long time no run

Ran for the first time at the new house. I only managed a mile. But it was a good start.

The problem with the new place is that it's on a hill. So my mile run was challenging in parts. But of course with a hill comes some fantastic views. Today however was froggy and I saw nada except for some very nice houses.

I counted 8 cars on my run. That's more than I expected. Can't hear them from the house so that's very cool.

VCM 2008 photos and spreadsheet

photos for VCM 2008

spreadsheet with our individual and team paces (thanks M@)

A note to the 2008 VCM teams......

Thank you to Britt, Tim, Ingrid, Becky, Tara, M@, Karen, Kara and Jill for making this such a fun and successful relay. It was fun from the moment we arrived on Saturday until the time we left today. Looking back it seems to have gone by so fast. And yet my leg seemed to go by so slowly. I wonder why that is......

Despite how slowly I may have thought I ran (and once M@ finishes the spreadsheet we'll know just how slow I actually was) both teams finished sooner than predicted. Of course Tara's team kicked my team's sore little asses. But we're OK with that. Gives us something to strive for next year.

Check out our team results: VCM 2008 results Tara's team was bib #5562 and my team was #5497. The website app is very kewl. The last page you can even find out where Becky was when Tara crossed the finish line. But please don't rub it in.

OK that's all I have for today. Check back in the next few days and I'll have photos and M@'s spreadsheet. If anyone has any photos they'd like to send me I'll add them to my picasa album. Or if you want to just send me a link to your album, that's fine too. We are also looking to verify some of our time info. I wish we had done better at recording when the handoffs were and when the racers finished but all we have to base these on is the pictures on our camera. So if anyone has their watch time that would be useful.

Again, thanks a ton! I had a great time and once again I am psyched to do it all over again next year. I hope everyone else will too, tho this time I think I'm only going to do one team.

VCM 2009 sign ups start in January. Mark your calendar.

suzy

P.S. forgot to mention that there will be official photos on the VCM webpage. They aren't up yet but if you click here you can sign up to be notified when they are posted. Of course I have already signed up so when I find out I'll let you know.

Last Hurrah!

No one will be reading this today but I feel like I should write a final post before D-day. We're doing last minute preparations and awaiting Becky's arrival. We'll have a full car. 3 adults, 4 kids and a dog plus all our stuff. Yikes! But it'll be fun.

See you all on the other side with stories, pictures and lots of post-race excitement.

WAHOO!!

suzy

running with company

I ran with Jill last night. Matt stayed with the kids and Alex. We set out to do 4 miles but I wimped out at 3. I had a hard time. I don't know if it was because I was trying to run a little faster than I normally do or if it was because I was trying to talk while running. Poor Jill had to run a lot slower than she was used to. Still it was very good to have company.

It reminds me of a book we read to Nick "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel". When Mike and his steam shovel had people watching them they worked a little better and a little faster. The more people they had watching, the faster they worked. With all the 1000s of people at the race this Sunday I'll surely be picking up my pace.

Steam on.
suzy

reminiscing about last year

Becky asked that I post her post-race report from last year. She said she was all teary eyed this morning as she read it. It really was such a wonderful, emotional experience (coming from 2 people who don't normally do this kind of thing). You can read my report here.

From Becky --->

Some of you may or may not know that for almost a year I've been training for a relay in the Vermont City Marathon http://www.runvermont.org/ . I blame it all on my sister. It was her idea! Added incentive was my quickly approaching half-octogenarian birthday. I started with 1-2 mile runs last June and stuck with them for quite a while. Sometime this winter, maybe February, I kicked it up to 3. By the end of March I was closing in on 4 miles and in the week before the race I did a couple over 5 miles and one over 6. I needed the confidence that would take me through my 5.5 mile leg in the marathon.

Saturday we carpooled to Burlington with my sister and her family. Our relay team, Saps Running, consisted of my sister (in NH), her BFF from high school Tara (in VT) and her sister, Christa (in Long Island, NY), Suzy's friend Karen (NH) and myself (MA). All 5 of us had minimal experience running and none of us had run in any running event. We kept in touch over the months via a team website and weekly training updates.

Suzy, her husband Matt and kids, our parents, Karen and friend, and myself and the kids shared a condo in Stowe for the weekend. Saturday evening we had a team, including support staff, dinner at the Olive Garden. There were 18 of us! We had to go over some of the details necessary to get us through the race the following day. Suzy and Matt had created a spreadsheet based on information that we had given them regarding our average minute per mile run. It was necessary in order for us to figure out what time our hand-off would take place. Also, we had set up meeting places and discussed how we would let each other know when one person took off to give us a better idea of their finish.

None of us slept the night before the race. We could have all been sitting up together instead of tossing and turning in bed. The morning of the race Suzy and Matt headed up to Burlington early, around 6:15. Matt was going to run the entire 26.2 miles and the start time was 8 a.m. Karen left the condo around 8 for her leg that would start at approx. 9:45. I didn't see either teammate before they left for the marathon. Mom, Dad, all 4 kids and I headed up at 8:30 to meet Suzy at my leg at 9:30. Finding a parking spot was near impossible and once we were out walking, trying to cross the race course was impassible. I found that my cell phone was dead as were others. I slipped across the race track while my family was stuck there for 45 min. My sister never showed up at our meeting spot and I found out later that it was because she couldn't get across the course. She gave up and took the bus to her leg, the last leg of the marathon.

After asking several confused marathon workers I finally found out where my hand-off was to take place. I got there at 10:30 expecting Karen to arrive anywhere between 10:45-11:15. There was a sea of people, I had no idea what she was wearing but knew that I'd recognize the long blond hair. Others were almost as lost as I, they were walking back and forth amongst the relayers yelling out bib numbers searching for their next runner. Karen arrived at 10:50 and after an exchange that lasted 10-23 seconds longer than it should have (2 relay teams came in before us with those times) I was off!

Not 100 yards into my run I saw Casey and then the rest of the kids and my parents. I got high 5's and a nice boost. I ran up the North End of Burlington and into several neighborhoods. About this time it started to drizzle. The temperature in Burlington was in the lower 60's and it was overcast. The drizzle turned into rain and for a while it seemed to rain pretty hard. I had a cap on which kept the rain out of my eyes but it was coming off the brim pretty steadily. Each mile was marked so I could count down my approach to Suzy and the final leg of our relay.

As the rain was tapering off I approached mile 5.1. I had .4 left to go to reach Suzy. I found my favorite running song on my mp3 player and started to sprint but then I didn't see the exchange site and my lungs were killing me I and didn't think I could go much further but then I saw the sign for the exchange. I rounded the corner and saw Suzy! I have never been so happy to see someone in my entire life. We screamed and jumped up and down and hugged (waisting more precious time) and then Suzy was off!

I took a bus back to the finish line where Karen and I waited for Suzy. I estimated the time she would approach and sure enough we saw her coming and we yelled and screamed and cheered. It was such an amazing accomplishment and a wonderfully, emotional ending to months of training. We already have plans for other runs this summer, the Maine Marathon in Oct. and, of course, the Vermont City Marathon again next May.

Each of us ran faster in the marathon than we had in training. This year the goal was to just finish the race. Next year we have times and teams to beat!

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/msheppard/Marathon

Thanks for reading!

Becky

links on right

just a short description of the links listed on the right side of my blog:

• the weather for Burlington: so far sunny, cloudless and 75deg!
• relay leg predictions: M@'s spreadsheet created in google docs
• relay leg descriptions: from the VCM website, includes a link to a .pdf of the course
• my training schedule: a spreadsheet I created in google docs
• Vermont City Marathon: the homepage for the marathon
• a frog in the hand: my personal, non jogging, blog