It's Summertime!

Summer doesn't have to mean the end of your fitness goals.  Though you may be busy playing at the beach, vacationing, standing in line at Busch Gardens, or desperately trying to entertain your children, you can still manage to maintain a fit lifestyle without too much effort and maybe even win something!

Our summer schedule is posted on the class page.  Sadly we will have to say goodbye to the Zoo Mommy Fit class for now.  10am is too hot and too crowded!  But we will return in September.  We're adding an indoor Mommy Fit bootcamp style class to the schedule, and we have a new location and  time for Play-lates.  We'll also have track workouts with Moms RUN This Town.

Most exciting of all is our Hot Momma Summer Passport!  This rewards program will encourage you and your families to stay active and try new things this summer.  It will be super easy to earn rewards and prizes from some great local businesses including 1BF (of course), The Little Gym of Virginia Beach, Center Stage Dance Company, Fleet Feet Sports, The Rock 'n' Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon and more!  Full details will be released on June 12th so be sure to check back then.  In the meantime, soak in the summer and enjoy.

A few things NOT to do after Boston

1.) Do NOT give your money to just any charity you see on the web or Facebook. If you do not personally know the person in charge of the charity, save you money and send it straight to the Red Cross or BAA.
2.) Do NOT stop volunteering for race crews. Races wouldn't run without them. Please consider helping out a water table, finish line, start line, etc. for at least 1 race this year.
3.) Do NOT become a recluse glued to every news article and Facebook post about Boston. There is a lot of conflicting information out their right now, which will just serve to stress you out more. Wait for official press conference and end of the day recaps to stay informed.
4.) DO NOT STOP RUNNING - or else they have won. RUN ON MOTHER RUNNERS!

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6

Shamrock Marathon Race Recap

Anyone who tells you that running is a solo sport has never been a mother runner.

Sure you can compete with yourself, trying to best your PR, push your body to its limits.  But when you start running, 16, 18, 20, 26.2 miles it’s definitely a team effort.  I donned our traveling skirt on Sunday with the intention of seeing how far it could go.  I wanted to test it in a race to make sure it could go the distance, handle running (and walking), port-a-potties, Spi belts, sweat, sand and maybe a little Yeungling.   But as cliché as it sounds, just like the pants in the story, the journey became much less about me and this skirt, and much more about the team effort that it took to get me through this marathon.

Let’s be honest, my training leading up to this race was less than ideal.  Every long run I did was in sub 40 degree temps.  I had run through stomach viruses, a touch of the flu, way too early in the morning, missing my daughter’s cheerleading, and pushing my boys through umpteen miles in too frigid and too rainy weather.  My family had paid the price.  My boys started to hate the stroller; my poor husband desperately tried to hold it together on Saturday mornings.  My body was starting to remind me that this whole thing is a little nuts.  For Shamrock Sportsfest weekend I was tasked with working the expo for Rock ‘n’ Roll.  Well, it’s my job.  But 2 days of 10+ hours of standing, plus set up and break down?  Not an ideal environment to create fresh race legs.  On the plus side I had no time to stress about race day.  In fact I barely had time to think at all the week leading up to the marathon.

So when race morning dawned (well I think the sun was there somewhere) I met it with a slight bit of foreboding.  What if it rained?  What if I ended up by myself?  What if my ACLs just said “Nope; we quit!”?  I ate my breakfast dressed, snapped on my skirt, hopped in the car with my already animated family and rode the 15 minutes to the Oceanfront.  Kristy and Kathleen were waiting for me, right where we had set, but 15 minutes later than I said I would be there.  They were shivering, but they were there.  I think that’s when the perma-smile got stuck on my face.

We took a few pictures, agonized over what layers to shed and which to keep, decided to all stick together in corral three, tried to figure out where our husbands would be, searched for a flag for the National Anthem, and then took off down Atlantic.  We trotted along at a sub 10 min pace, a little too fast for Kathleen and I, but right on Kristy’s target so we stuck with her.  We talked about random women/mom stuff, made people around us laugh out loud and started having “Christian” spottings.  Kristy’s husband was on his bike trying to get his mileage in and cheering her along the way.  He cheered us on too and took a few pictures.  My plan was to run 8 and then walk 1, but at mile 9 we were still going at around 9:45 pace.  I had no inkling of fatigue, no stiff limbs, but my mind told me I was nuts if I thought I could keep this up for 18 more miles.  So I swallowed my pride and told Kathleen and Kristy I would stop at the next bathroom stop and to have a great rest of their race.  Kathleen said she would stop too, I sighed with relief.  My biggest fear for this race was having to run most of it by myself.  I’m a social runner, no amount of songs on a playlists or podcast can get me through miles as much as chatting with a friend.  We bid Kristy farewell around mile 10 (she went on to have an awesome race), walked about ½ a mile, took off running again and then fell into a rhythm.

We ran into some half-marathon ladies with their fabulous sign and cheering it was a nice way to keep the tide rolling.  My husband bought me sustenance in the form of a home-made protein bar at around 14 miles.  We stopped for a picture.  We watched the first of the marathoners and the last of the ½ marathoners pass us by on the other side of Atlantic.  We smiled and waved to the people out partying on that cold and dreary Sunday morning, passing out green beers to racers.  We turned left in front of Fort Story and then hit No Man’s Land.

Kathleen and I on Shore Drive - around mile 16 - still smiling!

Honestly, Shore Drive/Fort Story in March might be the most dismal portion of a race course I have ever seen.  My voice echoed; people were turning around.  Every other person was stopping to stretch out something or other.  This was the portion of the race that my husband had told me to not look around.  There’s no one cheering, no one smiling and you feel slightly lost.  We got on the base and it was more of the same.  Windswept dunes, dreary buildings with no windows.  Even some of the Army people we were running with, who worked on the base, didn’t know where we were.  They really should do the race in the other order, get this boring portion out of the way at the start, not miles 16-22 when people are beginning to struggle.  The entire time Kathleen and I kept up a banter of stories, trying to figure out how we got some of the random songs on our playlist that we had, signing badly and loudly, and trying not to talk about our aches and pains.  We ran into both of our husbands on Shore Drive.  Mine snapped some pictures.  Somehow Kathleen’s husband had made a sign with art supplies he found in their car.  We kept smiling.  I choked down a Gu on the base (I hate that stuff).  But it’s a good thing I did because I perked up and my vision got clearer; I hadn’t even realized that I had started to zone out.  We had been trailing a woman pushing a double Bob for a few miles and when she pulled off to the side and stopped we offered to push for her for a while.  She smiled and said she was fine, she was just checking her little girl’s blood sugar. She only has one child; I met her later at Starbucks. Turns out the extra seat was for her daughter’s toys, supplies and medical equipment.  Now that’s one BAMR!

The soldiers and boys scouts cheered us on the best they could.  They handed out jelly beans and bananas.  They were cold and wet, but still cheerful.  We bid farewell to Fort Story and took off down Atlantic.  One of the Fleet Feet employees was running along with one of their customers and video tapping random portions.  We discussed shoes with her.  Kathleen grabbed a green beer.  But the miles were starting to take their toll.  Our conversations were less about funny stories and more about what ached and what we were going to do when we finished.  Just over a 5K left and we notice this remarkably familiar women running towards us.   Rachel, who for all I knew was not even in the state that day, was like some ponytailed running angel sent by God to get us, or at least me, over a bad spot.  I’m not even exaggerating.  I was just thinking those last 3 miles were going to be the longest of my life and that I would have to tell Kathleen to go ahead without me when she showed up – to tell us Kristy had finished strong, our friends were just around the corner, the end was near…in a good way.  And they were there – Patti, Shawna, Maggie, half-marathoners who had finished HOURS earlier and had stuck around; Amy, who hadn’t even run because of injury, but came down to cheer us on.  “Why are y’all still here?”  I wondered.  “To cheer you on,” they replied matter-of-factly.  Oh yes, because it is completely normal for people to wait around 3+ hours in the freezing cold and mist after they have run 13.1 miles to help their friends who are running 26.2  finish.  Well it is for this group.

Then the boardwalk – one last gust of wind in the face to wake me up and then a push at the back.  Kathleen and I posed one last time for the camera - hands raised overhead in triumph before we crossed the finish.  We found our families and stumbled off to get warm.  It wasn’t that the end was anti-climactic.  But the journey was so much more important.   At no point during this race could I have done this by myself.  I needed the encouragement, the extra hands, the new ideas, the pacers, the people I needed to give a hand to.   I took our Traveling Skirt through its first marathon.  I didn’t even notice its presence, but it was there every step of the way.  Just like my race crew had been through this whole training process and race day.

Marathon Momma