Newlyweds Run 50K At Pineland Farms Trail Running Festival - Video - WMTW Portland

Newlyweds Run 50K At Pineland Farms Trail Running Festival - Video - WMTW Portland

Check out Ryan and Bethany being interviewed before the Pineland Farms 50k!!!

We're Married!!!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Wedding Morning Run!

Heading off for my wedding morning run now! I'm running with my uncle Paul, who will act as my body guard in case there are any loose dogs or anything. As you can see, I have 2 small bouquets of flowers with me (which match the the wedding flower colors), I'm running to my grandfather's grave to drop one off and then I'm dropping the other one off at my godmother's grave. Should be about 7-8 miles roundtrip. And then it's back home to get ready! Wedding is at 3pm. Will try to post a pic via my blackberry. Have a happy Friday!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Book Review Part 1 and Wedding Update

We recently started reading the book "Running on Empty" by Marshall Ulrich, one of the world's greatest endurance athletes. So far we are about half-way through the book and we are both really enjoying it. It's funny because we each have a copy so we are racing each other to see who can finish it first. The page number we are on is top secret, but I know I am ahead (this is Bethany). You can get more info/buy the book HERE.

The book touches upon many different ultras and endurance/adventure feats completed by Marshall but the main event of the book is his 52-day run across the United States of America that he completed when he was 57 years old! So far the book has been very exciting to read and his descriptions are so clear that I feel like I'm right there with him (although I'm glad I'm not because it sounds so grueling!) As soon as we are done with the book we will post a final review and since we have 2 copies, we will give one away.

Now for the wedding update! 5 days to go! Just about everything is all set and ready! We have so many FUN running related things that will be part of our wedding day but I don't want to post anything, just in case any of our guests are reading. I don't want to spoil our silly surprises. The funny thing is, a lot of the running-themed ideas I got for the wedding came from my mother's sarcasm, for example, cowbells for favors! (We already told you about the cowbells so it's okay to mention it). We will try to post a "just married" picture on Friday since I can take a pic on my blackberry and email it directly to the blog. So be on the look out this Friday for a post entitled "Just Married!"

Hope you all had a great weekend!!!

RIP Ginger :'-(

As some of you know from facebook, Ryan's beloved pooch and friend, Ginger, died unexpectedly on Monday. It was such a shock to everyone. She still had plenty of good, healthy years left and she was FINE on Sunday. Totally unexpected. It has hit Ryan really hard, she was supposed to be "best dog" at our wedding next week. Now he is having trouble feeling excited about the wedding because he is so sad.
She really was the best dog ever, such a beautiful dog too. She LOVED teasing Ryan, almost as much as he loved teasing her. She was so gentle, she would let my nephew pet her and climb all over her. She loved eating pretzels and sitting directly in front of a fan all summer. She loved to hold hands; she would always go sit next to someone and give them her paw. She loved to play with Ryan and sometimes they'd play rough and she would lovingly bite his hands, no matter how hard I tried, she would NEVER even playfully bite my hands. If Ryan pinched her side she would turn and show her teeth (playing of course) but when I pinched her side she wouldn't even turn and look at me. She LOVED chewing and cuddling with her toys and was really smart. One time the mail-man rang the door bell and Ginger ran to her pile of toys and came back with her mail-man toy!! Ginger also had an eye for fashion apparently because one day I went to Ryan's house with a flower pin on my jean jacket and Ginger walked right up to me, jumped up on me (for like the first time ever) bit the pin right off my jacket and then walked away with it. She was the best dog I have ever known and her untimely death has shocked and saddened all of us.
I've been dreading Ginger's passing ever since I started dating Ryan and quickly learned just how much she meant to him. Ginger is the only female that I've ever felt threatened by in my relationship with Ryan. He would have picked Ginger over me in a second during the first few years of our relationship. Hello ladies, Ryan made ME sit in the BACK seat so GINGER could sit in the FRONT seat! True story!! This pooch meant everything to Ryan and his family and I feel so sad for all of them. :-(

This is Ryan's last picture he has with Ginger

LOVE YOU, GINGER!!!!!!

It's Official!!

We got our marriage license! 15 days til our wedding!!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Wordless Wednesday

Ok, I'm adding words. Like my new wheels and my baby? A.k.a. My backpack from work and my lunch box?? It was a lovely run home from work!! Can't wait to do it again! Got a few laughs but most people knew what I was doing.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Cox Providence 1/2 Marathon

Just a quick post tonight to recap our Cox Rhode Races 1/2 Marathon in Providence, RI this past Sunday. Miss Bethany and I decided it'd be fun to just run a fun, easy half marathon together. We hadn't run a race together in a while, and we figured we were planning to do a long run anyway, might as well run a great race and have fun with it.

This was our third time doing this race, and it has definitely gotten better ever year. The expo has been getting better every year, the shirts are cool, the course is fun, the spectators and volunteers are great, and the free beer at the end is awesome. (And I always love going back to Providence, the city of my alma mater, Brown University.) 

We started out nice and slow, around 9:30 pace. We gradually picked it up to about an overall average pace of 9:18 min/mile, and settle in at that for a few miles while my calf warmed up nicely. As we saw the miles tick away, we began to look at our watches and saw that if we reallllly pushed it the last few miles we might be able to squeeze in under 2 hours. Not wanting to test the calf, I was tentative to really pick it up, but we kept gradually increasing our pace until we were flying at the end. I thought we were gonna make it, but we ended up in 2:00:02. We just ran out of distance. Oh well, it was fun. I love negative splitting, and I love the races where you end up chasing a time, speeding up to try to hit it. (As opposed to races where you go out too fast and end up slowly seeing your average pace increase and your goal time slip away. I'd always rather be chasing my goal time rather than trying to hold onto it for dear life as I slow down. Those are the worst. Know what I mean?)

Anyway, it was a really fun race. After the race, we went and grabbed some chocolate milk and I had a free beer. Nothing like a good mix of chocolate milk and beer. Yum! After the milk/beer combo, we headed back out on the course to meet a friend and run another 4 miles. 

Here are some pics from the day:

 Pre-race.

Post-race.

Post-race at Bethany's house.

Meeting My Running Idol

Hey guys, a little late with this post, but better late than never. So as some of you might know, on the Saturday before the Boston Marathon, the author of 'Born to Run' (Chris McDougall) held a 5 mile fun run and then had a presentation after the run. It was AMAZING. He brought special guests from the barefoot/minimalist running community, and he also brought my absolute running idol - Scott Jurek. 

For those of you who don't know who Scott Jurek is, you're missing out. He is one of the most prominent ultra-marathoners in history, and he is one hell of a nice guy. Here's an idea of how badass he is:

• 7-time Winner of Western States Endurance Run (100 mi) (seven times in a row from 1999-2005)
• American Record holder for 24-hr distance (165.7 miles)
• 2-time Winner of Badwater Ultramarathon (135 miles)
• Winner of the Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run
• 3-time Winner of the Spartathlon (152 miles from Athens to Sparta) 

Ever since I've started really following ultra-running, and getting into it, Scott has been a huge inspiration for my own running and my own personal ultra-goals/hopes/dreams. He totally pushes the boundaries of human ability, and it is truly inspiring to me. For example, I can't fathom how a human being can cover 165.7 miles in the span of 24 hours (on a 1 mile loop!!). I can't fathom how someone can be so consistently dominant so as to come back to WS100 (my dream race) each year and win it seven years in a row. Unreal.

Anyway, so when I heard he was going to be at this 'fun run,' I was stoked. There were about 50 or so people who came out for the fun run, and Bethany and I showed up to the fun run a little early, Chris McDougall gave us the run down, Scott came out and met us all, and we all took off for a 5 mile jaunt around the Charles River. It was awesome. Both Chris and Scott kept dropping back and chatting with everyone. Scott dropped back to the group I was running with, he said hi to us and I immediately got star-struck, haha, I'm not ashamed to admit it. Bethany got the convo going by saying 'Hey Ry, did you tell Scott what your ultimate ultra-running goal is?" And so I told Scott about my hopes to run Western States sometime in the future. Then we chatted about Western States, ultra-running, his future running plans, and other small talk. We ran together for about a little over a mile or so, just chatting as we cruised along the Charles. He is a truly awesome guy, totally down-to-earth. It was a complete honor to run alongside him. A totally awesome experience. I was telling people, it felt like I was a teenage girl singing onstage alongside Justin Bieber. 

Running along the Charles with my running idol.

 

Me, Miss Bethany, and Scott

Chatting a little again after the presentation.

He signed my RaceMenu running hat. I wore it for Boston, and I also wore it for the Providence 1/2 today.

I love that he signed my hat by writing: 'Dig Deep!' It really puts things in perspective for me when I'm struggling through a 26.2 or whatever distance I'm running. It makes me think, hell, if Scott Jurek can run for 24 hours straight at an average pace of 8:41 min/mile, I think I can slog through 26.2, or 31, or 50, or hopefully somewhere in the near future: 100.