Your Pace or Mine?

One fun run and a busy week in Seattle later I am finally able to recap our race!

Thankfully I was able to spend a couple days pre-race in town with Chanelle, giving us a chance to run together and to decide on our "plan of attack". Boy did we learn a lot before the race too -- thanks to observing Ryan (Chanelle's bf) run ahead of us we figured out we have been running wrong! Chanelle "the Gazelle" has been running for speed with long full strides...which is awesome...but I die (and eventually so does she). I have been running for distance with baby steps, except when I am with her, I get peer pressured into running like a gazelle. So we figured out our pace issue and decided to run for distance instead of speed.

Naturally, the night before the race we had to "carb up" with pasta...mostly wine. I don't advise this the night before a race. Nor do I advise going to various bars around town with pre-race excitement and decidedly more libations. I was wearing a hat...so we thought it was a good idea. Lesson learned.

Chanelle being very excited and our pre-race carb adventure.

So, morning of race, an extensive discussion on whether or not a jacket should be worn and a few photo ops later we were finally ready to run! I'd say we did pretty well too! We ran together almost the entire time. I walked once while hiking Mt. Everest climbing a small grade. Chanelle finished first, naturally and the post-race activities were pretty uneventful. We were happy with our accomplishment but neither of us felt like it was very well organized. Regardless, we got our medals, had a beer and went about our day. It should be noted, the girl who won over-all was about twice as fast as us. We have work to do!

Pre-Race/Post-Race...pretty much look the same :)

Now official marathon training starts. Yikes. I ran once in Seattle...I should have run 3 times. Not a good way to start a training program. Here is to a better week!


XO, 

Chantele

So, I'm Slightly Competitive...

Well, Chantele was right!  I must have a slight competitive gene as I naturally thought I needed to try and beat the outstanding time she conquered on Tuesday.  I didn’t quite beat her Tuesday time (which she has confirmed was a glitch) but I am happy to say we were within 15 seconds of each other and only 2 hundredths of a mile for yesterday’s run (and I beat her).  Very exciting!!  My tender quads this morning are evidence I must’ve pushed myself harder than previous runs.  That’s the point of training, right? As we prepare for back-to-back races at the end of this month I found this quote motivating… I hope you do too.

Live - Love- Run,

Chanelle

Are. You. Serious?

For the first time in 7 weeks I finally beat Chanelle’s pace/mile last night. And not just kind of beat it – I was faster than her by 2min/mile. Holy Smokes! So, I’m obviously pretty impressed with myself (and she suggested I blog about it – so I am).  However, true to my nature, I’m mostly skeptical. Last night I was on a new route – I was wearing my new Brooks Adrenalines – I tried a new wrist band thingy for my iPhone (which for the past 7 weeks has been shoved in my sports bra – TMI? – I’m sure it was hard to get accurate GPS in there) – really everything was different compared to my normal morning runs. I’m also thinking it could have been a glitch in the App we use. Who knows? We will see if I can repeat this phenomenon on Thursday... Regardless my run history will show I kicked ass last night and that’s all that matters! Oh, and that I beat Chanelle for once, that matters too.

XO,

Chantele

p.s. She is really going to step up her game on Thursday and I'm a little scared about it...

It's Dark and You're Cheating

Summer is coming to an end which means 6am is getting darker and darker. Every day that we run my texts to Chanelle start with “It’s dark.” followed by “Are you running with Koi? You’re cheating.” Seriously, her dog is huge – I’m certain he pulls her along during the runs. Cheating!  That has to be why she consistently has a better average/mile than me, right? To be honest, my 15lb Boston Terrier would pull me along if I let her – that is how slow I am. Slow and steady wins the race – that’s my motto! If I’m being really honest, the truth is Chanelle is pretty fast with or without Koi, I just don’t like to admit it. It’s similar to a sibling rivalry situation. Even though we are cousins, most of my life I considered myself to be the youngest of the Finley children – we are all two years apart – it just made sense.

Normally on Saturdays we get to run when it's light out – but considering I was moving this weekend I had to be out of town by 8am. Thanks to my comitted running partner a 6am run was on the agenda – on a Saturday – yikes. It was so dark the pictures I took of Chanelle and Koi cheating didn’t turn out. So in lieu of a Saturday running photo, I am including a little gem from 1986. I’d say we pretty much look the same – except now we have prettier hair. And prettier pajamas.

XO,

Chantele

Life Lesson #684

Don't wear thong panties while running - yikes!!!

Other than a bit of minor discomfort, I am happy to announce that things are progressing wonderfully!  Although we weren’t ecstatic about our time on Saturday we finished with a smile of achievement as it was our longest run nonstop thus far.  Plus, we got to try out our new Nike running skirts from See Jane Run. It's our new favorite store in Boise!

After reviewing our logs since our start date 5 weeks ago it is nice to see we have improved drastically.  This also sparked great laughter during our after-run coffee break (my favorite) while reviewing our progress and looking at our previous logs and maps (and to think we thought we doing great then…  I’m actually laughing again thinking about it)! And we are just in the first stages of our adventure - I can’t wait to see what else is to come.

Live - Love - Run,

Chanelle

You Want to do What?

Life, it's a funny thing. For the past few years "life" hasn't turned out like we had expected. At least not the "life" we had hoped to have full of adventure, excitement and travel. Good, bad or indifferent life has been strange. Plans change - people come and go - goals are lost and obtained. It wasn't until a major life change and summer of boredom (both on my behalf) that we realized we were tired of the same old day-to-day life. We needed to do something about it!

I had been pestering Chanelle to start jogging with me after work. I thought we could train for a 5k or 10k sometime in the fall. Chanelle was on-board to run the Rim-To-Rim with me in September and so we started our journey and completed our first work-out. It was really hot - I didn't track our time very well and there was a lot of traffic. Fail. We decided running in the morning would be better and we would meet up every other day and stick to our program. Mornings turned out to be the best. Sunrise on the canyon rim gave us plenty of motivation - it's so pretty.

So, we were going along for all of 7 days and I was happy with our progress; still certain the 7.5 miles up and down the canyon would be a challenge - but excited for it anyway.  And then I got a text: "I think we can be ready for the PF Changs 1/2 Marathon December 2nd." I thought, and maybe said aloud, "You want to do what?" That Chanelle, she always takes it one step further than everybody else - but that's why we love her and why she makes one hell of a training partner (more to come on this).  The grand optimist that I am replies with "For sure! Let's do it." I have actually ran if you can call it that a 1/2 Marathon before in Arizona. I did it by myself. Didn't train well. It wasn't fun. I promised myself I would never do it again. Clearly I lied.

So, we've committed. Since our decision to run in Vegas we have been training fools! Unfortunately, we live 2 hours apart so our week-day runs are now solo with very early texts to keep each other in-line and compare our pace and mileage. We get to run together on the weekends.

We decided on Born2RunFree so we can share our journey to becoming better runners. I'm sure, like challenges in life, there will be good runs and bad runs - but it will be an adventure! We'd like to do 3 or 4 1/2 marathons a year with smaller runs in-between. Who knows where it will take us - but that's the whole idea. The adventure has begun...

XO,

Chantele