Pilgrim Pacer 10K RR

I had enthusiastically signed up for a 10K two weeks after the marathon, because I had convinced my bestie to sign up.

She's never run one, and hasn't ran a 5K in quite awhile so I was super excited for her.

It was also the debut of the Wonder Woman costume in Kansas City, so that always makes for a fun party.

FYI for newbies, don't run any "shorter" race with someone who has just ran a marathon. They are so flipping excited that it is "only" whatever distance it is that they go out too fast for you and end up annoying the crap out of you at the end when they are still bouncing off the walls and you just want to punch them in the face.

Sorry, Cynthia. I love you.

Anyway .... the actual RR part.

Cyn and her sister and I were all running together. The sisters were in Special Olympics-colored tutus, as they had raised money for that organization and I was in my Wonder Woman costume. We made quite a trio.

Here we are!

As the race progressed, we needed to slow down and I did my best to slow a little, but enough to keep pushing my friends on. This was my mistake. I should know better that it takes awhile to get comfortable with pushing yourself just under the tipping point.

Someone also didn't bring her inhaler with her. Ahem .... we still need to have a conversation about that, miss.

About the 4 mile mark, I got too excited and took off on my own ... 15-20 minutes later, I realized what a a$$hole I was and went back for my friend. I stayed with her to the very end, pushing and yelling and not allowing her to walk that last 0.2 miles.

Like I said, she wanted to punch me in the face.

As we turned into the stretch where the crowd was, it was a relatively silent crowd so I started yelling at them, "THIS IS MY FRIENDS FIRST 10K! SHE NEEDS CHEERING! HELP BRING HER IN!". Most people started cheering and clapping. A few looked at me like I was crazy.

see me in the background, trying to rally the troops?

In the end, we made it and I was so proud of my bestie and her sister for doing a great job on their first longer distance races. They are pretty awesome.

After everyone caught their breath, we were all smiles.

Although she wasn't 100% pleased with her performance, my bestie hasn't let that stop her - she's doing a Christmas 5k next month! Yay! And her sister is ready to tackle a half marathon. So really, it was a good day.

The Irish Chronicles: Part 5

The Ending

After the high of marathon day, we set out from Dublin the following morning for the West Coast. I'm sure it was a beautiful ride through the countryside. I choose to sleep instead.

I awoke at our first stop, the National Stud Farm, in Kildare. Irish horse racing is a huge deal and the stud farm makes it so that more people have a fair shot at getting winning stallions to breed their mares. So that's kind of neat.

The farm itself was beautiful. I couldn't stop taking photos.

This little gal was showing off like no other.

This is Malteaser. He tried to eat my scarf. Literally. I needed help to get it back.

Saint Francis watching over the animals.

Stables

Japanese Garden

After the stud farm, we continued on our way to Galway. Our second stop was at Clonmacnoise, the site of an old monastic settlement started by Saint Kieran along the River Shannon. The views were absolutely breathtaking and it was wonderful to hear our tourguide debunk myths about certain parts of the ruins. He was pretty hilarious.

This high cross is fake. The real guy is kept inside.

The beautiful River Shannon.

Temple Doolin

When we finally made it to Galway, I had enough energy to ... do absolutely nothing before we had our welcome dinner. On the busride over, my family (myself included when I wasn't sleeping) really got to know these two goofballs from Pittsburg: Bob and Joe. They are hilarious and we had a great time sitting with them at dinner. My sister won a bet with them on what the second James Bond movie was. As if anyone could beat my siblings at James Bond trivia. Pah!

Our second day in Galway brought us a mini tour of the city, which was absolutely lovely. I knew that if I had studied there instead of Dublin, I would have enjoyed myself wayyyy  to much - it's truly a college town. It's also insanely beautiful, because, duh, it's in Ireland.

Our excursion for the day was to be to Kylemore Abbey, a beautiful house some rich guy had built for his wife, but then she died at a young age and he was so devastated he sold it and it was a girls' boarding school for a long time. It, like everything else, was amazing.

Detail of one of the many amazing fireplaces.

Church on site.

Conemarra marble inside the church.

That night, we had dinner at a delicious seafood place right on Galway Bay. I had the best salmon I'd ever had in my 30 years on this planet. Afterwards, we treated ourselves to gellato and I got a little too excited when they had gluten free cones. (seriously, though, I'd never seen that in an ice cream shop!). Then we spent about half an hour or so in a local pub listening to some awesome Irish music. Would have loved to have stayed longer, but I was exhausted.

The next morning, we headed south to the Cliffs of Moher. The only way to describe these is one simple word: awesome. I couldn't believe how windy it was! I took a video, which I'll have to remember to upload to my YouTube channel, for those of you who are asking "just how windy was it??"

My brother & Momma at the Cliffs of Moher

Trying to capture the frothiness of the waves

The classic Cliffs of Moher shot

After the cliffs, we had another beautiful drive down through the Burren to Ennis, which was our final stop on the trip. Our farewell dinner was a special one: a Medieval dinner at Bunratty Castle, which we had visited on the first part of our trip!

This guy was amazing!

A cup of mead

Singing

 After dinner was over, it was time for one last drink at the hotel pub with everyone on the tour. I had a great time, and would have loved to have stayed all night with everyone, but the 2 weeks of traveling had taken a toll on me and I was simply ready to sleep and come home.

It was a wonderful trip, though. I couldn't have asked for a better bundle of stories to tell surrounding my first ... errr ... my one and only marathon :)

Marathon Aftermath

It had been quite a journey making it from that failed 39.3 series in the spring of 2012 to the start of the Dublin Marathon.

I thought that few people knew what an emotional toll that failure took on me. And then in June of this year, I thought I had gotten it together, but a 10K turned into a 5K when I was in too much pain. I seriously doubted whether or not I could do this.

To be completely honest, if I hadn't made the commitment to MOCSA, I probably wouldn't have.

So when I finally signed into Facebook hours after I crossed the finish line, I was astonished. That silly little globe thing had the number 28 hanging from it.

Twenty-eight.

I'd never been this popular. First, there were the good luck and cheering messages throughout the race.

Then, there was the special photo from MOCSA, just for me:

And then, finally, there was this:

All of that support, plus many more words of congratulations and cheers. I was so astonished, touched, and overwhelmed that I even forgot to post a thank you to everyone until the next day.

They say there is something that happens after you complete a marathon called 'post-marathon depression.' I have no clue what the heck that is. I feel like I'm still on a marathon high. I still go back and read all of those messages and feel incredibly lucky to know as many wonderful people as I do. I still put on that shirt and stand up a little straighter and that Wonder Woman costume ... well, for about half a second I felt silly when I put it on. Now, it's simply my racing uniform. I may never wear anything else on race day.

So, this is a lot of words and photos to say this:

Thank you, again and again and again. Really, your support of this entire journey has been more than I ever could have hoped for.

... one final Ireland blog about the last few days and then ... a 10K RR coming up :)

The Irish Chronicles: Part MARATHON!

(AKA Part 4. Marathon Day)

I swore I was going to sleep terribly. LiChu was giving me last minute tips and "don't worry ifs".

Ha. Tell me to not worry? Nice try.

Evidently, I slept pretty well as I had to be woken up with the hotel wake up call.

The nice thing about a 9AM start time and being a 10 minute walk from the start is you don't have to wake up until 6:30 on a race day.

Awesome.

I threw clothes on so I'd be presentable for breakfast and then headed down. I was a little sad I couldn't go hard at the Irish breakfast spread, so I simply enjoyed some eggs and bacon and more nutella on my gluten free bread.

Back upstairs so I could fix my hair and suit up. Thankfully, the threat of a storm and 100% chance of rain had only been a threat, but being that it was Ireland and it's kind of known for rain, I stuck with no-fuss braids and my running hat. THEN the Wonder Woman headband went on.

I ran through my checklist of things that were supposed to be on me and that I wanted in my race bag for my family to carry in the event I should need something on the course (medics were not giving out any pain meds at this race). After I was all dressed, there was nothing else to do but wait.

Eventually, we all headed down to meet part of the group that wasn't going to drop bags and everyone was impressed with how my family was dressed:

The Justice League!

Theme of the trip was silly pictures, apparently

It was pretty awesome. I was also really excited about that Wonder Woman hoodie; that was an awesome surprise from my brother.

When we got to the start area, there was still plenty of time to stand around and do nothing, so we just took pictures.

Getting pumped up!

flying with Superman

Eventually, it was time to line up and I had to be separated from my family. My sister must have seen how nervous I was because she gave me a big hug and said, "You can do it." I needed to hear that. On our way to finding a spot within our starting corral, I ran into the Flash. He gave me a big hug for being Wonder Woman. Sadly, I never got a photo of him, but I think he beat me anyway, as he well should have. I mean, he's the Flash.

Since it was pretty cold and windy, I hadn't given up my awesome sweatshirt just yet, but was prepared to when I passed by everyone at the start. It was actually really awesome seeing everyone right away. It helped calm my nerves.

Hi Family!

me, stripping (PG, of course)

The first half of the race was a blur. I remember telling myself to take all in, to really enjoy it. I gave out so many high fives to kids along the course, and I remember being surprised at how quickly the first 4 miles went by. Then the next 4 seemed to take forever. There was this guy (whose name I would learn later is Frank), who kept cheering everyone on and kept yelling a me, "Come on, Wonder Woman!". There were also these speedwalkers that kept passing me while I was walking. Ugh, that was annoying. I also got passed early by a guy dressed in a rhinoceros costume, complete with a giant head that stuck out 2 or 3 feet. That was also annoying. Luckily the guy in the giant paper mache big bird costume never got too far out of my reach. He was hilarious. Told one medic he had a broken wing. Somewhere along the way there was a big dance party. I got lots of cheers when I did a little dancing myself. That's right. I'm awesome.

Eventually, I made it to mile 11 or 12 or 13 or something like that, and saw my family. It was so great to see them on the course.

Hi family! High fives all around!

You may have noticed a water bottle in my hand. That's how they handed out water - in mini sport bottles. It was actually pretty nice. Since it was cold, I never wanted to gulp water, but I was able to make myself take sips during every walk break, and I really think it helped keep me hydrated better than a water stop as we know it would have.

While we were lucky enough to have a sunny day, it was still a little chilly and windy and I wasn't running enough to keep warm in a tank top and arm warmers. About mile 14 or so I realized this and was looking forward to mile 16 or 17 where the family was supposed to be again. I had thrown a t-shirt in my race bag - just in case I got cold. I'm so smart.

Also, somewhere in these middle miles, I had to stop at the toilets three times. THREE TIMES. Just to pee. Except the second time was phantom bladder. That pissed me off, no pun intended.

This whole time LiChu had been ahead of me, but I ended up catching her. Her calf was a little tight, so I offered to walk with her, but she preferred to simply keep moving at a slow and steady pace. We were together when I saw my dad and brother again, cheering for the both of us.

I asked for my race bag, but evidently my sister had taken it to the finish line. I got so mad, I was yelling at them and saying I was cold and their offers of coats and sweaters were crap. (this is much more hilarious when I tell it in person).

Luckily, that gave me fuel, and I'm pretty sure this was when I started to speed up.

Have I mentioned that running dressed as a superhero is awesome? Everyone cheers for you. Seriously. I didn't even care that I got mistaken for Superwoman a few times; there was a hilarious instance when someone said "Go Superwoman!" and her friend said, "That's Wonder Woman." Maybe it's funnier after you've ran 20-odd miles.

At Mile 21, when usually there is the 'wall', the Dublin Marathon had something different: The Wall of Support. There were tons of supportive messages covering a huge wall that we all ran through. It was the coolest thing I'd seen in a few miles. It was about this time that I decided to start passing people. Thankfully, around mile 18 (I think), I had already passed Rhino Guy.

It's kind of difficult to put into words that last 10K. The only way to describe it was that I was feeling better than I ever could have hoped for. Even at my slower pace, there were still crowds everywhere, and as I got closer and closer to the finish line, I was seeing other marathoners who had already accomplished their goals for the day - they were just as supportive and encouraging. At mile 22, I saw my dad and brother again, ran up and hugged them and apologized for yelling earlier. (blush)

There was also a guy on a bike who passed by me, gave me a look and said, "Well, you win best shorts for sure."

When I hit mile 25, I told myself that I was running the rest of the way in. Four minutes later, "Nope. One more walk break." By that time, we were coming up on Trinity College, my alma mater. People kept saying the finish was just around the corner. In reality it was, but the 'corner' was a semi circle that turned it into the longest corner of my life. THEN, when I finally did round the corner, buildings still blocked my view of the finish. GAH! WHERE WAS IT?!?!?

When I finally saw it, I took off. I was ready to be done.

People get really excited when they see someone powering to the finish, even after 5 and a half hours. It's kind of fun.

I spotted my mom and sister, gave them a wave, and this was all my mom could catch of me:

hmm. that guy is kind of cute.

I kept telling myself, "I did it! I did it!" and when I crossed that line, tears started to well up in my eyes. Something else then started to well up in my stomach.

That quelched the crying pretty quickly.

In any case, I collected the medal and finisher's shirt I'd been thinking about for however many months, got my goody bag (they really like goody bags at this race), and headed out to find my family. This is where I finally learned Frank's name  (remember him?) and he congratulated me on finishing my first marathon.

Then, there was my family, ready with hugs and warm clothing. After that ... well I don't have much to say. I still can't believe I did it. I mean, I know I did, I have the freaking proof and lots of witnesses. Still ... it just seems a bit unreal. Perhaps it always will. And because I'm out of words to describe that day, here are just a few more photos:

The Irish Chronicles: Part 3

The International Breakfast Run

I'm going to be honest. I was much more excited about Sunday morning than I was about Monday morning. Sunday was all about fun, and the race was only 3.6K long. Anyone could do that!

The International Breakfast Run calls for runners to show up in "fancy dress" AKA costume representing your country. I decided there was nothing more American than baseball and that I could also represent Kansas City in the process!

My brother was also going to run with me, which was super exciting because we had never ran together before. He decided to represent his college alma maters as well as his 'hometown' Hawkeyes.

In Fancy Dress for the Breakfast Run!

 As we pulled up to the convention centre, we saw none other than ....

U2!!!!

The run itself was lots of fun, mostly because there was no pressure and we could simply enjoy the being out on the streets. I brought my camera with me on the run and slowed down my brother quite a bit by stopping to take all kinds of photos.

The Convention Centre. The glass is tipped at a perfect 45* angle ... just like what you need to pour the perfect pint of Guinness

Running on cobblestones!

Awesome art

Running across the River Liffey

Samuel Beckett Bridge

After the run, there was an Irish band playing traditional music followed by Irish dancing. We also did a t-shirt exchange. I exchanged my Halloween Hustle t-shirt for a French marathon tours shirt and met a lovely French couple. I tried using my French, but in typical American fashion gave up quickly :-/

The Marathon Tours group being awesome

My family also got pulled aside to help out with the Breakfast Run YouTube video:

Breakfast Run 2013

When we were done doing our part for the video, we took some pictures with the guys, as well as a Guarda (because I think he was buddies with the other two):

Silliness

I have no idea why we are laughing.

Soon after, we decided to head back to the hotel so we could shower and head to the best place ever: the Guinness Storehouse!

I've been to the Storehouse before, but they had done quite a bit in the 10 years that passed and it was just as interesting the second time as it was the first. My favorite addition was "Guinness Academy" where you learn to pour the perfect pint.

Mom & Dad learning to pour a pint

Perfect!

After our Guinness Tour, we gave up on trying to find a taxi that would hold 5 people, so we took a carriage ride back to our hotel. It was the most touristy thing we did, but it was soooo much fun.

That night was a pasta party for our tour group and then it was time to get ready for the next day. I had Flat Wonder Woman all ready:

Oh my. The day I've been planning over a year for was about to arrive ....