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

Marathon No. 2 - Ready - Set.... Let's finish it

Still proud of finishing

A few months ago, around late June (or before the prices went up) we decided to sign up for what would become our Marathon No. 2. They say you can claim your IM Marathon as your Marathon, however our IM Marathons were not that pretty, Res had a 6:00 marathon and Puli had a whooping 7:00 hour marathon, or walk-a-thon, We'll let you call it whatever you want. It didn't change the fact that we was still an IronCouple but heck... 7:00 hours walking was way too long.

So our IM recovery came and went and some girls from the team registered for the Dallas Marathon. We had tried to do it last year but having signed up for IM Texas and upon our return from 70.3 Austin we didn't really feel it was needed. This year was a bit different, for us it was a way not to sign up for anymore races, but yet doing something instead of just the bare minimum. Marathon training with the endurance that we had acquired through the year seemed appropriate for the occasion and to close the year with a good one close to home.

We embarked on the so called marathon training, it didn't really feel like marathon training, we had a few weeks of all 3 on our schedules and the mileage wasn't too high, we had Trifecta Oly in the middle, the Bourbon Chase and the No Limits Half as training runs leading to it, the max mileage we hit was maybe 50 on our peak week and then it kind of went back down to a max of maybe 30 all the way to the taper. Long runs felt great, the lower temperatures really helped to make it more pleasant. There were a few days of warm temperatures in October and November but other than that nothing too bad.

It all was going well, we were both doing our training together, until Res had work orders to leave to DC right after Thanksgiving. This meant Res wouldn't do the Marathon. She had trained for it and had all intention to do it, but our Country comes first and she loves serving it, just sucks when it gets in the way of a marathon.. c'mon Uncle Sam!!! Just Kidding :)

So anyways, Puli is flying (running) solo this weekend. The temperatures for those who have not checked are going to be COLD!!!! Brrrr

So if you want to follow Puli's endeavor through his first marathon on fresh legs, meaning he won't be swimming 2.4 miles nor riding 112 miles on his bike, here you can follow him here.

Stay tuned for his post race report as he thaws from the cold run :).

That elusive Marathon.... by Res

Some of you might think how come a marathon is elusive, you either sign up to do it or you don't. Well, here is a little story of my first full marathon on fresh legs (thats for another entry) that when I think is going to happen it doesn't.

It all started last year, we had finished our Austin 70.3 Ironman on October 28th, and after talking to our coach on the weeks prior to it (even prior to our crash) we had decided we were going to do the Dallas Marathon. What I didn't count with was that I was going to return from Austin with somewhat of an injury. My foot got swollen and really hurt, but after x-rays, dye CT-Scans and doctors nothing was wrong with it. By the it was already almost thanksgiving so there was no way for me to do that since the marathon was on early December. Felipe had thought of doing it but we had decided to wait to do it together as we always try to do things together. Even though we start together and 90% of the time don't finish together, just the fact of knowing he is around on the same course makes me feel like he is closer than if we was home or simply somewhere at the finish line waiting for me (it happens to him too). So we decided we weren't going to race after all.

Dallas Marathon Registration

A few months go by and we do our first ironman, yes it included a 26.2 mile run but since we seem to be doing things backwards, as we did a 70.3 half ironman before we did just the 13.1 run by itself, it seemed appropriate that we would do the 26.2 mile run after we did the 140.6 full ironman. We then signed up back in June or July (can't remember when) and we were all ready for our "running" season to start and be only running for a while. We started the training and I was called to serve our country with the Public Health Service in December. Guess what... The weekend of the marathon!!!. I love to serve our country don't get me wrong but thanks to our lovely shutdown a few weeks ago, they pushed my trip to December since November was out of the question. We were training, and to keep Felipe company on his long runs I continued training however was a bit bummed that I wasn't going to run it. Felipe will be running it while I keep track of him online and wait for him to tell me he finished his first full marathon. :(. It is a bittersweet feeling, while I'm proud of him for pushing his limits and wanting to do it alone, I am still sad I won't be able to do it with him, on top of losing the $100 registration fee.

Anyways... That's the story of my elusive marathon, not sure now when I will do it, next year we have to be smart with our training and racing since we are officially signed up for 2x140.6 distances, IronMan Arizona and Challenge USA (Atlantic City), don't want to be putting more than we need to as we know running a marathon will probably set us back on our progress since recovery probably take from our already busy training schedule.