Ghoulie September Core Challenge (Page 59)

I wanted to get 3 long distance runs in, but it does look like I'll only be getting 2. A lot of people say the excitement and the adrenaline of the day help carry you through, I'm hoping that's true.

It's supposed to be cooler on Sunday here, too. I think next week they are calling for rain. Depends on how things go it could sit over top of us for awhile and be a soaker. I'm not looking forward to it, but I'll run in the rain if I have to.

Hey Kim and Melindy, you can come with me tonight.
I am going to the Ellenboro fair. Whoo hooo!!! LOTS of rednecks of all ages and fried everything. Yah, even fried pickles. (I am eating before I go)
Have great evenings all.

If it makes you feel better I only got in one 18 miler for my first marathon.  I got in 2 20 milers for my second.  And for IM I got in only one 18 miler 2 months out.  People are right, the excitement and adrenaline will get you through.  The last 10k will hurt.  A lot.  But hey, if it didn't hurt would it be worth doing?

Well I finished my quiz. 14/15...wooohooo..haha...Next week I need 100%...pressure is on.

Now I am studying...lol.

I'll stick my foot in my mouth now.  Your challenge got stickied in tri talk

Morning Ghoulies.

Big times at the county fair last night. Weee Hoooo. Got home at about 12:30 and I am trying to get it together this morning.
The DH shook hands while I wandered around and checked out the rides, and games, and displays, and the entries. In an area about 3 acres, it didn't take long. Extreme people watching though.

Hope you all have fabulous days.

Those damn rule breakers.

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Oh. My.

i am home from the marathon. hubby is on his plane to canada. I am gettin in the bath now. More later.

Finally it is raining here. Of course now they are calling for flooding.

How is everyone?

Amy, I want all the details of the race!

I want details, too, Amy!

Bill, I'll trade you a head strong 10 year old boy, and a more stubborn than a pack of mules 7 year old girl, who likes to clean, too.

Robin, bring one of the canoes up to the house, just in case. Stay safe!

Good morning Ghoulies!

I want to give a big shout out to my nephew Zachary!

He's 11 and he ran the Navy 5 miler this morning in 47:41, placed 3rd in the 11-14 AG.

WOOHOO Zachary!!!

Edited by ironannekidd 2010-09-26 9:46 AM

Ghoulie TopPage!

Hi guys...I'm done post races...my psuedo race report is on both of my blogs...I have no times yet. Trail HM-ouch...this morning=ouch...10km=ouch. My 10km time was somewhere between 50-54min...which I am happy with given I could hardly walk this morning...

Had an ice bath when I got home today and my compression pants are drying right now...I will sleep in them...and probably wear them all day tomorrow.

Hi guys. Sorry I didn't tell the story yesterday. I was a little bit tired.  guess I still am a little. The head RD and I decided that we will take this week to recover as if we actually did run in the marathon, LOL.

Here's my (long) race report...

So packet pickup and the pasta feed were Fri night--we had so many people register in the last week that we knew we would run out of shirts for at least the full and half marathons, and we figured we would be close to selling out of shirts for the 5k and kid's race as well.  I was a little later to the packet pickup than I had planned on being. There begins snafoo #1: packet pickup. In the update emails, apparently packet pickup was listed as being from 4 to 8 pm. Oops. It was actually 5 to 9 pm. We sent out a correction email, but we still had a LOT of people there at 4. I had the shirts in my car. and I got there at 4:15. (thanks to a teacher that kept my daughter's class late and made her miss her bus home...). Not too big of a deal, just a stressful start to a long night. Oh, and the volunteers to help with packet pickup weren't going to be there until close to 5 pm as well. Oy. We ran out of shirts for the half marathon after about an hour and a half, and the full marathon about 2 hours into packet pickup. I just about lost my voice telling people over and over about the shirt re-order, and where to park, etc. All in all, I met tons of really nice people, who were all very excited about this new event.  After packet pickup was done, I joined my hubby and the RD's hubby out in the park setting up the finish line structure and finish area tent and tables. Then we moved on to getting all of the supplies for the aid stations pulled together (water jugs filled, etc.) and getting signage ready. Around 1 am, we decided it was time for my huby and I to make a supply run to walmart, and Kelly (the RD) and her hubby were headed out to paint directional arrows on the course roads and the expo area for the booth spaces. Went to bed around 2/2:30, then met back up with them at 4:30 to start setup of the aid stations, and put up more signage. It didn't go very fast, and I had to bail out around 6:30 to go to the race venue. I arrived at the finish line/expo area just as the sky was getting light. It was eerily calm, and I expected more people to be there. I shook off the feeling and went about my business, meeting the Girl Scout troop who was doing the flag ceremony at the starting line, and headed up to the starting area, a 20+ minute drive from the finish line venue. Snafoo #2: The bus company. Remember that eery feeling I had? I should've gone and checked out the parking area at the finish line venue. The race course was a point A to point B setup, rather than an out and back. We had to get almost 600 racers and event personnel to the starting line, which is in a small, historic mining town called Copperton on the west bench of the Salt Lake valley. There is little to no parking in Copperton. We leased 5 buses/drivers from a local company to make continuous loops from the finish venue to the starting line for 3 hours, starting at 5:30 AM. Only 4 buses showed up, and one took one load of racers up then went home. Nice. Combined with the fact that most of the racers didn't even try to board the buses until 6:30, there were only about 50 people at the starting area when I got there. The microphone wasn't working, and only 1 of the 2 speakers was working. Oh boy. The poor RD came over to me and asked "Could anything else go wrong?". My answer was a feeble "yes". Fortunately, we were chip timing the race, so we did the flag ceremony and anthem, and started the first wave of runners. We had about 5 volunteers manning the gear drop, so the RD and I went on to meet the buses as they dropped off their next loads of runners, trying to reassure the runners that their times would not be affected by the bus problems, and directing them to line up for the next wave. As the RD went over to the people in the port-a-john lines to make announcements and offer more reassurance, a friend of ours from the local tri club went ballistic and started berating her with language so foul she said she learned a few new words (!). He got so worked up that he had to be physically restrained by 3 bystanders. He was so angry. He demanded a full refund, yelled about his wife already starting the race without him, and having to stand in line for 90 minutes for a bus ride. Had the police officer arrived a few minutes earlier, he would have been removed from the course and sent home. As it was, the RD managed to walk away, and he calmed down enough to go ahead and start the race. (Turns out it was more that his buddies from the tri club were ahead of him, not that his wife was ahead of him). So, I left the starting line once everyone was off the buses and all of them had started running. Snafoo #3: Utah Highway Patrol. As I drove, I noticed that there was no highway patrolman at the intersection doing traffic control. I immediately called the RD, who was still at the starting line. Luckily she was standing there with the South Jordan police officer, who called it in, and went to cover the intersection of the 2 highways until the UHP got their act together. 
The rest of the day pretty much went like this: Amy driving around her car with a flashing yellow light on it, and signage saying "race official", running from one aid station to another, trying to cover for volunteers that didn't show up, or running to get more water, cups, or gels for aid stations as they ran out.  thank heavens my hubby was out there, doing almost the same thing (after they got the last aid station setup--just as the first runner arrived at the last aid station). I put over 100 miles on my car, and only had to transport one runner back to the finishline. Lots of lugging around literally undreds of 5 gallon water jugs (dang those get heavy) and many, many minutes on my cell phone later, I met the man who was the last runner on the course. He must have been in his early 20's, if that, and had both knees taped with KT tape. He was doing a sort of shoulders-scrunched-up  power walk. He pulled his earphones out to talk to me as he passed mile marker 23. When I asked how he was feeling ina  n attempt to see if we needed to pull him off the course for medical reasons, his response was "I just feel so good!". I told him we were here for him, and we would support him all the way to the finish, or as long as he wanted to continue. he just grinned and said "thanks". He came in about 20 minutes before our final cutoff time. Once he passed the last aid station at mile 25, I drove back to the finish venue, just in time for the awards ceremony for the full marathon. (The awards for the half and 5k were earlier on in the day). The last runner came in, with the police officer right behind him with lights flashing, to a hero's welcome. I could see the pain melt out of his face as joy set in, and he was presented with his finisher's medal, as well as his medal for second place in his age group! (talk about perfect timing, LOL. And the top 3 in each age group get free entry into next year's race as well). Snafoo #4: finishline issues. Apparently the health department decided to make an appearance. We were cutting oranges out in the open, without a sink nearby, and without gloves on. They tried to make us put ALL of the food away, including the chick-fil-a catered food. Luckily the owner of the chick-fil-a that was sponsoring us was there and talked them out of it. but then they tried to tell us we didn't have enough bathrooms for everyone. The RD asked "whatr, isn't 23 port-a-potties enough?" The inspector was surprised. "you have them out on the course too?". of course we did, silly!!! In addition to the 6 we had in the park, there were four permanent restrooms in the park, which we even stocked with our own toilet paper because the city didn't. The inspector said "oh, I didn't look at those". How can you try to cite someone if you don't even do your homework? She also didn't like that we were using garbage bags for trash rather than lined trash cans. Again, the city was supposed to bring us garbage cans and never did. She left without citing us for anything. A little while later, we ran out of water at the finish line, of all places! It has been unseasonably warm here, and with the start of the race being delayed up to an hour for some racers, we were out there later in the day than expected. We ran out of the free water for spectators, and had to dip into the water bottles at the finishline. After some scrambling, we got water jugs there, then a little while later, more water bottles. Disaster averted. i think most of the issues were not transparent to the runners and specators thank heavens.  

All in all, other than the snafoos I talked about above, things went very well. I am told that the crowds at the finish line expo, 5k, and kid's race were all very positive, and that there was just a happy, relaxed vibe in the air. That is exactly the feeling we were hoping for with the venue. A local race, with a big heart, and a relaxed and fun almost carnival-like feeling. One of our local tri club buddies did the announcing, and was soooo wonderful. She made sure that every person that crossed that finishline heard their name announced as they crossed, and that every runner had crowd support. And she was all too happy to trade her services for free entry into the 5k, so long as we covered the announcer duty while she ran. We have had so much positive feedback from the racers. I think most people understood the snafoos to be things that were not within our control for the most part, and just enjoyed the event. Even the local elite runners said that they would be back next year! And by the last awards ceremony, the RD was announcing next year's race, and sounding excited about doing it all again.
Whew! I will do it again, but there needs to be a better back up plan, more volunteers to man aid stations, even more equipment so we don't have to run around restocking things during the race, and definitely not that bus company, and more needs to be written down. Oh, and for those that boston qualified, we gave them a copper colored cowbell with vinyl on them saying "BQ'd    2010  SoJo". They were quite the hit! Our finisher's medals were awesome, and the vinyl car decals of the race logo we gave away went over really well as well.  

*Whew* thanks for reading that1 And being interested int he first place! 


    

You're a rock star! 

Thanks Amy! Haha. I can hardly walk again...I need to change DVDs to the other movie I rented and don't want to get up...I'm also hungry and am debating if hunger is enough to get me to attempt the stairs again!...ah..owwww....

Glad the race went well overall! I like the cowbells for BQ'ers!

Thanks! I will have to get a picture of one to post here. It was not a bad idea if I do say so myself.

I am currently wearing my magic pants. Hopefully I am in less pain by tomorrow...cannot walk up/down stairs...I am currently using the banisters a whole bunch...and ya...

Go magic pants go!

Good morning Ghoulies!

Amy, YOU rocked this weekend!

Melindy, YOU rocked this weekend, too!

Good morning ghoulies!

x2 on our rocking ghoulies!

Hi Neal.

What's going on in Iowa today?

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Hi Bill!

What's going on in New York today?