Running for a good cause

If you have seen some of our posts on twitter or Instagram you know that we are lab parents. We have rescued 2 beautiful black labs from the DFW Lab Rescue, a local non-profit rescue group in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We rescued our first lab 6 years ago, a few months after we rescued her they were holding a 5k. A fundraiser to help with the costs of running the organization covering vet costs, and other cost associated with this great cause. What is best about it is that it was our first 5k. We knew we could run, simply signed up and maybe “trained” for a couple of weeks, running a few blocks around the house. Race day came up we were just happy to run with our new dog. She was so happy pulling me the whole time and she probably carried the heavy lifting a good 2 miles, but then we jogged back and finished our first 5K together.

Last year we had to put Anise down after finding out she had a spleen tumor that had metastasized in her lungs and heart. We found out after a race and before our Ironman. We waited until after that big race and we went ahead and rescued our JayJay. We fell in love with her, and she did the same with us, making her self comfortable on our bed when the foster mom came to our home visit.

DONE!!!!!

sprint to the finish line

Anyways we have done their 5K a few times, this year being the 3rd year and they had it two weekends ago. We ran it as usual, Felipe leaving us in the dust, he has gotten podiums before there so he likes it, and JayJay and I stayed in the back with the rest of the puppies. Once again Felipe got his podium and JayJay and I managed to finish it, she struggled a little but I gave her the motivation she knows now which is she will see her “papa” and she started running again looking for him. He was waiting for us at the finish line (as usual) and when she saw him she just started sprinting towards him.

Ice Bath anyone??? feels good...not sure why my parents complain so much when they do it

The funniest thing was when we were walking afterward JayJay saw a kiddie pool that was full of ice and water with water bottles and she didn’t think twice and got in it for a nice ice bath. I guess dogs need that too… She didn’t complain as much as I normally do when I get in one… She looked rather happy.

Scout wrapping up his first 5K

We also got to share it with a couple of of Tri-ing friends and their pups, most of us have that in common so we run with our 4 legged kids every once in a while, since we don’t have little humans to push around in strollers we let the 4-legged ones pull us around :).

So with that we did one more 5k, but is a 5k that holds a close place to our heart for many reasons. Like I said before is the very first one, the one that got us off the couch, our beloved Anise who crossed the rainbow and our JayJay who has been a great dog and we love her to death.

  

our Anise on her last road trip to Jersey

Bourbon, running, and more running

Looks like its been a while since our last post. Life has been really busy lately. Besides work and normal life seems like we've been doing a whole lot of running lately. Just to share a bit of what we've bee up to here it goes.

Us and Marker's Mark Distillery

My legs... 

Two weeks ago we did the Bourbon Chase relay run, Res actually did a recap of the weekend on her brand new blog and you can read a bit about here. It was our anniversary weekend so we had a blast. Prior to that, we had been just keeping a low profile focusing on work stuff, house projects before the holidays and also trying to put our running miles for the Dallas Marathon coming up in December.

@ the races... breakfast of
champions

Peace - Love and Bourbon

Well, at the Bourbon Chase we put in 23 and 24 miles respectively, and it was a ton of fun. Her recap covers all the weekend highlights. Definitely something to do again, maybe once a year or every other year, planning takes a toll and the traveling it's pretty tough on your body too. Those start and go every couple of hours get you stiff.

Res smiling to the finish line

Morning shot

Anyways, a couple of months ago, not sure what I was thinking, maybe wasn't thinking, I had signed us up for the No Limits Half. The idea was to do a half marathon in the middle of marathon training. Well the idea sounded great at first, maybe no such much as we got back from Kentucky. We still got some massages done and put in some runs during the week, one was an actual race the Friends of the River party on the plaza 6k. They actually helped get the legs going from that stiffness. We got ready for our half marathon on Saturday October 26th. Funny to say now that in reality it didn't get much prepping, get out race belts and bibs, shoes, hydration , a couple gels and called it good, off to another training run. Didn't have many goals, we knew pulling a goal to beat our PRs was a long shot, we were still sore. Morning was cold, but perfect to run. I set off to do a 1:45 potentially, but wouldn't be disappointed if I had a 1:50 or something like that. I was doing great with a girl who pretty much kept me on pace for the 1:45 but at mile 8 or so my hamstrings and hip flexors were starting to bug me, not cramps just a little pain from the soreness, I had to pull back from the 1:45 pace and ended up right behind the 1:50 pacer, happy with my 1:51 (still a PR). Res came in at the 2:07, she looked so strong coming in that we could hardly see pain, but there was some. Not a PR on her end but still she did pretty good. Like we said, considering that we put in 45 miles in the lapse of a week it was a good day. Surprisingly enough, we weren't that tired after that... I even came back to mow the yard :) didn't let the lactic acid build up.

not a bad day afterall

Sunday there was a local Tri here by the house and we had some teammates doing it so we went and cheered with JayJay, was actually fun to cheer! it's our way of giving back to our great Tri friends and Tri community.  

A little of what I've been up to at work... yes OSU's Bullet

Last week we took it easy, legs needed a break from running and it was time to catch up on work stuff.  Not much running until we hit the weekend. We had 16 miles (2:20) on the schedule and I ended up with 14.7... Thought doing a route that seems to be easy on the bike was a good idea...errrrr not so much. All I can say is the out and back was boring but at least I knew what I was getting into. Needles to say I was done after that. I'll add that painting, moving furniture and doing house work the day before wasn't the best idea to prepare for a long run but life goes on and we have a life after all. That's something we've always had clear, we don't let our Tri/running life get in the way of our normal life. We still have to do home projects, work to pay the bills (and races) and really it's the balance to our life. That's the trick, managing that balance of doing it all without going too crazy on the workouts. 

Now we have only 5 weeks til Dallas marathon and training is going well, plan to recover! get the legs stronger and hope for the best! the sub 4:00 goal might still be reacheable I have to be smart about it and plan it well, but sticking to that plan and not get too excited on that day. 

Til then... Take care and be safe!