Screaming Pumpkin - Peoria, IL - Saturday, October 29, 2016

I love this race in Peoria. It's so worth the drive. It's a Halloween race at night running through a graveyard. So fun. Lots of pictures below:

Before the race started.  Russell, Chris and Me.

Chris in her costumer that actually won her first place.  She was Wander Woman.  Her sign said, "If found wandering in a dark cemetary give her a push.  She thinks she's a runner."

Race bib

Garmin results

Awesome finishing medal

Actual results

Chris placed third in her age group and received an amazing plaque, a cement tombstone!

The back of her award.

The end of the race with our medals!

Shamrock Shuffle - Saturday, March 12, 2016, Downtown Iowa City, IA

This race is a perfect distance for just about anyone. Great for those wanting to run really fast for a short distance and great for those new to fitness because it's not a long race.
It was a pretty cold morning in the 40's, but not too cold.  Juli and I ran 5 miles before the race as a warm up.
I started the race feeling light on my feet. I found that the last hill that really bothered me last year wasn't so bad.  I received a new record time of 16:15 beating last year by almost a full minute.  To my surprise I placed 2nd in my age group. However this year only 1st in each age group was recognized.   Guess I have to work harder.

After running so hard I wasn't sure that I'd be able to run 10 more miles with Juli.  We both needed a 17 mile run for our marathon training.
I will not lie, the next 10 miles were very hard to complete but we both pulled it off.
Some pictures are below.  Results are here:
RESULTS

Top Row:  Susan, me, Amy, Teresa.  Front Row:  Juli and Lorna

My bib and personal results. 

My results

My watch showing the total distance for the day.

we are beautiful! 

Amy and Tearesa being super silly.

Later in the day Amy and I rode 25.48 miles on our bikes.  Great for Ragbrai training. 

Juli and I after our long run.

Santa Cause 5K - Peoria, IL - Saturday, December 12, 2015

It was an extremely foggy morning. More foggy than I have ever driven in, in my life. I woke up at 5:15a.m. and started getting ready for the race. I picked up Chris at 5:55 a.m. and we left for Peoria. It was very dark and super foggy and I had to really pay attention to where I was going. I figured that by the time the sun came up the fog would burn off. I was wrong. The fog was just as bad and now the sun was shining into it. You couldn't see anything.

The race started and I knew 10 minutes into it that I was going to boil.  Thank goodness I didn't wear the Santa pants.  I was in shorts and only a sports bra underneath the hot coat.  The only cool thing about the coat (outfits) was people driving by the race that are usually super irritated about runners were whistling, cheering us on and honking.  They all thought the sea of Santas was awesome.

I kept a nice 8:15 minute per mile pace for mile 1, but by mile 1.2 I was hot, very hot, boiling hot.  I should have taken the coat off then and why I didn't I don't know.  Well Yes I do, because I only had a sports bra on underneath and I have never in public ran in a sports bra only.  Gross.  But this time was going to be different.  By 1.5 miles in, I was on fire, like felt nauseous, pukey.  Not something you want to feel racing.  So I did what I needed to do and wrapped that coat around my waist and let the cooler air hit me.  I didn't want to pass out.  No one wants an ambulence ride at a 5K race or ever.

 Then at the water stop I poured water on my head.  Yes in December I poured water on my head and I was running in a double sports bra, shorts and a sants coat around my waist.  It was 62 degrees out in Illinois in December.  Bodies running heat up at least 20 more degrees.  Crazy.  My second mile suffered greatly because I was hot.  I think it was a 12 minute mile.  So disappointed in that mile split.  By the end of the 2nd mile I finally felt better and had cooled off a bunch.  I was able to run faster.  Finished in 28:56.  I know I could have done a 26 something, but not in this heat.  A fun race, but it needed bananas at the end or something like that.

This is a picture of the starting line when everyone was lining up.  The race director asked everyone to PLEASE wear their santa coat and hat for sure.  We didn't have to wear the pants, beard or belt,   

This picture was taken at 9:15 a.m., 45 minutes before the race started and there was still this much fog.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  Glad the fog burned off before we drove home.

Chris and I before we warmed up to run.

A selfie in the beard.  Glad I didn't run in it.  It was WAY too hot.

My stats.  I didn't run as fast as most 5K's, but I was overly hot in that suit.  I felt I did well for my age group.  Being in the top 12% in my age group.  Not too shabby.  And the top 15% of all the females.  This was Gun time not chip time, BTW.

Chris running in for a great finish!  She is awesome.  I'm so proud of her for running and staying fit.  She will turn 69 next week and is determined to keep running.

The Garmin stats.

Chris and her daughter.

We were promised a free soda if we didn't want beer.  However they ran out of regular soda and who wants diet?  Gross.

A beaver or something swimming in the water.  Too cool.  I need a better camera.

Shamrock Shuffle 3.17K--Iowa City, IA

The morning was super cold. Ok, not that bad, it was about 32 degrees, considering Iowa has only seen a few days above 30 degrees since November, but it was cold enough to have a few layers of running clothes on.

Friday night Kyle and Lisa arrived to stay at our home.  We let them stay in the Hawkeye room for fun!  You'd have to visit us to know what I'm talking about.  Anyway we all went shopping to get some fun St. Patrick's Day stuff to run in and then went to dinner together.

The guys found kilts.  Too funny.   They looked awesome.  This race was in our home town and only about a 5 minute drive.  I thought about running there, but it was so cold that I was afraid my clothes would be all wet with sweat and then I'd freeze before the race.  So I didn't run there.

Great points about the race:

Chip timed so you get an accurate time
Great Nike dri-fit shirt that I will wear again.
Bib for your scrapbook
Instant results that print out for your scrapbook
Food after the race--bananas, bagels, water.
Lots of door prizes!  I won $15 to Running Wild running store!
Lots of volunteers.

Jason and Kyle wore kilts

All four of us.  Such a fun morning.

Our cute socks and fun colored shoes.  Well except for Jason who forgot his
shamrock tights under his kilt and had boring shoes.  Next time Jason needs cool
socks too.

A quick shot of Lisa and I before the race, not sure what's up with my hair though, it was all pushed up from my ear band and I think looks funny like a muffin.  Oh well, can't look cute all the time.

Really nice shirts that fit true to the size.  This was the front of the shirt.

Back of shirt

Our race bibs

My final time was 19:12 which is a 9:45 pace per mile, placed 9th of 18 in my age group, 110th place overall out of 180 people and 49th out of 104 women.

Santa's Snow Shuffle 5K ish Fun Run--Cedar Falls,Iowa--Saturday, December 14, 2013

A very cold morning, but not too cold and not as cold as the week before in that race. Santa's Snow Shuffle is put on by http://www.trekmanracing.com/ and it's a great Fun Run around Christmas. There were no times and it's not a certified course, but so much fun. Almost everyone dresses up. The run ended up being 3.45 miles. It was snowing just barely the entire run. Such a beautiful outside to run in.

We almost didn't go to the race, even though we had registered for it months ago, we thought we might not go due to cold temperatures and crappy weather lately.  There was predicted bad weather coming in Saturday morning.  We decided Friday night to just go.  Jason was driving.  Good thing we did because we each won free entries into the Fools 5K put on in April by Trekman Racing!  And at the very end of the drawings for prizes, I won a sweet running jacket for Jason.  This was in addition to the chocolate, gloves, santa hats and amazing food post race.  I just love getting stuff free and seeing great running friends.

 A very happy fun morning.

A picture taken before we went running.  There is Kyle, Lisa, their children, Jason and I.  What a fun morning.

Starting out on the cold run.  Lisa was snapping pictures.  I have my full running mask on.

Jason stopping during running.  Not sure why he is facing that direction, the racers were going the other way.

Glad I had this cute outfit to run it.  It was actually perfectly warm.  I had on white running tights underneath the striped red and white hose.  The red suit was great.

After the run, here is a picture of Kyle, Jason and and I with icicles on our faces.

My friend Lisa Flaherty and I before the race.  Always great to see her.

Cool Christmas costumes.  Wonder how those were to run in?

My good friend Lisa Helland.  I don't get to see her often.  So glad I did this day.  She is so fun to be around.

the winners of the group costume.  Santa, a sleigh and all the reindeer.  Funny.

2013 Jingle Bell 5k--Iowa City, IA

It was a super cold morning. The thermometer said 6 degrees and I knew I would be freezing.   However, since I paid for this race and I was healthy,  I decided to run it.  The race was chip timed and was a flat course.  It was hard to breathe but I ended up with a PR for the year.  29:01.  I have run a 5k faster but that was before my ankle injury.   Someday I'll see 27 minutes again.

This is the lake we ran around.  It was mostly frozen and so gorgeous. 

The shirt.

This is me about two minutes after finishing the race.  My eyelashes were frozen and had icecycles on them.

Great post race treats.  My company was a sponsor of the race.

Cute hats and glasses on these girls.

Screaming Pumpkin Race Quarter Marathon (6.55 miles) Peoria, Illinois--October 25, 2013

The weather was absolutely perfect for a night Halloween race. It was cold, but a perfect cold.  The wind was super light if there was any so it didn't blow our wigs off or our head decorations off.  You were only cold if you were standing still.   I wasn't ever too hot, or too cold.   The race started exactly on time of 5:50 p.m.

 We went to this race with our friends Kyle and Lisa. They picked us up and we went to Peoria. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from our house.  I'm really not sure how Lisa and I were able to talk our husbands into dressing into tu tu's or tights or anything they had on.  This is one reason how I know our husbands love us so very much because they dressed up in these ridiculous costumes to have fun with us.

Lisa and I are devils to show that "The devil made me do it."  Ha.  I made Jason's and my tu tu's and they turned out ok except they were a little long and were full of static.  Next time I will make them shorter and easier to run in.  I'm so grateful to Lisa for going to the Halloween store and getting not only fun wigs, but the tights for Jason and all the other fun stuff.  It was a great time.  During the race we would check out some of the really old gravestones.  It was fun to run some, walk some, goof off a bunch.  If you want to check out the website for this race go here.

This race has many good points:

• Finishing medals--this year were gorgeous.
• Great food after the event.  
• Easy packet pickup 
• Chip timing bib
• Bib for your scrapbook
• music before and after the event
• medical tent
• lots of parking close to the event
• Marathon and marathon relay options.
• lots of porta poties
• You run through a cemetery and that is just fun.
• plenty of water/gatorade stations in case you needed them.

The bad points are:

• This year the course didn't seem as well lit as last year
• The pavement had seriously deteriorated from last year so there were tons of pot holes and broken pavement everywhere so you really had to watch your step or you would roll an ankle or die. 

I took a few pictures so here they are.  I should have taken pictures of all the awesome costumes I saw because there were some great ones this year.

All of us.  Jason is showing some leg.

Lisa and I in our devil outfits.

Posing for another group picture with a giant cat.

The front of his costume.

The back of Jason's costume

Another great group picture.

The awesome finishing medal.

The race bibs.

Close up of the medal.