Water stops and birthdays

Last week I worked the water stop at a local 5k with my run club friends. The beauty about this volunteering job is afterwards we get free mimosas at the after party.  That's the kind of volunteering I can get behind!  And just so we are clear we all had multiple mimosas!  What a great race!

Today is my 40th birthday!  And as a birthday present we had a snow day!  I love snow days, but birthday snow days are the best!  Yesterday I had lunch with friends in anticipation of the snow coming and it's just fun to have lunch with cool people!  We headed for some Mexican food and birthday margaritas.  

Now the snow was not supposed to start until the evening. Unfortunately it started earlier than anticipated. I headed home in snow. It usually takes me 40 minutes to get home. It took me 2 hours to travel home. Once I finally got home I was greeted by neighbor Nick who was shoveling my parking spot for my birthday. 

I also found out there would be no school. Looks like 40 could be a good year!  

This morning I woke up and did some birthday shoveling. Then I made a birthday breakfast of a chocolate croissant.  Later I had some ice cream cake and then neighbor Nick came over with some birthday beer. 

My plan is to celebrate my new age group all year.  I have a good feeling about 40. 

Celebrations do not require me to run!

So I have been one big ball of lazy since my half marathon two weeks ago.  It doesn't help that we had snow...again.  I am tired of cold.  I don't want to run out in snow or cold rain!  So I haven't!

Tuesday was run club..with rain or was it snow or sleet??  The weather has been so crazy I can't keep track of what happens on what day!  Well anyway, wee headed to run club.  I was going to dress to maybe run, but I realized that I had no intention of running so why not put some jeans on..embrace the lazy! And that is just what I did.

Tuesday was Matt's birthday. Matt is a vegetarian so to celebrate Megan made some yummy vegan cookies.

One was Matt's favorite snicker-doodles and the other was a vanilla no-bake.  Both were very yummy!!

(if you are Andy you put the two cookies together and you are very happy)

Happy birthday Matt

Got to love run club celebrations!  Even if we didn't run.

This week it should be in the 70's, even though it was raining/snowing today.  Virginia should not see snow the second to last day of March!  Needless to say I did not move off of the couch much this weekend.  This is the week that my lazy stops.  Weather should be nice for running and that is just what I plan on doing.

This week is we are celebrating Sandy's birthday along with Jen's 100th run!  I'm in charge of birthday cookies.  Hope everyone enjoys them.

The celebrating continues!

The last year in my 30s..

Today I had a lovely Happy Birthday lunch with Megan and Bill.  Bill brought me flowers and balloons.  How nice!

I bought some great clearance shoes at DSW.  You can't turn down a birthday buy on a new pair of flats!

I did head to the gym.  I found that working out when your 39 is soo much more difficult than it was when I was 38.  Just amazing the difference a year makes :) My bones also ache more than they did yesterday.

I came home to more flowers from my friends Becca and Zack.

There was also a lovely note attached.  The note read:  You are not really old until next year.  Nothing says happy birthday like a note telling you that you are almost old.  Love my friends!

I also finally checked my mailbox.  I haven't ventured through the snow piles to get the mail since Thursday.  I got my shirt to run the Pittsburgh Half Marathon in!  It will go great with my Steeler shorts!

stalking, restraining orders and The Northface Endurance Challenge

It was my third year volunteering for Northface Endurance Challenge in DC.  I really enjoy this event (I guess that is why I've volunteered there for the last three years.)  The only bad thing about the Endurance Challenge is that I have to get up at 3 am to make it to the park by 5 am.  Always a rough morning.  Becky, Megan and I headed out to meet Bill and the other volunteers to start our day of volunteering.  I was super excited to see Dean Karnazes again. (if you remember correctly he sort of had a crush on me last year when we met in the food tent)

Yeah he has his eye on me!  

This year I didn't get to stalk talk to Dean.  He sent the runners off and the headed somewhere.  I was not quick enough to follow him.  I thought he was going to come back.  Next year I will be a better stalker fan and follow him around.

He did walk past and said hi and touched Megan's shoulder.  I hope his eyes are not wondering to Megan now!  I'm sure that is not the case because as you can tell in the picture from last year he clearly has eyes only for me.  

On Saturday The Northface has three races running through Great Falls, VA, a 50 miler, a 50K and a marathon.  This Saturday it was supposed to get up in the 90's (and I am pretty sure that it did.)  The runners were great, but you could tell that the heat was really taking a toll on their race.

Becky and I were manning the bib marking areas before most of the runners were going to start to make their loop or loops through Great Falls.  This is our third time doing this, so we have a pretty good system down.  Becky loves marking the runners bibs too.  So we were really excited!

Then the Northface guy known today as Peter Pan comes and breaks the news to us.  We just need to write down their numbers, the people near the loop will be marking the bibs as they run the 7 mile loop.  Becky was really sad.  She looked forward to marking the guys bibs that were placed on the front of their shorts.  So after Becky came to the realization that she was not going to be feeling up random guys marking bibs we settled in for our first runner.

Look who is running towards us..

It is local runner Michael Wardian!  He was probably 4th or 5th when he got to us (he ran the 50 miler) and then when he left us at mile 35 he was in first place!  He ended up winning with an average pace of 8:09 (yeah that is pretty close to my 50 mile pace)  

Becky and I were having fun writing down the bib numbers.  Runners were not as close together as in years past..the heat was really slowing a lot of people down.  Which worked in our favor because we didn't have to write down fifty peoples bib numbers at one time.  Most people looked surprisingly well.  The 50 milers started at 5 am so when they got 19 miles in and to us they were not looking too bad.  Now when they left us at mile 35 that was a different story.  The people who really started to look bad were the marathoners who had the latest start of all of the runners (I think they may have started at 9 am.)  I had a fair amount of runners take DNF's from 11:30 on.  The heat was just brutal on those runners yesterday.  We were concerned about the mad rush of marathoners we were expecting and writing down their numbers, but it never really happened.  Because of the heat the marathoners were much slower and really spread out on the course.  One man told me he didn't see another runner until mile 9 which is really unusual.  As the marathoners were starting to dwindle down, Becky was pulled to work at the aid station near the loop.  The fifty milers had to run 3 loops so this was a pretty busy aid station late in the day.  I headed over to the aid station near my area to talk to Megan Jen, Charlie and Northface guy known as Unicorn (you can't make up these nicknames folks!)  I helped hold down a chair and chat with runners while keeping an eye out for any marathoners.  

It was a hot day for runner and volunteers.  Megan and I needed a nice cold coke like nobody's business!  So while walking back with our cold beverages, we see two girls eyeing up our cokes like junkies trying to score their next hit.  So since we love runners we gave these girls our cold cokes to help them get through the last leg of their 50K.  Yeah runners are great people!  

As we are sitting around chatting working hard, a runner comes over to ask Megan if she can walk on his back.  His weighted vest (who wears a weighted vest to run a 50k??) is causing his back to hurt.  So Megan being the nice person that she is decides to kill random guy and let all of the other runners know this is what happens when you mess with the family (Godfather style!).  

 I don't know about you, but when you are trying to walk on someones back and do your best godfather speech you need a man named Unicorn to help you balance.  :)

(no runner was actually harmed in the following pictures)  Runner 919 did survive and wanted us to have a picture of the weighted vest which caused his problems.  I told him to look sad since the vest was horrid to him! lol  Ah the people that you meet while volunteering!

We also met up with some Marathon Maniacs.  They wanted our picture together since Megan told them that she is a Half Fanatic and trying to become a double agent and join the Marathon Maniacs.

Speaking of people you meet while volunteering...Charlie was in charge of us near the aid station/bib check.  I noticed while I was holding down a chair at the aid station that people were asking Charlie for a picture.  Hmm  I want to know why.  Maybe I want my picture with Charlie too!  Megan told me I should ask Charlie what he does, which I did.  It took thirty minutes to get out of him what he really did.  Charlie Engle...

is an Ultra runner.  He ran across the US and has ran the Sahara Dessert!  He has a documentary about running the Sahara.  I quickly gave Charlie my full name so he can start the paperwork for the restraining order he may need to file.  After that I felt like I got to interview him.  I just kept asking questions about his life.  So interesting!  Who goes out to run what they thought was a 10K race his longest race yet (which turns out that it was a 100K race in Australia) and ends up winning his first 100K race?!   Crazy!  He is also running Badwater in 6 weeks.  Ummm..hello I know who I going to add to my stalking list! :)  Charlie was really nice and funny made the end of the volunteering job lots of fun!  

After our day of volunteering Bill, Liana, Becky, Megan I all met up for dinner since someone was older today than they were yesterday!  Happy Birthday Megan!!  

Four Courts Four Miler and a PR!

This morning I ran the Four Courts Four Miler with Becky to help celebrate her birthday!  It was a perfect day for a run!  I did realize that I was a bit overdressed for the race.  Which is a good thing because I think next weekend's RnR Half will have the same temps..so note to self do not wear a long sleeve shirt.

I think I may wear the tutu for the half next weekend though. I figure if it annoys me I can dump it along the run.

There were lots of people running Four Courts.  I had almost forgotten how packed it feels right before and right after the run.  I guess when the race ends at a bar people tend to stick around.  I was hoping to see my favorite old man runner in red..but I didn't see him this year.  He really is one of my favorite runners.  I hope when I am his age I am still running (he has to be in his 70's or older)

The course is straight down a hill and then you turn around and run straight up the hill..ugh..the downhill is great, the uphill not so much.  We stopped to get a picture at Run Club's water station.  Even with the stop I still PR'd by over 2 minutes!!  That's right...ran it better than last year!  I guess all of the running I have been doing is starting to pay off. :)  

Afterwards we met up with some friends and enjoyed some beer.  Can't beat running and having some beers to help celebrate a birthday run!

Next race:  Rock n Roll USA Half..

How to tell you are getting older..

With my birthday come and gone its time to reflect on getting older.  If you can't tell I love my birthday! I have noticed that I've changed a bit as each birthday passes.  Here are some signs that I have noticed that I am getting older:

1.  Takes longer to recover from a night out.

Ahh I remember when I would head out drinking with friends and then have a few hours of sleep and head off to work.  That is not happening now!  If I have had a bit too much the night before I usually spend the day on the couch drinking water and wondering why I drank so much.  I much prefer the 10 minute headache and I'm off vs the I can't move or do anything feeling the next day.  I guess this is mother natures way of ensuring I do not go crazy with the drinking.

2.  Vitamins

When did my vitamins increase?  I used to just take a Flintstone vitamin.  Now I have allergy medicine, B complex, Magnesium, Multi and some other random stuff.  It takes me five minutes (or what seems like it) to take them all.  Next up I will be getting one of those lovely pill containers for each day of the week and I will spend my Sunday sorting them for each day of the week.  Ah the things to look forward to.

3.  Wrinkles and dry skin.

I now own night cream and multiple day cream and serums. When did this happen?  I do like getting facials which always helps with the dry skin in the winter..so I guess that is a plus.  When did I turn into my mother complaining about the heat in the house in the winter drying out my skin?  

4.  Pain in random parts of my body.  Last week I will swear I had some gout in my thumb.  Don't worry I googled it and figured that I was right and treated it with Ibuprofen and it was better pretty quickly.  This week my hip has been bothering me because of the change in temperature.  Yeah I am  only a few steps away from a walker..

5.  I want to curse out the cars that drive too fast in the neighborhood.  I'm out walking the dog and a car zooms past and I have the need to run after them and tell them they need to slow down there are kids in the neighborhood.  I do give them evil eyes, which really doesn't do much, but I try. At what age does other peoples driving start to make you mad?  I think this is something that has creeped up on me.  A few years ago I would just walk the dog without giving random evil eyes to visitors in the 'hood.   

6.  People Magazine.  When did I stop knowing who the people featured in People Magazine?  Some of the actors/singers/models I have never seen before.  Soon I will start to tell people about how I walked to school in 10 feet of school ...up hill...both ways.  Its just a matter of time.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend..I'm going to try and squeeze in a long run this weekend.

Birthday Weekend.

So I didn't take many pictures this weekend..what a bad blogger!  I had a great birthday weekend.  I started it out with a 7 mile run with Becky.  She was amazed that she was able to run 7 miles (her longest run yet).  We headed over to the neighborhood that we have been running lately.  We found a new path to a new neighborhood so maybe next time we will do some different exploring.  After the cold run I headed home to shower and then wait for my parents to show up at my house.  Always nice to have the parents visit.  We had a nice weekend..went shopping and out for dinner.  I took them to the Marine Corps Museum and a Winery on Sunday.

Mom enjoying some of the timelines at the Marine Corps Museum.

After they left on Monday I headed over to my friend Karla's house.  She was having a happy hour for our friends Michelle and Bion who came in from Maine.  It was great seeing friends that I have not seen is a long time.  I spent a great night laughing and chatting with friends.  I think I may have done too much laughing, the next morning my back/shoulder muscle hurt (I think it was from the laughter).

Next up was run club.  Can you say more birthday celebrations?  Becky stopped off and picked up some yummy cupcakes.

It also was Eileen's birthday.  So more cake came into run club.   We had run club sing happy birthday to us.  Always fun!

I enjoyed my turtle cupcake!  Yummy!  We also might have split an apple pie cupcake (my favorite so far!)

It has been a great month of birthday love!  Now it looks like I have to keep running to burn off all of the goodies this month!

Birthday run! a.k.a. Love the Run You're With

It was a great morning for a birthday run!  I picked up Jami and headed to meet Becky for my birthday run 5K this morning!  I brought lots of tutus...

And Glen even was willing to put on a tutu for the run!

You got to love when friends are willing to celebrate a birthday run with you!  We all met at Champps sports bar so we didn't have to stand outside forever. Its always nice to be able to wait inside during February.

For the most part we all ran pretty close to each other.  Becky and Jami passed Lee and I somewhere around 2.5 miles..Lee, although faster, ran with me since it was my birthday run (not sure if you all have heard that my birthday is this month)  All in all it was a great morning for a run.  Although poor Glen is now down a glove, I guess his left glove went around for another 5k.

Of course we ended with brunch and some drinks.  Not sure that the staff at Champps enjoyed the onslaught of runners after the race.  Great morning hanging out with everyone.

Now on to more birthday fun for February!!

7 miles and I wasn't blown away

Well I have been on a tutu making frenzy!  I have one more to do and then I will be ready for tomorrow's birthday run with Love the Run You're With. Should be a great morning for a 5K.  Temps should be upper 30's to 40's...you can not complain about that in February.  Last year we were dodging ice on the run.  No worries about ice this year.

I went to pick up the packets this morning.  Looks like grey blankets are the swag. Much better than the brown blankets from last year.  Coming back I was going to meet Becky to run 6 miles.  I stopped at Panera  to have half a sandwich before heading out to run with her.

I met Becky and we headed off exploring a new neighborhood.  It was great.  Ok, maybe not great, great, but it was fun.  The wind was horrible.  At one point Becky asked if we were actually moving forward.  Luckily tomorrow we shouldn't have the wind.  We found a lovely small lake to run around and a dog that followed us part way.  He didn't seem to want to eat us, but rather say "hey keep going!" Lots to see and do! This was Becky's longest run ever!  So proud of her!  And because of her, I didn't back out of my run today.  Sometimes it really does help to make a running date with a friend.  I came home and took Riley for a mile run around the 'hood.  He loved it.  Then he realized it was my evil ploy to have the leash on him to walk him into the bathroom for a bath.  Riley was not so happy about that one!  But he got a mile run and I now have a clean dog..score for both of us!

lookin' good!

I have this guy in the neighborhood who is really nice.  We talk every time we see each other while we are both out walking our dogs.  He knows I"m a huge Steeler fan and I know he is a huge Redskins fan.  We do not know each other's name...odd?  Who knows, but he is just a nice guy.  Our dogs do not like each other though.  Well I was taking Riley out before heading out the door to have dinner and drinks with my friend Stacy.  It was her birthday so I was thinking I will take the shorter loop and then Riley will have his walk for the night.  Well neighborguy was walking up the hill, so I decided since our two dogs do not get along and he was walking towards the shorter loop first, I would take Riley around the mile loop.  Your welcome Riley!  We started chatting about football and then I turned to complete the walk..neighborguy turns and says "Hey!  You've lost weight right?!  Lookin' good!"  Why thank you!  He just made my night!  And because of him I didn't drink my face off (not that I was planning to) and I told myself that I was going to go for a run in the morning.  Thanks neighborguy!

Good night hanging out and chatting with friends.  And I did wake up this morning and head out the door for a run..in a t-shirt..and shorts..and it is January!  Yeah that shouldn't happen!  I like the warm weather..I like not being cold right now, but really it is January, it should be cold and there should be snow on the ground..or at least the threat of snow at some point.  If this keeps up I'm going to be hanging out in my bathing suit in February!

Tomorrow is Monday..Booo!!   I start boot-camp after school.  Wish me luck!

Birthday Run..it is never too early to plan

So since I'm a half fanatic #2430..(did I mention that previously?? ) I was looking at their race calendar and found a race that takes place during my birthday weekend..and it is at the beach.  My birthday is in February so I don't normally say beach and birthday in the same sentence.  Should I do a half for my 38th birthday?  38...ugh..that sounds so..old..so close to 40..so far from my 20's..

The crayon girl is part of the bday party

So the race is the Dasani Half Marathon which is part of the Myrtle Beach Marathon.  Last February we ran the Love the Run Your With 5K and there were some friends celebrating a friend's birthday by running.  Now I know a half marathon is a bit different than a 5K..but I think it might sound like fun.  I also am pretty sure it is a long weekend thanks to President's day.  I have some time to work through my possible birthday run. 

Has anyone ran a birthday run before?  If so what run did you celebrate with?

Celebrating my BirthMonth!

I love my birthday!  I turned 37 on Feb. 17th.  I decided that this year I would celebrate my birthday for the month of February (and since it is leap year I get an extra day to celebrate!)  My friend Kristi always laughs at me because everything is related to my birthday once February hits.  If someone tells me that they are going to a concert on the 7th of February I always counter it with "oh, that's 10 days before my birthday".  Yeah I try to keep my birthday a secret.

In honor of my 37 year of living I decided that I would try and do one random nice thing for someone each day of February.  I think for the most part I did this.  One day I put some post it notes in the bathroom at work to tell people that they looked great today or thanks for making a difference.  I hear some people enjoyed the post its and it made them feel a little bit better about the day ahead of them. :)  I placed some random notes with hugs in teachers mailboxes.  Sent a friend a thanks for being a friend card.  It turned out to be a great way to celebrate turning 37! 

I also had some great friends that really went all out for my birthday.  My co-worker left me little gifts each day during the week of my birthday.  On my birthday I walked into my office and found this sitting on my desk:

My secret pal left some beautiful pink roses and my co-worker Kathy bought me beautiful yellow roses, so I combined them for an outstanding bouquet of flowers that made me smile all day long!  Somehow the kids at school found out it was my birthday on Friday (I'm guessing that they might have figured out about my birthday when I announced that it was my birthday eve on the morning announcements Thursday).  So all day long all I heard was "Happy Birthday Miss Lansberry"  I was loving my birthday!!  I had lovely cards from kids and co-workers, balloons left on my desk and then a surprise visitor.  I looked up mid afternoon and Bill from run club surprised me with more beautiful flowers and the largest balloon known to mankind!

That night I had a great happy hour at my friend Sheen's house.  With yummy cupcakes courtesy of Megan.

Saturday my parents came home from their cruise and took me out for dinner before taking back their puppy and heading home on Sunday.  Tuesday run club friends sang happy birthday and gave me some cards along with a yummy brownie sundae. 

Then last night, I had my final birthday celebration of 2012!  I met some friends for dinner and drinks and really enjoyed celebrating my BirthMonth!  All birthdays should last for the entire month :)  Thanks to all of the great people who made me feel extra special during February!

*In actual running news I need to step up my running.  I ran 5 miles on Saturday.  Half marathon number one is less than 3 weeks away! Yikes!!