Shutdown...yet still running!

So the government shut down...is not good for anyone.  I am thankful that my job is intact, but we certainly haven't been spared the insanity.  Two days ago, we were sent home in the middle of our training course, just to be called back a day later.  We will likely be sent home in the next coming days, over a month early, only to have to return again later in 2014 or beyond.  This is frustrating, and yes, will end up costing our government even more, but it's all about timing and flavors of money and other things I understand only well enough to know that one ought not mix them up!

It's a mess- yes- a lot of important folks are furloughed, and that frustrates me on their behalf.  But I still feel that we have it really good in this country, which you know if you've traveled anywhere else.  We aren't living under an oppressive regime (though you may have thoughts otherwise!) and we live in relative safety and security.  I learned from others earlier this summer during the furlough, that you've got to keep more in your savings account than you think and that no job or retirement plan or anything is guaranteed.  I made some changes in these lean times, too-- I cut out going to Starbucks, foremost because it's way too pricey and I don't need it, and second of all because of their rumored idea not to allow firearms, carried concealed with a permit, in stores.  I'm a little confused, though, since at some point in the past, they were on the other side of the firearms story.  I just feel like if people are carrying gun, I want them caffeinated and alert to their surroundings.  Oh yeah and I also think we should endorse our Constitution.

This morning, we (well, 4,000 of my closest friends and I) met up at 0445 for a unique concept...the Brigade Run.  So despite being broke and shutdown, we are still running!  What a metaphor!  What is this nonsense, you ask?  A celebratory event?  Sometimes.  A way to bring local festivities to the post, albeit very early in the morning?  Oh yes.  A commemoration of the retirement of a distinguished individual?  Occasionally.  Super annoying to all those involved?  Always.  The good news is that in these broke times, this is a free event, powered only by tired Soldiers, too tired in fact to gripe much about it. 

If you like to stand around for 45 minutes, then sprint madly down a dark street, followed by walking and bumping into the lines of people in front of you for periods of time, then more sprinting, walking, stumbling, over a course of about 3 miles, then this is an event for you.  For the rest of us sane people, it's tolerable and amusing.  The best part is when you smell the bacon, because that means you're near the chow hall, and there physically isn't much road left at that point.  It also means that you can quickly replace both the calories burned, and then some.

Next up...the Transmountain Challenge 2013 in El Paso.  I signed up!  Hope you are there...here's how it went for me last year.  I'm looking forward to a weekend home.  D promises to run this year too.  He is such a trooper and responds fairly well to my "guess what I signed us up for?" announcements.  Fairly. 

Who's doing more running now that the government's shutdown?  I sorta am!

Dodgeball Day

I was never much of a standout in gym class.  I really suck at gym class games.

Today I re-confirmed that dodgeball is just as scary now as it was in elementary school.  I could've used D's help for sure.  Or at least his silhouette, to cover and conceal me :)

This morning my peers and I played a few rounds with the folks at the Center for the Intrepid (CFI).

In case you don't know, CFI is a revolutionary place where unprecedented things are happening for the people who deserve them the most.  It's too earthshattering for me to merely describe, so feel free to look into it and all the people it touches.

One of these legs is not like the other

Today our opponents included a group of people who are currently receiving therapy at CFI.  These folks are not only undergoing several phases of recovery and therapy but many also have prostheses and braces and other orthotic devices of all sorts.

$#!&'s about to get real

 It was a strange feeling, to try and bean a guy missing an arm and leg, but that's also the pith of my experience today:  people are people, regardless of the pieces and parts, whether original or replacement.  And yes they merit dodgeball-beaning just as much as anyone else.  It's a lesson we intellectually understand but can't fully grasp until facing an amputee about to gun one's self down with a terrifyingly powerful and speedy rubber ball.   But it's the same lesson my 12 year old stepdaughter helps me learn, too.  To me she's a goofy and quirky and splendid tween, just as she should be, despite cerebral palsy.

At the end of the day, I wish I was better at dodgeball.  Each and every person I attempted to knock over caught the ball, forcing me out, just like in 4th grade.

Read more here:
The Center for the Intrepid
The IDEO Brace

Jalapeno Del Sol 10K

First, an apology.

To the mighty MRE!

Home stretch!

 I did something highly unusual yesterday morning here in San Antonio.  I took first overall female in the Jalapeno Del Sol Trail Run 10K and I am just as surprised about it as you are! 

What am I doing with this winner's medal??

 The only difference in my training for this event and all others is that there was none.  Quite literally I've been living in a tent, not doing any running whatsoever, getting little to no sleep, and eating MREs.  I'm just gonna call this one an overwhelming victory in the MRE corner.  Maybe, just maybe, there is something to all the scientifically designed meals?  Sample size- me.

I am back from the field for good and Friday night I decided to look for a fun Saturday race to celebrate my return.  My googling showed the Jalapeno Del Sol Trail Run was close by, had race-day registration and a military discount.  There was also a 5K option if I decided not to do the full 10K.  Perfect!

McAllister Park, just north of the airport, is such a wonderful oasis within San Antonio.  I had been here once before, a few years ago, to take Nugget to the dog park.  The race began at the Classics Elite Soccer Fields within the park. 

Everyone was in such a great mood.  I showed up by myself but I met some new friends, Carrie and her boyfriend Allen from Austin.  They are veterans of the Prickly Pear 50K and Chupacabra 10K Night Run, raced in this same park and also organized by the same folks creating the Jalapeno Del Sol.

I wore the Pace Setter Skirt.  Love that thing.  I saw many other gals of all ages in running skirts so I guess they are more popular that I thought?

It pains me to be more than a few feet from a reflective belt at any moment

 The 10K and 5K courses are completely the bike and hiking trails of McAllister Park. The hilly and winding paths are entirely shaded, but replete with rocks and tree roots.  The Good Lord has seen fit to give me cankles and so I steadfastly sailed over the uneven ground.  Others took a few tumbles but despite a few scrapes and bruises no one was seriously injured.  I even saw a few deer as I ran.  The fellow trail users, cyclists, hikers, puppy dogs, were all very courteous.  Don't tell Nugget :)  The trail was well marked with arrow signs, orange flashes on trees at eye-level, and flour "x" marks at intersections to indicate where not to run.  The organizers had run the course the night previous and morning of the event just to ensure it was easy to follow.  Of course, I did get turned around in a few places but that's the fun of a trail run!  There was a little confusion at the 5K/10K turnoff point but a race volunteer stood at the junction and told us which path to follow.

The finish for all three races is along the soccer fields.  Nice for picture-taking and for meeting up with the 5K and kiddos.

Post race cerveza provided by the New Braunfels Brewing Company.  Treats included tacos, water, bananas, HEB's Quench sports drink.  Medical tent on hand, too.  Great technical t-shirt.  Cute medals.  Water/sports drink stations every 2 miles.

D says he will never run this race due to the shirt's overwhelming cuteness

I was worried about the heat at 0800 since all the outdoor PT I've been doing lately has been at 0530 or so, but it was still cool while light enough to safely wind through the woods without headlamp.  

The kid's mile begins 15 minutes later at a different place, a few hundred meters away.  I don't think it travels quite so deeply into the woods but I saw quite a few kids and I was very impressed that some of these kiddos were independent enough that they accompanied their parents to the 5K/10K start and then walked back to the Kid's Mile start on their own.  Not sure I would've been that brave as a kid.  And I definitely wasn't out running either!  I only mention that to show what a safe and fun environment it was.  Extremely well organized. So cool, too, that a small-scale race was chip-timed!

The price was a little steeper than I liked, but I did get a $5 discount and I could've saved even more by registering earlier...like a month ago...I will just silently laugh at that prospect right now :)

This is my first trail run, and my first big win...if you can call it that.  I am never going to be an elite athlete, and I will never win a big race, but if you are like me, why not try a small-size race and see what you can do?  I have a feeling that this race will not be small forever.

This machine fueled by MREs and tacos

 Other upcoming related Run In Texas events:

Galveston Sand Crab 5K/10K Nighttime Beach Run (Sep 7, 2013)
Johnson City Lighthouse Hill Ranch 10 Mile, 20 Mile, 50K Trail Runs (Sep 21, 2013)

MRE, no questions answered

I have been eating lots of these recently:

What do the numbers mean??

I do not like this fact.

I do not eat most of the things that come in this Meal, Ready-to-Eat package.  And I definitely am not interested in heating any of it up with the neato water-activated heater that is in every package.

It took me a few days, but taste-wise I learned to go the vegetarian route, meals which can be easily acquired through trading, like candy trades among children on Halloween.  Yes, I was the one who would give you a king-size Snickers for a measly Chunky.  No one is surprised I didn't pursue a degree in business.

I ate the peanut M&Ms that were in here, same with the crackers:

Not so bad!

I don't know how these are made, but my veterinarian friend tells me they are regularly inspected for food safety.  By veterinarians.

I seriously crave fresh veggies.

The urban (field?) legend is that each MRE, if you ate the whole thing, is approximately 2000 calories.  There is nothing on the outside package that verifies this, and I haven't saved enough wrappers to do the math on the individual packages of food.  I am not able to run or exercise as before, so I am excessively wary of anything that has 2000 calories in it- not a problem, it's easy to give the more delicious contents of these meals away (refer to the aforementioned Chunky Situation of 1988). 

NUMBER 13!!!! MREs you taunt me with your enigmatic code...

I do admire the creative MRE menus that I see, and I love the condiment packages: moist towelette, toilet paper, sugar, instant coffee, salt, maybe a packet of hot sauce.  MREs from years ago included a teeny bottle of Tabasco sauce, a cute thing that always made me smile.  It's gone, but so are the Charms candy, an improvement now that I see Skittles and Peanut M&Ms instead.

I know there are some MRE aficionados out there...tell me, which one is your favorite??

River City Run...5K jog tour of San Antonio

Last Saturday morning, just a few wee hours after the Pub Run, my pals and I decided to re-trace our staggering steps with the help of River City Run.  I now know of no better way to appreciate the history and culture of San Antonio while burning off the previous night's celebratory indulgences, which are a must when we are sweating away every sodium ion living in tents during the week for the next several weeks.

Hillary, Me, Mark, and Jenny + reflective belt...no sweat puddle beneath me = the start

River City Run starts at the Alamo at 0800 sharp where we met up with our lovely guides Tommy and Tina who took us on a 5K running tour of some of San Antonio's greatest treasures, embellished with well-researched and entertaining information to share with us at our stops along the way.  I saw the city in a way I never had, even though I used to call SA my home.

Running *is* yay

I really admire Tommy and Tina's low-overhead business model and I would do this tour again especially since return customers get to enjoy the tour for free.  I'll bring D if he is ever able to visit while I'm here since I know we'll take a trip to Magnolia Pancake Haus afterwards.  

I'd recap all the things Tommy and Tina shared with us, but I'll save that for the pros and their great tour of this great city.

The tour is $30, includes a t-shirt, water bottles during/after the run, and digital pictures.  Worth it for sure, even in the record-breaking summer heatwave.  We were able to park in a lot charging $5/3 hours which was plenty of time- the River City Run took just under 2 hours.

Torch of Friendship

 I also used the Pub Run and River City Run (clean laundry is for suckers) to try out my birthday present to myself..the Lululemon Pace Setter running skirt in white and black stripes and polka dots.  I love it.  It's got great pockets- large enough for phone, keys, credit cards, gels if need be.  Great silky, moisture-wicking feel.  Undershorts were comfy without cutting off circulation.  Cute enough to wear as a sporty skirt even when not running.  Hate the $58 pricetag, hence the birthday present part.  Everyone who has worn one loves these skirts, I'm no different.  If you have the cash, and are willing to try out a running skirt, you might like this one.  I do.  But I won't buy another for a long while unless I win the lottery or, even more unlikely, find a Lululemon fire sale..

San Antonio Pub Run Recap!

Friday was an early work morning for all of us, but that didn't deter a great night: my first go at a Pub Run!  Jenny, Hillary, Mark and I and 1000 of our new friends enjoyed the San Antonio Pub Run together across downtown San Antonio.

We had to hurry from work to the start, luckily easily identified by the streams of neon-clad folks circling towards Pat O'Briens.  We made it by 7 pm and the party was already in full swing.  Mullet wigs, leotards, leg warmers, guitars and headbands for everyone, why not.  We had an unofficial Hulk Hogan citing, and for sure Pee Wee Herman was well-represented, but his likeness still creeps me out.

Finally putting a reflective belt to a good use!

 The 10+ bars and clubs we visited were a great slice of San Antonio and well chosen both in location and theme.  The drinks were (thankfully) a little weak in some places, but we weren't gunning to lose our  motor skill or memories so we maintained a fairly wholesome alcohol : water ratio.  A midnight stop at the County Line BBQ kept our strength up, and much thanks to our fellow diners for accommodating our festivities as part of your evening.

Here's the thing about clubs and bars and me:

Hot Mess Recipe

 
But something magical happens when you have running clothes on...you don't really care about your hair and makeup and sweatiness quotient (mine is really high) and instead there's much much much more room for fun. 

He called, Jenny, but you were stuck in the 80s and hadn't come back yet

 Highlights of the evening/morning included the fantastic relaxed and safe atmosphere, great bars without cover charges, and participants who did not mind Jenny accosting them with her gratis and real-time clothing alterations.  Parking might have been an issue had we not driven together and found a garage to stash the car in overnight for about $18.00.

Pub Run conclusions:

1.  Wearing workout clothes to a club: 100% fun and eliminates 99% of d-baggery
2.  San Antonio is a gem -- the greatest tourists and citizens and the most copacetic traffic
3.  County Line BBQ is the best, I don't care what you say
4.  I can still hang out until the wee hours with adult beverages and have a productive next day, thirty schmirty!
5.  I could not have done this without my iPhone, Location Services I love you.

We will be back next month!  I don't expect the same turnout or the same level of high spirits, but with a theme of "college sports" I know that it will still be a great experience.

Strangers, AKA best friends for the duration of a picture

North to the future...back from Alaska!

Lately I have been ignoring the simple fact that stress is negatively affecting my running.  Where I used to be a solid 7:45-7:51 minute per mile runner, for the past month or so I am thrilled just to hold 8:30s or so.  I'd love to blame the arid triple digits but I know that the stress of the boards and the trepidation in waiting for score reports just about knocked me over.  We planned a week trip in Alaska immediately after my test day to enjoy some stress-free (oh my gosh, what a joke, waiting for scores was actual test stress x ONE MILLION) time off together and with friends.

I lost a lot of sleep while waiting for scores but I finally found out last Thursday (while standing at a mosquito-laden river landing at 0500) that I passed the boards and the best part was that I was in Alaska with my "family," the mentor who started it all and gave me the courage to keep pushing forward with my studies and army career.  I have been friends with UJ and his wife CB for 7 years and I would not be myself without them.  They have also adopted Dan into their family and we love their 3 beautiful and spirited children as our own. 

We found time to eat way too much good food with our great friends

This is about oh, 9 at night

 And celebrate UJ's change of command

i would never be so lucky to have UJ as my boss one day

Fish for king salmon on the Deshka River (we took pictures of all the fish we caught as you can clearly see)

True.  There are no fish in any of our pictures.

Ride horses up the butte in Palmer 

up a butte...it IS funny

 Cruise around Portage Glacier 

Run a half marathon

photo of a photo...only the best for you

 We enjoyed the midnight sun and we successfully shopped for real estate.

The biggest victory of our trip north was finally convincing California Dan that we should retire to Alaska.  Our last visit (his first) was in winter and not surprisingly, skiing through blustery -9F did not win him over.  The summer sun and beautiful landscape and opportunity for so much coffee (seriously, I've never seen such dense per capita coffee shops) and he was hooked (unlike our fish, sigh).  Maybe he just drank in too much clean air.  Or coffee.

Either way, we now have 2.3 acres of an empty wooded lot with some nice views of the Kenai Peninsula...and we have a few more years to decide (argue) what to do with it!

For now the running is not going too well.   The halfsie was a beautiful course but I just held a nice pace and didn't push myself.  I couldn't.  I changed shoes, training plans, hydration, everything, and still I can't trim the fat off my pace but I am content to work with this slower pace for now and then ease back into it.

It's nice to be back home.  The chickens did fine without us and their abandoned heap of 12 eggs demonstrated yet again that they'd be terrible mothers.  Nugget enjoyed her time at sleep-away camp.  Back to running, back to hoping I can clean up my pace!

Any suggestions to overcome my training troubles?

Off topic: 30 months later...

Guess what?

...I now have a master's degree...(not sure it made it into the picture!)

Couldn't, wouldn't have done it without you!

BF Leah was able to take some time away from work to share in the morning's celebration and of course D and my classmates came through as well as some of the bigwigs...

Couldn't have asked for better classmates and coordinator!

We ensured job security/celebrated National Donut Day with our post-graduation refreshments.

Dan and I will celebrate later with a bike ride- more specifically, a spin on my new 29er, the Giant Anthem.  I have never had a women's-specific bike before, or a bike with disc brakes, much less a 29" and with dual suspension!  I can't wait to try it out on the rocky trails near home.  I am not the tallest kid on the block and I love having a frame that fits so well. I also love the Giant brand (my other bikes are a Giant SE Rincon from 2000 and a Giant OCR 1 road bike from 2002) and the folks at our great local bike shop set me up with the perfect fit.  I am not one to make big purchases lightly and I'm happy to have found a great bike we will keep for years to come.  

I am far more excited about the new bike than the new degree...but I only got one because of the other, so that's saying something I guess :)

Did you have a big week?  Or at least get a free donut?  

Either way, here's to having a big weekend!

Army 2-mile run: is it fair? (boys vs girls)

The army PT test occurs at least twice a year and consists of a very early morning wake up, a long wait in line to be weighed and height(ed?- not a word), a 2 minute push-up count, and then 2 minutes of sit-ups followed by a 2-mile run at the unit's designated course (track, stretch of road, etc).  It's all very official and though I've done the PT test plenty of times and have always passed (I hope I haven't jinxed myself), I still get uber nervous beforehand.

While I've been blessed never to have a problem with the running portion of the test, I know lots of folks who do.  Sure, some of them simply don't prepare for it, and that's their own doing.  Some people just get overwhelming bouts of The Bubblies.  Some people claim the 2-mile test is "stupid" and "not a valid measure of aerobic fitness," but here we are--with science--and as with all good things, it came from the 1980s:  the 2-mile test is a valid measure of aerobic capacity:

Free eye chart... "This study confirms the usefulness and validity of a timed 2 mile run test to indicate the level of aerobic capacity," thanks Mello, Murphy and Vogel!

 So I don't really want to add anything to that debate.  Let's talk instead about the current time standards for the army 2-mile test, here they are in sum (thanks Wikipedia):

...much studied by everyone the night before the PT test

But on the way to the gym the other day my husband (who has been in the army far longer than I and always passes his PT tests too- it's in our pre-nup*) and I got to wondering...are these charts, by gender, fair?

I suspected that it was more difficult for a guy to max the run than for a woman. As a woman, I hate to say that, but I hate more to think that we have it disproportionately easier, as though we have been expected, quite literally, not to pull our own weight.

The army developed these charts...well, I don't know how.  Here's what I did (math, but not science):

Mad excel skills...well whaddya know

Ignoring p-values or any actual statistical tools, I independently decided that 63.87 seconds is not statistically different from 78 seconds and that army men and women aged 32-36 are roughly equivalent to the participants in a local 5K and the difference in times between the best army runners is about the gender time difference in the best local 5Kers.  So that's nice to know, my fears are assuaged, I am thrilled in spite of my mass generalizations.  There is likely some body of data the army used to determine these time sheets, but I couldn't find it, and independent "verification" is so fun in comparison to what I should be doing anyway.

The true shocking find in my "research project" is that the top male and female runners on our planet are only about 30 sec/mile apart, regardless of the type of race!  New research project ideas are already brewing...

What are your thoughts?  What should my next research project be?

*just kidding, no pre-nup, but if we did have one, well, that might be in there

Sources: DTIC (Validation of 2-mile test)  A fascinating read.  Wish I'd thought of the study, but I was in elementary school at the time they were doing it.

Knee pain(free)

I am thankful everyday that I am healthy and able to run at all, and every time I run without knee pain I am especially grateful because not long ago, this wasn't so.  This morning I ran 6.2 miles at an 8:06 pace - a good pace, and pain-free.  Felt alright, but not like I did in March when I was really mileaging-up.

At the clinic, I see "knee pain" patients all day long: otherwise healthy soldiers with a generalized, sometimes bilateral knee pain, which they can't pinpoint to a particular trauma or injury, but they know isn't getting any better.  If I had to pick a favorite type of injury, it would be these, because generally speaking, the fix is easy, non-invasive, and really improves the quality of life for people who love to run or otherwise use their lower limbs.

The typical patient usually describes pain medially and inferior to the kneecap - "inside my knee" they often say.  They tell me that the pain is constant but exacerbated with standing from a seated position, running, squats and going up/down stairs.  Sometimes the patient reports some swelling of the knee, sometimes not.
 

Dan's left knee, ouchie zones to scale

It's patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS).  Jumper's knee. Runner's knee.  It has a million names.  It's knee pain, it's happened to me, and it stinks.  Luckily it can be fixed!

This PFPS is due to an imbalance in the quadriceps muscle as it yanks on the knee cap when you use your legs.  The quadriceps are 4 separate muscles each pulling like so:

1.  vastus lateralis 2.  rectus femoris 3.  vastus intermedius 4.  vastus medialis

and if they are not fairly well-balanced, the glide of a knee cap along a femur won't be so smooth or even.  Pain factory!  In general (sample population: my patients + some reading) it's the medial quadriceps that's the weakest - the vastus medialis. 

The army isn't as nice to knees as it should be. There is a lot of pressure to keep running and stay off of "profile"...but a patella is also putting a lot of pressure on a femur, which hurts, HURTS!! and can lead to softening of the cartilage on the undersurface of the patella (read: more pain!).

Good lookin' right knee right there!

What do I suggest?  

RICE.  Rest (no running for sure! up to 30 days even). Ice.  Compression (eh, not really necessary here).  Elevate (sure).  Eating rice while RICEing - also ok.

Home exercise program for quad strengthening.  Here's a simple truth and a good start: to reduce knee pain, strengthen your quads.  All of them.  Equally.  We need to achieve balance between the vastus medialis and vastus lateralis.  So do those short arc quads, wall squats, leg presses, straight leg raises, seated leg extensions with a tennis ball between your knees, isometrically squeezing the same tennis ball.  I'm not a physical therapist by any means but you get the idea.  Stretch often.  And don't neglect the hammies either while you're at it!

I also like non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs).  These are great drugs with a good anti-inflammatory and analgesic effect.  I don't use them just when the pain is bad, I use and prescribe them for use everyday for a few weeks in order to enable a lasting anti-inflammatory effect.  I personally like ibuprofen.   

As always I recommend getting personal medical opinions from somewhere besides the internet...

Race Report: Elevation Crazy in ELP (Transmountain Challenge)

My friend Janelle, what a gal.  She is an El Paso girl, born and raised and returned, and though she recently moved to Upstate New York, she continues to change my life in a positive way.  We used to cross paths in the mini-gym built on the first floor of the hospital for staff to use for the ol' odd hour of the day workouts, and there she was, each morning.  She never ran too far, and never too fast, but I admired her dedication.  We also share the same Red Bull addiction so we were kindred spirits from the start.  

On this day, Janelle, her 1-year old daughter, her husband X and I all found ourselves in the cool October morning at 0530 on the far side of the "southern tip of the Rockies," the Franklin Mountains, that divide our fair town of El Paso into East and West.  We were about to embark on something called the Transmountain Challenge Relay, but soon arose the question of what to do with Baby...the only obvious answer to which is, of course, if you are Janelle, to canx the reasonably apportioned individual relay segments and do the whole 13.1 together, taking Baby with us on this half-marathon run for which none of us had been training, much less with a baby stroller, much less in those wall-like gale-force winds that blow across our high El Paso desert, much less with an elevation profile like this:

Not the best screen capture- so to explain, this is a 13.1 mile course with a 1345 ft gain in the first half, and an equivalent drop on the flip side.

Somehow I had become enamored with Janelle's early am plan and instead of heading like wise people for the closest breakfast establishment (Crave, a favorite, would've really fit the bill) I followed X and Janelle to the starting line, put an extra race number on Baby, tucked her in to protect from the wind and pushed that little girl up and over the mountains.  Janelle and X (who is NOT, per himself, a runner) were in great spirits and I caught their enthusiasm too.  The stroller turned out to be a great contraption for holding phones, car keys, outerwear, snacks, Red Bull, and music thereby enabling us to sing Bon Jovi together and entertain all the folks passing us.  The downhill part was no easier than the uphill, and far more treacherous if you think about it from Baby's POV.  I was so proud of myself for not overturning or injuring or handing off Baby to strangers at any point and as a bonus I found a new respect for those mommas and kiddos out there, getting it done with running strollers each day.  I got nothing to complain about when I get my sleepy self out the door!

 

This was a great race.  For the addicts, one can achieve "Half and Half" status by additionally running the Flying Horse Half Marathon a week later in Sunland Park.  We were all too busy.  Even Baby.  Maybe next year!

I actually felt great afterwards despite the wind and babywindbreak and I wore my race shirt under my scrubs the next day.  I wasn't the only one :)

Of course, the surprise ending to our burrito-filled post-race stupor, where we all thought we were doing awesome and felt like winners...ended when we saw my BF Leah (of Jim and Barb fame!!):

Here she is pushing 2 little people each under 2 years old!  And that is the downhill stretch of a *&#$&%^ huge mountain!  So proud!

This event was great- well organized for a race with separated start and finish.  Be prepared to walk about 8/10 a mile from designated parking area to the start- it's a good warmup.  Designated buses (timely and frequent!) will deliver you from finish area back to starting line/parking lot.  The race was not overcrowded, but without long empty spaces between runners.  Beautiful scenery.  All skill levels.  Fantastic aid stations with local middle school cheerleaders, scouts, families, music, water, snacks.  Port a potties every few miles, but the road is lined by open BLM land if you needed to water a tree in between facilities.  We were blessed that the city provided for Transmountain Road closure all day for the event.  Delicious burritos at the end.  Motivated soldiers and DHS folks from Border Patrol carried flags and ran in formation.  Some costumes.  One crazy guy pulled a tire, strung to a backpack harness, the whole way.  I didn't see him or his tire at the end but I assume he finished either alone or with help from a brother.  That's just the El Paso way; that's this race.

Janelle and X