Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Snow Cancels the Myrtle Beach Marathon - crazy!!

"Don't let your circumstances dictate your happiness." That truly sums up this past weekend. It could have been discouraging, but we went out there and just had fun!

Who would have ever thought that snow would have canceled the Myrtle Beach Marathon. Yes, that's right. I said SNOW & lots of it. Well, lots of it for a southerner! My half marathon race might have been canceled, but it ended up being quite the fun "race" weekend after all!


Here's a quick recap:
As the weekend drew near I started watching the weather channel. When the weatherman said that is was going to be snow I just figured it would be rain like it normally is when they call for snow. Sure, rain would be miserable, but still doable. Friday morning came & they were still calling for snow. I prepared for the worst - sleet. Figured that nothing could be as bad as running in sleet & in comparison, snow would actually be nice. Saw some flurries on the way down, but It wasn't till I got there & headed out to dinner w/ friends that the snow started coming ... & it was really coming. By this time I had already gone to the expo, checked in & spent some $$ of course! They told us to stay tuned to the news and by 10pm the official verdict would be made. I said there's no way they'd actually cancel the race ... I was wrong. Finally by 10:40 the news anchor came across w/ breaking news ... "The Myrtle Beach Marathon has officially been canceled." What! No way! How on earth could anybody go to sleep now. Some of us ended up going out for a little bit to try and unwind & play in the snow ... got to bed late.

Race Day: well it's canceled, but who is that stopping? Not Nicole (she was ready at the crack of dawn), and therefore not me either! We ended up running the 13.1mi. Turned out there were quite a lot of people running out there. Tell you what, you have never seen so many happy faces on a race course. The other runners were so friendly. And, there were people standing on the side of the roads cheering us on, people ringing cow bells & there were even people coming around w/ water bottles since the official aid stations weren't there. It was great. We took a detour at one point and ran about 1mi on the sand. How cool to see snow on the beach. It was beautiful - hard to run on, but beautiful! About half way through we stopped and got our pictures making snow angels. It was just a great "race!" =) We even got our medals at the end!! Which are a flip-flop. How ironic seeing as there was snow on the ground. Thanks to my great TriSports.com jacket I didn't get cold running. Ended the day w/ a surprise birthday party for a friend ... and lots of laughter. Laughter makes your soul smile!

It was a great weekend & we made lemon-aid out of lemons! And really that's how life is. Life can throw you curve balls, but what you do w/ those curve balls is what is important. Surround yourself w/ good friends and have a good laugh. It will always make you feel better!

Couldn't have had the weekend I did w/o my awesome friends (the "other family"). And, thanks to my great sponsors for keeping me moving, keeping me warm & keeping me hydrated!!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Up, Down, and Around

These last two weeks have been interesting. Have you ever felt like you bit off more than you could chew? My life feels like that right now. And then to help things, someone asks you a question and your mouth is full to the brim since you took more than you could handle! How are you supposed to answer, seriously! Come on people, be nice ... can't you see my cheeks are bulging and full of food? Do you really want me to spew it over you to answer your question? Well, I'm not quite there ... but almost!! Not that I have literal food in my mouth all the time, but my life seems crazy busy.

I have been all gung ho about getting back into triathlon training, but have been having trouble with my time management and the stupid weather. I'll be blunt - lately the weather here has sucked! When I'm supposed to be doing long runs or ride on the weekends we have ice, freezing rain, & snow. But of course, when I'm stuck inside for class it's beautiful out there ... retarded! I just can't stand running and biking inside. You stay in the same place! Who has ever liked the fact that they go nowhere. At least I've got my faithful training buddy, my iPod, with lots of music that keeps me going!! Music makes me move my booty! =)