Running for Wine

Sick of stories about running?  OK how about wine tasting after running?  That's what I did a few weeks ago after my most recent half marathon - we met up with my family in Livermore for some family tasting time.

 L-R: Jodi - who was visiting from Wisconsin, Aunt Connie, Grammy and Me.

We started at our most recent wine club spot - and one of our local favorites, Cuda Ridge.  This was the first time we brought my parents there, and we rave about it all the time.  I think everyone liked it too since most everyone walked out with a bottle (or two).

We then went to a couple other wineries nearby and yes we bring Drew wine tasting.

He's a good sport - hanging around.

Our final stop was at Bent Creek - a favorite for the whole family.  I took Jodi and my Uncle down tot he Gazebo through the vineyards and Uncle Doug took a sweet shot of Jodi and I.

Drew was happily running through the vineyards.  Gotta love family wine tasting ventures!  Oh and I was wearing my race medal all day while wine tasting... if you run 13.1 miles you gotta show it!  And well my shirt says "I run for Wine" - fitting don't ya think?

Later Gator!

As I hinted yesterday in my Primo's half marathon recap, Dave "ran" the race himself.  Well not exactly as himself...

That would be Dave inside the Gator costume... standing next to him is Drew's principal.

He and the participants from Drew's school gathered before the race to get a group photo.  Clearly I was not in this since I was 1/2 way through running my half marathon.

Each school had a "theme" and our theme was Hawaiian... thus all the leis and Sally Gator's Hawaiian shirt.

Dave said it was a blast!  He really only needed to show up at the start and finish.  I guess just before they were going to pack it up, he told the principal to give him a minute... where he proceeded to dance to the music of the live band for a whopping 20 minutes!  I guess the principal would whisper to him a few times... "are you sure you're okay in there?"

For those that don't know, Dave was a mascot when we first started dating for the Sonoma County Crushers - an independent baseball team which no longer exists.  That costume weighed nearly 150 lbs... this one was much easier.

Shattering A Personal Record

In my third half marathon of the year (4th ever) I shattered a personal record for time.  But before I give you the results, let's start at the beginning.

On Sunday I ran in the Primo's Run For Education half marathon.  I did this race three years ago - the 5K distance and the proof is here - with a "wardrobe malfunction" and all.  This time it was uneventful in the wardrobe department.  My neighbor and I have been training for several weeks and the Friday before this run, we did an easy 3 miler just to stay limber.... problem was I injured myself!  I'm not sure if it was the drizzle that morning, the fact my shoes are nearing end of life or what - but I gave myself shin splints!  I spent the better part of Friday and Saturday icing my shins and taking Aleve. 

Then Sunday morning we ventured out to hit the starting line - which began at the Primo's restaurant in Danville and ended at Iron Horse Middle School (where the 5K starts & ends) in San Ramon.

That's me at about 7am... 15 minutes before the start of the race.

My running partner Julie...

The "aerial"  shot from where we were positioned.  There were 563 people who did the half marathon... more than 9,000 people who registered overall (most did the 5K including Dave who was dressed as Drew's school mascot... I'm hoping to get pictures to post a separate blog).

We were cruising averaging about 10:30 minute miles, which is fantastic for me.  I'm usually around 11:30-12 minute miles for a race of this distance.  I did begin to walk/run starting at mile 9.  But then I found inspiration at about mile 10 (at Costco and the Iron Horse Trail) with our very own cheering section!

That's Christopher (my neighbor's son) and Drew is in the background by Julie's Mom.  Drew didn't quite know what to make of things... but I ran over to give him a quick kiss and thank him for coming out.  I found out later that they were waiting for us for about 30 minutes.

From then on, I kept on trucking... and at mile 11 my RunKeeper app told me I was at about 2 hours 2 minutes of  running time... doing the math, I started to realize I could realistically reach my ultimate goal of finishing in 2 1/2 hours!  This is always my dream, but had never been a reality.

Julie was ahead of me a bit, and we were both doing the mix of walking/running... we'd only trained up to 11 miles the week before.  At about 12 1/2 miles I caught up to her and confessed that if we kept it up we could that 2:30 time we'd really wanted... so we booked it.

She crossed the finish line a few seconds ahead of me.  Meanwhile I was dodging kids whose parents let them "play" at the finish line -- the 5K was on finishing on the left side, 1/2 Marathon on the right.  Kids were crossing the lines... I literally yelled at two separate kids.  I think I shouted something like "Get outta the way!"  and "Look out!!".    These are kids who were in about 5th grade, so in my opinion they should know better!  I had a near miss with one.... and I am not ashamed to say I'd have shoved him aside, I wanted that 2:30 milestone that bad!

My official time 2:29:08!!! (Julie was 7 seconds ahead of me).  That's improving my time from the half I did in August by nearly 7 1/2 minutes!! (I came in 477th place)

I was one proud mama all day Sunday!

Oh who am I kidding... I'm still flying high from that accomplishment!  My reward for the race - joining my family for a day of wine tasting.

Training isn't over... I'm not preparing for another in December and then the Tinker Bell at Disneyland in January.  My next big goal... to finish in 2 hours 15 minutes. 

It's Another First... Or Two

On Friday we had a couple of firsts for Drew...

1. The first field trip
2. First time riding a school bus

It was a first for Mommy too - first field trip chaperoning experience! 

Drew's TK class (he's a PM student) and the AM class combined to head out to the G&M Farms Pumpkin Patch.  There were a ton of parent volunteers to help out, but they pulled names out of the hat and I was one of 6 for Drew's afternoon class (there were 6 others for the AM class).  The first part of the fun was to get on the school bus - a first for Drew!  I think this was a big highlight for a lot of the kids.

That's Drew on the right.... to his left is the other boy I was in charge of.  So most of the pictures will have both of them.

Once we arrived the kids separated into their AM/PM classes.. and waited for the hayride which took us into the pumpkin patch.

After hearing about the pumpkin patch rules and learning about the life cycle of a pumpkin, the kids gathered for a class picture.

(Drew is on the bottom row, 2nd one in)

After that, the kids had a chance to play and do whatever they wanted.  Everyone started in the corn box.

However that was pretty short lived.  There was a group from Oakland that were older and couldn't follow directions to save their lives.  It wasn't safe for the kids in the corn box.  Drew and the other boy I was in charge of split off.  Drew went off to do the hay maze and the other guy just wanted to play on the playground.

After snacks it was time to pick out the goods.  Each kid got to pick an Indian corn and a gourd before finding their own pumpkin.

(Notice our school bus waiting for us in the background?)  I think it's been more than 20 years since I've been on one of them.

Drew and his buddy loved the pumpkin patch!

Of course they knew the rule was they had to pick a pumpkin they could carry....

But I don't think they realized that' "carry" meant going beyond being able to lift it off the ground or just putting it in the wagon.  It meant taking it to/from the school bus!

The boys both ended up trading in their pumpkins at the 11th hour.  And even then it was tough for them to carry what they'd picked - we put them in plastic bags... many of which couldn't handle the weight leading to a lot of tears from several of the kids.

But my two managed to get things under control.  That's a picture from the bus ride home.  Needless to say after spending the day with 50 kids this mama was beat!  However it was a great day and I'm so glad I was able to do it.

Running and a Little Rock n Roll

It's a big race weekend for me... I'm doing half marathon (13.1 miles) number three for the year on Sunday.  But that didn't stop me from running in the Rock n Roll Mini Marathon (5 miles) last Sunday.  One of our friends was going to do it but her favorite baseball team (A's) made it to the playoffs, and she couldn't miss the 9am starting game.  She was giving away her race packet and I decided to run the race for her ;)  Thanks again Nicole!

Normally I wouldn't run a race like this a week before my already scheduled half marathon, but I ran my last "long run" of 11 miles on Friday, the Rock n Roll was on Sunday giving me recovery time, and the rest of the week I'd only scheduled "easy" runs of 3 and 4 miles.  So I said heck with it, I'll do it. Of course it helped that Dave said okay and that he'd take Drew to Sunday School.  So off I went.

I had to stop and pick up the race packet at my friend's place and then hit up downtown San Jose - which was a madhouse.  My GPS didn't catch up fast enough and I took the wrong exit - which dumped me off with the other folks rushing to exit and find parking at HP Pavillion.

But I finally got out and booked it to the starting line where a friend from High School was waiting for me.

At this point we were about 30 minutes from the start.  But uh, oh - the big container of water I drank on the drive down caught up to me.  And the bathroom lines were ridiculous.  I was texting Angela who was waiting for me in the corral about the potty progress... turns out I missed the starting gun (with only 4 people in front of me for the porta potties).

I heard them say go.. and I watched as Corral 9 moved their way to the starting line.

 

That picture is from the Rock n Roll Photogs.. no way was I getting that shot from the porta potty line.  Finally I made my way to the corrals and just pushed my way forward.  This shot below is my version of crossing the starting line....

 

I ended up catching up to my friend around mile 3... I did the Mini Marathon (5 miles) and she was doing the half marathon.  We ran together then for about 1.5 when I had my split to go to the finish and she had another 9+ miles to go.

Outside of San Pedro Square, I rounded the corner and then found the finish line!

Yeah I know it's blurry, but I'm not exactly worried about focus when I'm trying to dash to the finish line.

And then I hit the end.  Final time: 50:26... that's about an average of 10:05/mile!  I was quite impressed with myself.  I gotta say the neighborhood hills I train on apparently paid off with this flat course, that and trying to dash to find Angela in the crowd of 14,000 other runners (they said the largest turnout for this San Jose RnR).

That would be me and the Nestle Quick Bunny - not Angela.  I did stay to watch her hit the finish.  It's quite interesting to watch people as they hit the 13 mile marker and go that last 10th of a mile.  I know the excitement and pain they feel... I'll be feeling that this Sunday.

Of course you can't forget the bling!

I was really eyeballing this race since last fall - I've always been curious about the Rock n Roll Marathon Series - the reviews are either that they're totally awesome or a total bust.  I was going to sign up for the half but then realized when the Primos Run For Education was - the one I'm now doing this weekend and which raises money for Drew's school and District.  I figured Primos would be the better race to run.

So I got to do the RnR without having to do the full 13.1 miles - and was able to enjoy the experience - which is really bands at every mile.  I will say the energy and the bands were very much like the Tinker Bell half I did earlier this year at Disneyland/California Adventure, but it didn't have the Disney Magic.  I'd prefer to spend the extra money to do Disney races rather than another Rock n Roll.  But this was an experience I couldn't beat!

Run Like a Mother...

It's another big race weekend for me - this time I'm doing a half marathon (13.1 miles) so to kick off the run, I'll update you on the Delta Harvest race I did last month with my mom.

In the middle of September my Mom and I each did a race - well the same race, just different distances.  I opted for the  10K distance (6.2 miles) and Grammy did the 5K (3.1 miles).  I really wanted to do the half marathon, but with the half I did in August, and the one coming up this weekend I didn't want to overdo it.

I have to say I'm so so so proud of my Mom - this was the her first timed 5K!  She did do this run last year while pushing Drew but it was the fun run/walk and wasn't timed.  Now she's training to join me and several ladies in our family at Disneyland for the Neverland 5K in January - I'm doing the Tinker Bell 1/2 Marathon the next morning.

These pictures are from Rick Felix Photography

That's Mom and I after the race on our way back to the car.

Here are Grammy's race photos...

 That's Grammy on the left - and I'm on the right in the blue tank... that's when we first set off.  The 5K and the 10K had the same start times.

Here we are at a different angle... I'm just behind the girl with the purple shorts (I'm wearing the blue tank) and Grammy is just behind me with the white T-Shirt.  But I had to leave mom in the dust :)

Here's Grammy coming in for the finish...

 
And stepping over the finish line...

And receiving her finishing medal

 Grammy's official time for her first timed 5K... 49:08!  Not bad for only training for I think she said a week or two.  Now she's familiar with the race protocol.

I had the same course as mom for about 1.5 miles, but where they turned around we kept going.  Here are my race photos...

This was at about the 2 mile mark...

Probably at the 4 mile mark... we had already turned around but were maybe a quarter - half mile away from the photo spot above.

And here I am booking it to the finish...

 

Trying to cool down on the football field.

My official race time - 1:06:34

I set a new personal record.  While I reported on Facebook last month I'd trimmed nearly nine minutes, it wasn't until I was writing this post and looked up my previous races, that I discovered I ran a 10K Thanksgiving race last year (I thought I'd only ran 2, but turns out I've run 3 10Ks).  I still set a new personal record with this race, but only by a minute and a half.

And BINGO was his Name-o

Now that Drew is in school we can enjoy the fun that comes with the PTA.  About two weeks ago I volunteered for my first PTA fundraising event and then we participated in it as a family - Bingo. We never played bingo with Drew, but I figured it would be the perfect thing for our TKer.  He loves games, understands the concepts quickly and can identify letters, numbers and patterns.

What we didn't count on was our luck.  We were given 5 bingo boards and then in true bingo fashion certain games had certain rules - like in one game you had to make a vertical line (horizontal lines didn't count), other games it had to be diagonal, make a T, etc.

Over the course of the evening they probably played 20 games (we often built on/continued the same game) and Drew won four times!

Well technically Dave and I kept winning, Drew's boards weren't lucky, but we let him pick out all the prizes.

Those are the prizes he picked... cars that he can paint, the Hulk Operation game, a basketball and a lego watch.

That evening when I was putting him to bed he was nearly in tears upset because he didn't get the bingo - it was always Daddy or me.  I cheered him up by reminding him he got all the prizes anyway.

I have to admit when we won our 4th and final game in blackout - we were rather embarrassed.  About a week later another TKer's mom who was there - and won twice - was laughing with me about how embarrassing it was, but fun for the kids as well.  Since that Friday night Bingo, Drew has asked to go back to school and play again.