-mile Bike: 44:53 T:2 1:47 5K Run: 32:34

Of course, we had a fabulous time and fabulous hospitality from our super cool friends, Michelle and Phillip, in Oklahoma, and that made the trip almost worth swimming for! That, and a little wine.

**EDIT: I totally forgot, due to the angst of the swim, to mention that Michelle totally ROCKED the course and got 7th in her age group! And the husbands followed us around the course the entire day on their bikes and took pictures and had chilled wine waiting for us at the end (which was nice of them, even if it wasn’t demanded)! It doesn’t get much better.

Today I ran the Faith Run 5k with my friends at a neighboring city and I didn’t explode or catch on fire. Maybe because I didn’t wear my “Heathen” shirt. I’m nice like that.

It was hot, humid, humid, humid and a lot of fun. I even got to see an old co-worker, Bill, who I hadn’t seen in ages. How fun is that. I tuckered out after finishing mile 1 in 7:51. Official 5k time: 28:06. I’ll take it, but I know I can go faster.

L-R: Cindy, Leigh Ann, Deana, RS, and Bill

Why yes. Yes I would. Thank you very much. Would you like some too?

This weekend I went to Oklahoma City to visit my friend, Michelle, and the only thing that got in the way of our wine drinking was a half marathon.  You know, that half marathon I trained for by exclusively doing yard work. We had so much fun. And so much wine.

After I arrived we headed out to watch Michelle’s Mom perform at the Oklahoma City Arts Festival with her tap dancing squad. And I was quite surprised how much fun it was and how good they were. Those seniors are tap dancing fools – It was a blast! Michelle’s Mom is the one in the boa. She is adorable with that boa.

We walked around the festival a bit and headed over to a lovely restaurant where we had lunch (a fantastic Gorgonzola burger & fries, shhhhh) and a little bit of wine.

After lunch we headed to the Expo to get our packets where the line to get in was 50 feet long. No kidding, almost out the door and the convention center. Yeah. Ummm, not waiting. So, Michelle and I snuck in the back doors only to be sent away because the fire marshal was monitoring the people level in convention center.  So guess what? Instead of waiting in line for an hour, we headed back to the restaurant for more wine. And by the time it was ready to head back over to the Expo, we were taking pictures all over the place, including in the restroom.

If you are ever stressed out about heading into a crowded Expo, I highly recommend a few glasses of wine first. We walked right in, grabbed our stuff and were out of there in less than fifteen minutes.  Perfect! Because we had some more wine drinking to do.

We went back to Michelle’s and hung out on her lovely patio with her husband, Phillip, and drank some wine, ate a fabulous home made race-fuel pizza, and played out with her dog, Daisy. Daisy is the cutest thing ever! And it’s a good thing Daisy and Cherry-Berry can’t make babies because their combined happiness would cause rainbows and fairies to pop out of the sky and the Earth’s entire population would turn into a bunch of panting leprechauns. I’m not making this up; it’s just the way it is.  So we’ll just let them be lesbian lovers until it’s time to adopt.

Of course, by 11PM the pictures started to look a little like this:

And it seemed like a really smart idea to stock out fuel belts like this:

Of course, the next morning at 4AM it looked like we pinned our race bibs on inside out and upside down. Thank goodness Phillip was kind enough to straighten things out.

OK Half Marathon from Runner Susan on Vimeo.

He was also kind enough to make us his super-secret hydrating potion for the drive over. Needless to say, that was a good thing. In fact, the potion was so good, over 24 hours later and I’m STILL peeing. I’d give you the recipe, but being that it’s super-secret and all, Phillip would have to kill you.

We met Michelle’s friend, Gwyn, and were dropped off at the race. Since the race started about ten minutes after we arrived we hopped into the first corral we spotted. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that we realized we were in the very first “elite” corral. We didn’t say anything and no one pulled us out, because obviously, we looked like all the other really fast Kenyans.

We started strong, we ran well and had a great time. Along the way Gwyn taught us about running the tangent. How is it that I’ve been running for a bazillion years and I’ve never heard about running the tangent?  I’m not sure how much of a difference it made, but it made sense and kept our minds focused on our next move and not on the person directly in front of us.  We finished in 2:18. Which I’m really happy with considering I didn’t really train at all. Except for all that digging and planting.

Of course, after the race we were graciously greeted with a fabulous chilled chardonnay. I can’t think of a better way to end a race.

And it wasn’t long before the pictures started to look like this:

Sometimes I think it’s better to be fun than fast because if they were all fast, I don’t think I’d run very many. I can’t wait for the next one, although I’d be okay if it was not 79 degrees with 90% humidity! More pictures in flickr.

Oh wait, I mean proud MOM. Here’s a picture of my baby from the Cowtown 5k! Isn’t she beautiful? I could not ask for a better daughter.

You know what I’ve discovered? I really don’t like Egg Nog. But Katy? Her I like, I think I’ll keep her. Sorry Australia.

We finished our fun 15k in 1:35 – and considering our mouths were moving the entire time – it’s not too bad.

Our original plan was to run the half marathon as Superheroes, but since ILikeToast was a spoilsport and took his manties back to Australia we had to come up with another plan.

A plan that was a little more natural for us. And that plan was supermodel racing. And, of course, as supermodels, we didn’t want too run fast or get too sweaty when the photographers have hired 20,000 people as extras for the photo shoot. They even had confetti.

When we were the superhero wonder twins our goal was to finish in 2:00 – 2:15 and we were double banded to prove it.

The rest of the race we were chased by paparazzi, and naturally we obliged every photographer with our grace and beauty.

We finished in 2:27:55 and received our supermodel medallions and proceeded to the post-race party where Katy would be performing cover songs of AC/DC.

I’m sure with each of us not training for 14 days and only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before added a few minutes to our time, but it’s not often you get to run with the great and powerful IHATETOAST . . . and at this race, the longer the better. You can view more pictures by clicking here.

Stay tuned because the Wonder Twins will be participating in the Jogger Egg Nogger 15k on the 20th . . . and boy, those will be some good photos because we will actually be drinking egg nog along the way!

I ran the slowest five miles ever this morning. At one point I was going so slow a walker passed me. Massoman even finished and circled back in his car to make sure I was okay. I was. I even saw a shooting star through the fog; I love early morning runs.

I’m good with the slow pace today because my plan is working. And just what is my plan? I trash my legs Monday through Thursday for two hours in the forms of leg torture, weight lifting, running or cycling, I recover Friday or Saturday with a Cherry Berry trail run or an easy ride, and Sundays I race or do a long run. I’m not sure if this is a good plan, but it seems to be working so far, although ‘so far’ has only been 2 weeks.

Now about that 1:59:59 half marathon . . . the race people have me down for an official time of 2:05 and now I don’t know what to do. I’m pretty good with my watch and I am always within 2 or 3 seconds either way of the chip time, so I’m a little confused how I could be five whole minutes off. Michael says I should use my watch time because he witnessed as the race people messed around with the clock after the race started. But I’m an “official” type of girl; I need to see things in writing to satisfy that “I really did it” feeling – especially when it comes to a PR and running a sub 2 hour half even if it is by only 1 second. So, now I’m really bummed.

One option would be to run another half marathon soon and make sure I run it under 2 hours so I have a new, new PR. There is one coming up on November 23rd that is along the Trinity River similar to the Fort Worth half. The only problem is I’ve committed to a 20-mile bike rally on November 22nd and I’m not sure if I could PR in the half marathon the day after a bike rally. I am also running the White Rock Half on December 14th, but that is so far away and I’m afraid it might be 100 degrees again – chances are slim that it would be  – but it’s Texas, it could happen.

Today, I think I ran the smallest half-marathon in history of half-marathons. There were about 30 people registered for the full marathon and about 60 or so registered for the half. I’m not quite sure even if everyone showed up. I was pretty sure I’d come in last – and I’m not sure yet, but I still think I came in close to last.  See, here is a picture Michael took at the start and this is pretty much everyone.

The race started at the La Grave baseball field in Fort Worth and the course was an out and back along the Trinity Trail and ended back at the baseball field. A lot of the course was crushed gravel and, other than getting a few pebbles in my shoes, it was like running on a springboard compared to concrete.  And the weather was near perfect at 50 degrees. I was happy. I’m also happy with my unofficial PR time: 1:59:59.

There were a few glitches, the biggest with the timing system and I’m not certain I will even have an official chip time, but there was a guy jotting down everyone’s finish time as they crossed the line. There were also moments along the course when I was totally alone and wasn’t sure if I was going in the right direction. Michael said the lady who won the half was chewing the race director out because the course was marked so poorly in a few places that making decisions on where turn drastically affected her time. (It was an out and back course – and being the most directionally challenged person in the world – if I figured it out then anyone could figure it out.)

I really enjoyed myself this morning. The trail was beautiful and I absolutely loved not being boxed in at the beginning. I forgot how much I love Fort Worth. I will definitely sign up for this race next year.

Donkey is not as happy with my time as I am, he wanted me to run longer so he could nap in the stadium a little more. More pictures here.

If you want to guarantee yourself an extra hot race day, just invite Runner Susan. Because every freaking race I’ve run this year it’s been one billion degrees outside. Okay, so technically it was around 80 degrees by the finish . . . but it felt like one billion.

It was a really packed race and that was a little surprising since I’ve run this race before with half as many people. I guess it’s good that people are getting fit. I meet up with Richie at the start line, we were right behind the 2 hour pace group, and it was my full intention to stay with Richie the whole race, but I was only able to hang with his 9 minute pace for about 4 miles. Then he was history. It didn’t take me long and I settled into a comfortable pace and was able to finish in 2:10:37 (unofficial). UPDATE: Official time: 2:10:34. I’m good with that time; my mind was other places today.

I saw Kevin from 5ks and Cabernets before the race, it was good to see him, he finished in 1:38:59. That’s like super crazy insane fast. Richie took off before I could get a picture – I’m starting to think he’s afraid of my camera.

Oh, and I washed my shoes and they performed as good as new. I figured after my drenching in Chicago, the washing machine was nothing.