Another 1/2 marathon

Last weekend, I ran my 4th 1/2 marathon. The Heels & Hills in Las Colinas. I wasn't really looking forward to it since I didn't feel like I was on top of my game. I had been running since my full marathon but I hadn't been extremely serious about it.

I nearly missed the start of the race because this Swiss apparently still doesn't know the difference between am and pm. Funny enough my alarm didn't go off at 5:30 am since it was set for pm. I woke up at 6 in a panic. Not a good start...

I headed over to Las Colinas with no breakfast, had a difficult time finding a parking spot, got my bib and ran into a bunch of friends (guys) that were pacing the race in skirts. They looked hilarious. Some of them had taken their mission very seriously! I ended up with two extra shirts (the one I had on and the shirt I got for showing up to the race) and car keys I needed to get rid of for the race. Thankfully, I saw that a friend was taking pictures at the finish line so I stuck  all my junk with his stuff!

We all lined up at the start line and CZ and I found ourselves with the Steve's. Steve P stuck with CZ and GQ ended up pacing me.

Oh before, I continue, I need to point out that the race was on Sunday morning. On Friday night, Anthony and I went out with some friend of ours. We were playing poker and drinking until 1 am. I didn't go to bed until 3 am. I napped on Saturday in the middle of the day, which meant that I wasn't tired when it was time to go to bed... and then the whole alarm clock fiasco happened. Now back to regular program:

When I realized that I was dehydrated - I am talking about the pasty mouth, feeling like you have a bunch of flower in your mouth kind of dehydrated - before mile 1 and then looked down at my Garmin and saw that we were running a sub 7 min mile. I figured I'd be cooked before mile 5! Obviously, I had forgotten who was pacing me... he wouldn't let me get away with anything. He just pushed the pace and dragged me through 13.1. He asked me to make sure to stay focused, not to cheer for the other runners - unlike at the 1/2 on the same course last October - and to stay on his shoulder. GQ ended up being my water boy, my mouth piece - he'd thank the runners shouting "good job!" for me and a great pacer. He didn't allow me to speak but kept talking during the entire race, giving me encouragement, kicking my butt when I needed it and placing target on runners in front of me and pushing me to "wheel them in".

I crossed the finish line in 1:33:20, a 7:07 pace. Who knew? I thought a 7:30 wouldn't be possible. A PR by 9 minutes! Couldn't be happier! :)

My first marathon!

On January 17th, 2010, after over 25 weeks of hard training, I ran my very first marathon, the Houston Marathon. I was confident that I had trained well and felt that a BQ (Boston Qualifier) was within reach unless something went terribly wrong. I thought that my goal time was 3:40:59. It turns out that it was in fact 3:45.59 since I am turning 35 at the end of the year and would change age category by the time Boston rolls around in April.

The day before, I had flown in from Dallas by myself, checked into the hotel, ran into some friends in the lobby and headed to dinner with my coach Vishal, his girlfriend Ashley and other friends, among them, Shaheen who dragged us to IHOP for dinner. I hadn't had lunch that day because of my flight schedule, the expo I had to head to and just the lack of availability to food around my hotel. Needless to say that 2 blueberry pancakes didn't exactly hit the spot! I headed to bed early and thought I'd fall asleep. Not so much... the lovely hotel was hosting a wedding dinner, in a tent, on the terrace, under my window. I might as well had the DJ in my room. I could understand his every single words. At 10, I called the front desk asking if the lovebird were planning on wrapping their party anytime soon. They informed me that they were supposed to stop at 10:30.

The next morning, I met all the other runners before the crack of dawn in the hotel lobby. The cool people at the hotel had breakfast ready for us! I ate, got ready and was wondering when I'd start getting nervous. We all walked to the start line together. I ran into Vish and talked to Ellie, a girl that Mark had introduced me to. She told me not to stick with the 3:40 pace group, as she had ran with that same pacer on previous occasions and that he wouldn't get the group in at or under 3:40. I got a little nervous when I realized that I'd have to self-pace myself.

The gun went off, I started running and immediately realized that I needed to keep myself from going too fast. I ran into Marc who was planning on running a really fast marathon. He took of after a couple of miles. The first ten miles consisted of me running, looking at my Garmin and say "Oh shit" and then pretty much come to a halt to drop my pace down. My lower back was hurting, which worried me since I hadn't had lower back issues since I had started running. I past the 13.1 marker without any problems but I knew that the race was really only starting.  I saw some familiar faces along the way. Including my friend Sharon, who drove all the way to Frisco and surprised me with a huge "Go Sabine" sign before the 1/2 way mark somewhere. I had prepared for a lot but that certainly wasn't a scenario I had reheared. It took me a quarter mile to get my breathing under control from choking up! I also saw Michelle B and the speedy gang, inc. DZ and CZ as well as Steve H. would was yelling at me to go get' em.

After the 1/2 way point, it started to become work. At 20 miles, my legs were starting to get tired and that's when other runners around me seemed to start dropping like flies. Every aid station seemed to bring more casualties. People would stop, fold over, etc. it wasn't a pretty sight. I was very happy to have my fuel belt, which allowed me to look at my feet, try to ignore everybody around me and power through the casualties.

Somewhere past mile 22, I saw Bruce, who ran a bit with me and told me I'd get in in 3:35, I think he said. I had no energy left by then but I remember mumbling "better than that!". At mile 23, my legs become lead. It became an incredible effort to put one foot in front of the other. To add insult to injury, the last aid station was in the middle of an incline = runners cemetery!  Again, I was very happy to have my fuel belt!

I crossed the finish line in 3:33:39. 24th in my division! My first marathon ended up being a resounding success! Boston 2011 here I come!

Bib	Name	City	State	Cntry	Div	Age	M/F	Event
2598	Norris, Sabine	Dallas	TX	USA	F30-34	34	F	Marathon
Checkpoints 10k Mile 9 Half 30k 0:49:51 - 1:45:08 2:30:16 Finish Pace Proj Time Official Time Overall Gender Div 0:08:09 3:33:39 714 111 24

Over the final 7.5 miles 

You passed 173 runners

And 12 passed you

?

A not too muddy Muddy Buddy!

Always up for an adventure or unable to say "no"... who knows? Who cares!

A few of the usual suspects decided we should sign up for the Muddy Buddy here in Dallas on October 25th. The race is done in teams of two taking turns running and biking. There are five legs in the race. Teammate A runs, bikes, runs, bikes, runs and Teammate B bikes, runs, bikes, runs, bikes.

Seena and I got paired up... just because our first names start with the same letter. Sounded good to me! ;)

I don't think I ever raced so unprepared. I was basically told I'd be picked up at the crack of dawn on my doorstep and to show up with a helmet. That's about all I knew and all I was prepared for. My awesome teammate got us team shirts ready, she secured a mountain bike for the race and got everything organized.

The race was a blast and we rocked it. The biking - despite the fact that I think I had mountain biked a grand total of two times in my life - was awesome and I think I ran pretty strongly despite the hills. Team "Got Soap?" placed 2nd in our age group.

The Great Urban Race

A few of of us from the Ragnar team decided to sign-up for the Great Urban Race and instead of splitting everyone in teams of two, we decided to each race with our husbands. Unfortunately, everyone kind of flaked out for one reason or the other and only teams White Bread & Rice (Ardis and Wilson) and The Swiss and the Geek (Anthony and I) were ready to race!

On October 3rd, after seeing patients, going to school and unloading kids, we all somehow managed to meet at the race start.

The Great Urban Race is

similar to the reality TV show "The Great Amazing Race", we had several clues to solve, challenges to do and lots of running around.

It required a lot of strategizing, lots of running and some luck!

We had to carve pumpkins, purchase and deliver toilet paper to a shelter, taking a two-step lesson, finding license plates with specific letters, complete a smelling challenge, chow down a brownie and taking pictures doing it, etc.

Almost 400 participants and both our teams qualified for the Championship in New Orleans by arriving in the top 25, 16th and 17th respectively. It was a blast!

First race post summer... or so I thought

At the beginning of the year, shortly after moving to the Big D, I decided to register to run my 3rd 1/2 marathon, Heels and Hills and Him. It was scheduled for May. The week before the race, instead of being excited about it, I started dreading it. My typical reaction, when not prepared.

It had been raining a lot in the week coming up to the race and the day before the race messages started to appear on the race web site indicating that they'd be keeping a close eye on the weather. The morning of the race, I got up before the crack of dawn, only to find out that the race had been postponed. Not cancelled, just postponed to September. How amazing is that? We all got the chance to re-register for the September race for free, well actually if I remember correctly the 3rd party vendor doing the online registration charged us $5.

The race had been rescheduled for September 27th. I was excited about getting to run in "cooler" weather... or so I thought. Still wasn't feeling it... still dreading it... especially since I had been sick all week and only ran once all week but I started getting excited about it a couple of days before the race, when I learned that the amazing Shaheen would be pacing a 1:45 group.

Got up on race day, went through my usual routine, headed to the race site, got there way too early and met up with "the girls": Ardis, Seena, Anne, Dawnda, Sharon & co. My stomach still wasn't feeling great.

I joined the 1:45 "group" at the starting line. The "group" consisted of a bunch of amazing runners: Shaheen, Mark O., Michael H. and Claudia. Shaheen was the official pace leader and Claudia and I each ended up with our own personal pacing superstar. The first few miles, it looked like we had a party going, we were so excited, shouting, having fun. Michael kept

us VERY entertained. He actually did the Hokey Pokey running backwards right in front of us. I was working hard trying to run forward and the dude is running backwards doing the hokey pokey in front of me... needless to say, we laughed a lot!

Claudia stayed focus, she did amazing, especially given that she had run something like 14 miles the day before the race. Who does that anyway!? ;)

Fortunately, I didn't realize that it was a straight out and back course on a paved trail because I probably would have stayed in bed. Around mile 6, I broke ahead of the group a little bit and shortly there after, I passed the turning point and started passing runners heading to the turning point. As much as I didn't like the course, everyone's spirit was so encouraging and inspiring. We were shouting at each other, telling each other "good job", "looking good", etc. and there also were inspirational messages every half miles or so. My favorite being "Who's idea was this anyway?" :)

Shaheen, Mark & I

Around mile 8, Mark, my very own personal pacer caught up with me and that's when the fun began. That's right when it started to get really hot and humid. Apparently, the weather didn't get the memo that it was the end of September, or rather, it didn't care. It's Texas after all!

Mile 8 to 10 went fine but I really hit the wall at mile 10. It was horrible. Poor Mark had to listen to my "I can't do it" whining for 3.1 miles. Not pretty, definitely not my finest moment. Shaheen caught up with us in the home stretch. She figured since she didn't have anyone to pace, she didn't have to keep the official pacing time. Keep in mind that 1:45 is a fall-asleep kind of pace for her!

I wish I could say I finished strong in 1:42:49 but it was rather pathetic! I placed 1st in my age

group, 4th female overall and 22nd runner to cross the finish line.

Long summer

It was a very long, humid raceless summer! The good news is that this year, during my annual summer trip to Europe not only did I manage to pack running clothes/shoes but I actually took them out of the suitcase and used them.

There is just no ifs and buts about it, I will never get used to the Texas summer with temperature and humidity levels so high that you feel you've just stepped in an oven. Forget running into that kind of weather.

I literally dragged through my regular Tuesday/Friday 5-mile loop with Sue's group at 6 am in the morning. I mean, how early does one have to wake up to be able to run through a 5 mile loop? Worst of all, I started retreating to the dreadmill. When I start using the dreadmill a whole lot, you know it's bad.

So... running in Switzerland, in Germany and back and forth across the border even, was a nice boost to my running self-esteem that had been tanking in the Texas summer. It was nice to know I still "had it". :)

Ragnar Relay from Santa Barbara to Dana Point

This weekend was an interesting one!

I was a member of team MILFs (Mothers Into Lifelong Fitness), what were YOU thinking? ;) My team was one of the 105 teams running the Ragnar Relay from Santa Barbara to Dana Point. The team consisted of 12 runners, divided in two vans, running178 miles in beautiful Southern California over a 24 hour period.

I was runner #6 in the first van. Our van covered legs 1-6, 13-18 and 25-30 the second van covered legs 7-12, 19-24 and 31-36.

Unfortunately, the night before the race, we were told that we couldn't run leg 4 and then legs 19-24, due supposedly to permit issues but I have my doubts that permits were ever issued given the fact that those said legs were extremely dangerous to run (i.e. the PCH in Malibu). As it was, some of the legs we actually ran, were really dangerous! We had different options to make up our "lost" legs and we decided to pair up with a few of the runners in van 2 running their first legs.

My very first leg was running 5 miles into Ventura, CA my "hometown" in the US. I guess I

must have been really excited because I ran my leg at a 7:32 pace. Since my second leg had been

eliminated (I was supposed to run on PCH into Santa Monica), I opted to run with my friend Monica, who was running her first leg in the middle of the fields off Pleasant Valley in Oxnard. We ran 5.5 miles at a nice steady pace. It was nice to have a running partner to chit chat with!

My last leg, was running 6.6 miles on a trail along Huntington Beach. It was beautiful! I was pretty sleep deprived by then and didn't really enjoy the run but I kept my pace steadily a little under 8, which I can't really complain about.

Both my official legs were on trails along the beach and although the scenary was breathtaking, the van with my other teammates couldn't shadow me (i.e. cheer me on, give me

water, etc.) so it was a little lonely but I made it!

It was a great experience and I'll certainly do it again. It was disapointing that they had to cancel so many legs, it gave us a long break in the middle of the night, so I don't feel like we got the full experience but I did log a few miles and I am happy with that! :)