Good-Bye 2024

What a great year 2024 was!  I ran several half-marathons including Austin 3M with friends and Cowtown.  My big full marathon was the Las Vegas Marathon this past November.  This was the first year to have this marathon.  They have the Rock-n-Roll half marathons at night on the strip, but never a full one during the day.  I meet new international friends in the metroplex and have become great friends with them.  I had the best birthday celebrations with my girlfriends to celebrate another year of life.  My mami also celebrated her 80th birthday this past December and I'm so grateful to live two doors down from her.  She still loves cooking for us as if all her kids still lived at home and it's nice to see her almost everyday.  Love my family and blessed for them all.

Love my running girlfriends

Austin Race

                                    Run Project Race                           

For the Las Vegas Marathon, Eddie and I went together.  Since it was their first of doing this run, I wasn't sure how it would all play out.  I woke up super early to catch the bus at 3:00 a.m. We started up in the mountains at Red Rock Canyon and ran downhill to old downtown strip in Vegas.  It was a super windy/cold run.  I have never ran a down hill course for a full marathon before and legs worked a different muscle and got very sore next day.  It was cool to run all over Vegas and end up in the old strip downtown.  Eddie and I stayed in a hotel downtown so I didn't have to walk very far after finishing the race.  I came in 9th out of 60 women in my division.  I finished in 3:44:11 at an 8:33 pace.  I'm happy with my results for a downhill race.

                                        

                                       

As I get older, and entering a new decade, I'm noticing that I can't go as fast as I use to.  I tend to get injured more easily and longer to recover.  I used to do three marathons in a 12 month period.  A fall, winter and spring full marathons.  In my late 40's I had to tapper down to two.  A fall and spring marathon.  Seems like the past two years, I have gotten hurt in one form or another from shin splits, sprained ankle, or pulled calf muscle from cycle class.  I had to cancel my marathons due to injury and it sucked!  

                                                                

Despite all of that, I still manage to wake up and go run with my Dash.  She has been the best running buddy I ever had.  She's getting older with me too.  She just turned 9 yrs old on Dec. 16th and hard to believe I got her for Valentines Day when she was 8 weeks old.  I'm so glad she love to run as much as I do.  She's been the perfect companion on all my long runs too.  She has run up to 20 miles with me on my marathon training, but think I will not have her do that this year.  She too is slowing down, but can still go far, just not as fast on the turn-around.  Today she ran 14 miles with me and it was 39 degrees cold.  I had her jacket on and she did just fine.  She, like me, loves running in cold weather better.

             

This year for our wedding 19th wedding anniversary we decided to go to London and see our friends in Norway.  We had the best time!  I loved running in Norway with my friend.  It's so beautiful and clean there.  The only thing is that it seems to not get dark hardly.  At 3:00 a.m. I was woken up by birds on my window and light skies.  That was not easy to get use to.  London was nice to see castles and where the Queen Elizabeth was buried.  We also went to see Stonehenge.  That was cool.  Cool to meet new friends and hope to remain in contact with them.  I love Europe!!

                                                  Oslo, Norway

I was selected to be a member of the RADrabbit team and Saltstick and Run Project Ambassadors. RADrabbit has awesome running gear that both of my elite running friends use and I love the brand too. Saltstick is electrolytes and used for my running.  They have all sorts of flavors and they come in chewables, pills, drink mix to add to my water bottle and love them all!  Run Project is one that I have been wanting to get into since last year and super stoked about it.  I get to run in 5 out of their 9 races for free this coming year.  I'll get free gear too and in return I just have to promote, advertise on my social media and share my discount code with friends interested in racing with us for $5 discount.  I hope to gain more followers in Instagram and continue to help people work on their fitness and healthy lifestyle.

                                

I said good-bye to teaching cycle classes at LA Fitness on Oct. 9, 2024 after teaching for 10 years.  I'm just subbing for them for now.  I'm interested in teaching at Lifetime Fitness or getting certified for Les Mills.  I'm open for now but interested in working on more strength training.  Eddie says that as women get older they have to work on building muscle to help us with our joints/bones.  

Another awesome thing that happened to me in 2024 was that I applied for the Tokyo Marathon lottery in September.  Couple weeks later I was selected!!!  I couldn't believe it!  That only means that I have to run London Marathon and I will complete my  Six Star World Majors and receive the awesome metal to show my accomplishment.  However, just recently they had added Australia.  They will still honor the people who want just to do the 6 majors, but also the 7th one too.  I will do it, but not any time soon.  Australia has always been on my bucket list, and I can't think of a better way to see it than running all over it.  But, first things first, I just need to focus on Tokyo for now.

Keep on running!!

Berlin Marathon 2023 Conquered

Traveling to Berlin for my first marathon out of country was an unforgettable one!  This one is special because it's getting me closer to finish the World Marathon Majors.  Eddie and I have never been out the country for one of my marathons.  We also went with our good couple friends, Tom and Neringa.  Neringa and I met at the gym during one of my BodyPump classes couple years ago.  I was wearing a Boston marathon shirt and asked if I was a runner and if I ran Boston.  I told her yes, and it turns out she is an elite runner herself and we've been great friends since then.  Her husband and Eddie get along great and we've all traveled to run Indianapolis Marathon last year.  This year we traveled together again for she and I were one of the lucky ones to get entered to Berlin Marathon to run it this year.

Eddie booked our travel tickets and we had to get connections to get there.  He had us fly into Frankfurt, Germany and then take a train to Berlin.  Well, they lost my check-in luggage going at Frankfurt.  They kept telling us that they were going to send the luggage on the train.  That was not the case and a lie.  Long story short, I didn't get my luggage until the day before flying home at Frankfurt airport.  After Eddie raised hell for making a trip to the airport looking for it from Berlin, he came back empty handed.  We believe it was at the airport the whole time and never sent to delivery carrier to our hotel like they said they would.  German airport people were not helpful at all, in fact kind of rude.  They just told us we are sorry and for us to make a claim.  WTF!!  Never again will we book train online again.  We'll just do it in person with all our luggage!  Hard lesson learned.  The good thing is that ALL of my running gear was with my in carry-on.  I made sure to wear my running shoes on plane and pack some boots with pair of jeans.  I ended up going shopping in Berlin for extra clothes.  I was just so grateful I had my marathon gear!

     

The day we get there, we are tired from long flight, stressed out about our bag, that we had to rush to go to running expo to get my race bib.  We then went to a late dinner at a German place before heading to hotel to crash.  The next morning I met Neringa for our shake off easy run.  Since she got there a day before us, she had already ran some and knew her way around.  It was fun to get out and run in cool temps and not crazy Texas hot weather.  The weather was looking good for our marathon too.  We all went to see the Berlin Memorial and that was sad to see.  There is so much history in Berlin.  For lunch we had a huge pasta dish and ate half a sandwich for dinner.  Eddie and I then walked to shop some at Berlin's huge mall.

Marathon Day - I met Tom and Neringa for breakfast before heading to marathon start line.  Eddie was so exhausted from going to the airport looking for my luggage that they said they had.   So he stayed in bed and met me later during the race.  I have never seen so many people for a marathon and not enough porta potty before race.  People were in huge line and were getting angry because some were cutting in line and others just jumped line and running out of time!  IT was not good.  I always take care of business before I run and didn't have time, this time.  

The weather was perfect to start at 55 degrees.  I started really fast and felt good.  It wasn't until mile 18, I had to stop for porta potty during the marathon and that slowed me down.  I didn't let it mess with my head until I saw the 3:30 pacer pass me up at mile 22.  I tried to keep up, but so many people at the water stops got so crowded that I just told myself to keep going until the very end.  Just Enjoy the Run!  That's Berlin's marathon mantra.  I took pictures and enjoyed the rest of the run.  

My finish time was 3:41 and better I expected.  Not my best, but given the circumstances, I'm happy with it.  I'm usually, exhausted after marathons, but felt pretty good after this one.  They say this marathon course is the flattest one in the world.  I guess that helped me too.  We drank some German beer after the marathon and that was my first alcoholic drink since I started training.  We all went to another German restaurant for dinner and was introduced to a raspberry German beer.  I hate beer, but this one was yummy!  After dinner we headed to the World Championship Award Celebration.  It was a blast and danced the night away with live DJ at the Metropol in Berlin.  Pretty cool to see the all the World Champs there to celebrate too!  We headed back to room and told our friends goodbye and they had to catch a early flight back home next day.

Eddie and I decided to head to Munich on a train to celebrate Octoberfest.  Not just any Octoberfest, the original Octoberfest.  We got a hotel for one night because we had to go back to Berlin to get connecting flight back to Frankfurt and then home.  Well, they still couldn't find our bag so, we decided to head to Frankfurt from Munich and not worry about getting connection flight.  Plus, that was less stress on us.

We meet some new friends from California that also ran the marathon on the train when we first got to Berlin.  We kept in touch and met up in Munich to celebrate Octoberfest.  Eddie and I went to go buy our own original Octoberfest costumes to fit in.  They said that 98% of the people there dress up and you don't want to feel out of place.  It was a bit of culture shock for us, but so fun too.  We get there and it reminded me of our Texas State Fair, except for adults...LOL!  I mean, there were a few kids there in the rides area during the daytime, however didn't see any at nighttime.  They have about 10 different huge pavilions that hold about 10K people in them.  Inside you see long picnic tables and in the middle is the stage for live band.  They have reserved seating and open sitting on a first come, first served.  They have waiters serving huge liter steins of German beer.  These steins are thick and heavy, like 5lbs each heavy.  Since I don't like beer, I ordered half beer half lemonade beer and wasn't bad.  However, I could only drink half of one and gave rest to Eddie.  They sold yummy German food and huge pretzels for dinner.  The also sell cute headbands with flowers for the ladies and German hats.  I ended up buying both...LOL!  What can I say, it finished my Octoberfest look!  We only made it to 3 tents/pavilions.  They had one we liked that had was more of international music. Everyone was singing to American music like karaoke  and dancing on the tables since they didn't have a dance floor.  Everyone was friendly and would say, "Prost" (cheers) after each song! It was such a blast!

The day before we head home, they find out lost luggage at the Frankfurt airport.  We stay the night there and just go to dinner in Frankfurt for our last night in Germany.  It was a great dinner and soooo happy I got my luggage.  I had my Boston Marathon shoes and other nice clothes I didn't was to loose.  This is a marathon trip I will never forget and huge check off my bucket list.  

Till next time, keep on running!

Berlin Marathon Here I Come

The time has come to finally taper down from my Berlin Marathon training.  This Berlin marathon training by far has been the toughest one for me. I have never trained in the middle of the hottest months in Texas for my long runs. I had to change my mindset and do some positive thinking along the way to keep me going. I knew I couldn’t run my normal pace in this heat. The strategy I tried to follow was staying consistent and listening to my body.

Today the weather was cooler with the rain last night. I started before sunrise to run in cooler temps. Grateful for the cloudy skies, maintaining the cooler weather until my last 8 miles. That’s when the sun came out. However, it was still not as hot, and I was able to maintain a good pace till the end.

The months of August and September would have to be the hottest month of summer for us this year in Texas. We hit several weeks where the temps stayed over 105 degrees. My first 20 miler run was Aug. 26th and even at 6:26 a.m. when I started the temp was 84 degrees before sunrise. My pace was 9:31 and on the turnaround I had to slow it down a lot for it got hot fast. I finished in 3:10. For my second 20 miler run, the temp was 75 degrees at 6:25 a.m. and first time the high would be under 100 degrees. I finished at a 8:49 pace and finished in 2:56.

My running buddy, Dash, my dog has always ran with me on my training miles. However, in the summer I would only run her 10 miles the most due to the heat in the summer months. Well, this year, it got so hot that I only ran her no more than 5-6 miles with lots of water breaks. I would also only run her in the early morning. Afternoon runs would be way too hot. She wasn't happy about that, but it was for her safety and not to burn he paws off! Even I wouldn't run in 100 degree temps after work. I would go to the gym and run on the treadmill instead. On days I had to run 8 miles during the week, I would wait until sunset to run an evening run. It would be still be hot, but I would run in the shade as much as possible and drink a ton of water.

Like I said before, I had to dig deep in changing my mindset. There were many times, I didn't want to get up and run and just wanted to sleep in. I couldn't run fast even if I wanted to so, I just accepted it and listened to my body. I drank a lot more water before my long runs the day before. Another thing I'm doing is not drink any alcohol this time during my training. I feel a lot better too. Other things I do for cross training are strength training 1-2x a week and I still continue to teach cycle class 2x a week. I also picked up hot yoga and would do it once a week with my girlfriends. I lowered my sugar intake too and that helped my get back to my ideal marathon weight. It's amazing how a couple pounds slows you down LOL!

I'm starting to get excited now to go to Germany to finally celebrate our wedding anniversary. I'm going with my elite runner friend who is also running it with me and her husband (not a runner). Both are really good friends and really looking forward to go on this trip with them. They will only be there for the marathon and then coming home, but we will go stay couple more days. This will be the second marathon trip we have done together and know we will have a great time. Since we have never been there, we want to explore and see the sights of Berlin and take the train to other cities close by. This marathon happens to be when they have Octoberfest! That will be fun to be there for that too. Plus, getting some time off from work will be nice and very much needed for both Eddie and I.

Berlin Marathon, I’m ready for you! Keep on running!