Ragnar Relay Florida Keys 2014 (part 1)

So!  Ragnar!  Ragnar Relay Florida Keys 2014.  Wow.  Where do I begin?  How about a year or so ago when I first heard about it? 

Our running team's captain first mentioned doing a Ragnar relay about a year ago (early 2013) when a group of us were on our way to volunteer at a water station at a local race.  He mentioned it again the next time we did that and the team started coming together.  Ragnar Relay Florida Keys is a 198-mile race from Miami to Key West. 

I had run one 10K at that point but was mostly doing just 3.1 miles.  Hmph.  I said just 3.1.  There was a time when I thought running 3.1 miles was an impossible feat.  Now it's "just."  Incredible!  Anyway, I slowly began increasing my distance and ran a midnight 10K on July 3.  For Ragnar, I chose to be runner 10, which gave me distances of 7.6, 4.1, and 2 miles.  When it came time to actually run, officials had tweaked it to 7.1, 4, and 2, which means that I ran a total of 13.1 miles, which is a half-marathon.  Now if I can just put those pieces together and run them continuously, I'll have done a half-marathon.  One day.  J 

Starting last November I tried to incorporate two runs in one day but never seemed to get it done.  I would run 3.1 in the morning then try to run in the evening but always ended up walking.  It was HARD to do two runs in one day!  I didn't actually do it until January 5, just a month before Ragnar.  Not where I wanted to be in my training.  I did get up to 8 miles on December 31, which was my longest distance of continuous running ever!  I did a 15K (9.3 miles) in October, but I walked part of it.  Well, running isn't everything and I don't get paid to do it so it has to fit in with the rest of my life, and the rest of my life and my 44-year-old body just weren't making room for two-a-day runs.  I do what I can. 

Thursday, February 6, one van left from the church with five of us in it.  The other van left a few hours later.  We headed down 1-75 through Sarasota, through Fort Myers (as far south as I'd been up to this point), and to Naples where we turned east onto Alligator Alley.  Didn't see a single alligator.  L  I did see two wild iguanas right in Miami and some farther down in the keys. 

We got into Miami in the early evening, checked into our hotel, and then headed to Olive Garden where we were going to have dinner when the second van got there.  The people in our van continued to bond while we waited and then during dinner.  I had spaghetti but I wasn't purposely trying to carb load since I wasn’t running until the next day in the early afternoon.  Breakfast and lunch would be more important meals for me to get some carbs in than supper the night before.  I split a 2 for $25 meal with someone and for dessert we ordered 2 mini desserts.  Mine was the dark chocolate caramel cream.  I've wanted chocolate for weeks.  Good, gooey, cakey chocolate.  When the opportunity comes to order something, though, it's just not appealing.  I did enjoy the few bites of that dessert.  At the hotel in Key West they have mini Dove dark chocolate ice cream bars waiting for you in the freezer in your suite and they replenish them every day.  I had one.  One.  The whole weekend.  Dove dark is my favorite chocolate.  At one point someone realized they had replenished them and someone else said I should have one.  I said I already had and she said I should have another.  I looked at it for a second, then shook my head and closed the freezer.  I didn't need it nor did I particularly want it.  I'd had enough.  J  That was God at work, my friends. 

Back at the hotel in Miami we began decorating the vans:

This is part of Ragnar culture and we had fun drawing, writing verses, and writing our names on our respective vans.  The check marks show that we completed our legs.

We all got to bed fairly early since the runners in van 1 had to be at the start by 7 a.m.  Van 2 didn't leave the hotel until about 10.  Ahhh, a nice leisurely morning! 

 

While we were still at the hotel in the morning I started thinking about our team members who hadn't trained very much and was feeling proud that I had been training for a year and perturbed at them for hardly training at all.  I started feeling like the older brother of the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15.  He couldn't celebrate with the rest of the family on the return of his brother who had squandered his life and inheritance away.  The older brother had done the responsible thing and was resentful that the younger brother was still treated like an honored member of the family when he had been irresponsible.  I knew that attitude was pride so I started praying, repented, and asked God to change me.  I knew no one on the team had been flippant and just said, "I don't have to train.  I'm good."  Life had gotten in the way and none of us gets paid to run; we do it on our own time and sometimes schedules just don't allow us to train as much as we'd like.  Still, I knew that we would all get encouragement, cheers, high-fives, medals, etc.  But I deserved all that more than those who didn't train!  Sigh.  Stupid pride.  I continued praying and then texted some friends who prayed for me and reminded me of the benefits I got by training.  I asked God to remove the "It's not fair!" attitude I had.  Running is such an individual sport and to take someone who does a solitary activity and suddenly put her on a team was taking some getting used to and some denying of self. 

Our first runner had started the race, handed off to runner 2 who handed off to runner 3, etc. and van 2 was waiting at a major exchange for runner 6 to hand off to runner 7, who was the first runner in our van.  Runner 6 came in and leapfrogged over runner 7 (That was something van 1 had started doing.  It was fun but van 2 didn't carry on the tradition.  Lisa is glad I didn't try to leapfrog over her, I'm sure!)

Eli leapfrogging over Amanda 

Michaela leapfrogging over Steffanie

We quickly took a group picture since it was the first time we were all together during the race

 

and runner 7 took off on her first leg.  Van 2 quickly drove to the next exchange to wait for her.  We were standing around with other teams waiting when I got a text from our runner saying she was done.  Huh?  I asked her where she was because we were at the exchange waiting for her.  There were only about 50 people so it was easy to see who was coming in and impossible to miss her.  It turns out we were at the wrong exchange.  Oops!  The RagMag was confusing because it stated the exchange a runner left from not the one he or she came into.  Or something like that.  It was confusing.  We had to go to the exchange where she was, drop off runner 8, and then drive ahead to the exchange where we had just been.  That used up about 40 minutes and the whole team was already behind.  I ended up beginning my first leg an hour and 15 minutes later than projected.  At home I run in the early morning, sometimes before daylight, so running in the mid afternoon was new to me.  I tried to train that way, and was able to a few times but…ugh…  It was unseasonably warm in Miami.  When the temperature is in the low to mid 80s I definitely don't run in the heat of the day.  Oh well, what could I do but adapt?  There were other teams' vans on the road as I was running, and one beeped at me so I waved to them.  It was Team Debauchery.  Well then.  Okaaaay.  My team would drive ahead, pull off the road, and send someone to me with a bottle of water.  Once or twice they all got out and played our theme song, When the Saints Go Marching In, on the big portable speaker each van had; that was fun! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCM5klnyOTk 

Sometimes I poured the water on my head rather than drink it.  Both ways were refreshing!  One of my running songs is Never Going Back to OK by The Afters.  Some of the lyrics are:

I feel alive and it hurts for a change
I'm looking back it's hard to believe
That I was cool with the days that I wasted
Complacent and tasteless and bored
But that was yesterday

We're never going back to ok
We're never going back to easy
We're never going back to the way it was
We're never going back to ok

While that song was playing a butterfly flitted into my path.  Normally butterflies come and then are gone in a couple seconds but this one stayed with me for about 30 seconds as I ran.  That's a long time for a butterfly!  Thank you, God, for sending me a butterfly, a symbol of new life, right when a song about never going back to my old life was playing!

Another song that played on my first leg was Mandisa's Back To You:

This shouldn't be complicated
This isn't that hard to see
It's not about what I do for You
It's what You've done for me

You gave your love, You gave your life
You gave your everything and I
Wanna give it all back
Give it all back to You


I finished that leg in 97 minutes, which gave me a 13:36 pace, about 30 seconds per mile slower than I would've liked but that amounted to finishing only 3-1/2 minutes later than I would've with a 13-minute pace.  It was worth it to have 97 minutes of worship time! 
About 30 minutes after I finish each leg my body is able to eat to refuel.  As this race goes on I can tell that I'm eating in response to my body's need to recover and refuel, not just to satisfy my taste buds.  Victory! 

Friday night van 2 was at a major exchange where there was a pasta dinner for purchase, which we skipped, and showers for purchase.  Best $3 I ever spent!  Some people were sleeping in the gym, some were sleeping outside in tents

and some were just sleeping outside.

Our church provided air mattresses and we slept on the ground behind the van under a starry sky and with a cool breeze to make us comfortable.

This is the end of part 1.  Part 2 will be posted tomorrow. 

I Ran My First 10K!

Here's Calvary Chapel's Running Team before the race:

We all gathered at the start line, 5Kers and 10Kers in a combined start.  I was excited when they asked the 10Kers to move to the left (the faster lane!) before the race began. And we're off! I had adrenaline helping me get up the hill and for the first 1 or 2 tenths of a mile. Then my body protested. It usually does, especially at the beginning of an actual race when my pace is determined by adrenaline and the people around me. At first it's really slow, almost a walk, then I match the people running nearby. That never lasts more than a minute, though! I soon settled into my normal pace. People began passing me, but that was okay. I wasn't trying to win. We rounded a corner and neared the bridge. The Bridge. The Huge Bridge. The huge bridge that I've run a dozen times. Before the race there was heavy fog, so much that we couldn't see the bridge from the park and it's very close. As I crested the bridge I looked out to see the water but I couldn't see it because the fog was so thick.

This isn't an actual picture of it since I didn't have my camera with me and wouldn't have stopped during an actual race to take a picture anyway. It was this thick, though.

I was a little sad about not being able to see God's creation of sky and water. He then reminded me that fog is His creation too. Oh yeah. It is! He was closer to me, enveloping me, than if I had been able to see and marvel at His other creations like I was expecting to. He reminded me that pilots learn to fly by sight and then by what their instruments tell them even when they can’t see the sky/horizon/earth. I was running by faith, not able to see much of what was around me but knowing it was still there.

Downhill was not as fun with hundreds of people around. I couldn't open up as much as I would've liked. We approached the 5K turnaround. I felt like part of an elite club when I continued on and didn’t turn around. J

I wasn't paying attention to my music as much with so many people around. People were passing me but I didn’t mind (too much). We turned north at the roundabout. The directions and map said that the 10K turnaround was a little past Bay Esplanade so I went about a block past in training. Apparently “a little” to the race organizers is about *4* blocks! That added another minute or two to my total time. Wait. If that added a minute or two to my time and if I finished 42 seconds faster than the one and only time I ran the entire distance in training, then I finished quite a bit faster than expected! I used the calculator on my phone and it said that my pace was 13:22 instead of 13:30 like it had been, but that’s incorrect. Well, not incorrect; actually I interpreted it incorrectly. First, I didn’t take into account what I just told you about the longer distance and shorter time. Second, I forgot to convert seconds (time) to tenths (distance). Or something like that. 82 minutes divided by 6.2 miles equals 13.22, which is 13 minutes and 12 seconds per mile, not 13 minutes and 22 seconds. So I went faster in addition to going longer! I like that!

Somewhere around mile 3-1/2 I felt like I could go on like this forever. That almost always happens but not always in the same place. The first few seconds I run I feel powerful. Then my body realizes what I’m requiring of it and protests. NO!!! STOP NOW!!! When I don’t stop, my body realizes it better kick it into gear. It does, in its 43-year-old obese way. Then I tend to stay in that zone for the majority of the run except for some occasional bursts of speed that last for a few seconds.
At about mile 4-1/2 a lady said she liked the back of my shirt:

 

 

Going up the bridge at mile 5 was tough, as it always is. I didn’t slow to a walk, though. It might have looked like I did, but I didn’t. J I went down the spiral thinking that this race was almost over. As I crested the last uphill the woman in front of me turned around and asked if I was Michele Ervin. She is a member of my church’s running team but we had never met. We ran the last 0.3 miles together, which was nice.

As I turned the last corner and began the downhill path to the finish line (I love that they structured the course that way!), I saw my family and friends waiting! That and the downhill slope caused me to run faster!

I even disconnected the cord from my MP3 player, raised both arms into the air, and ran that way for a few yards! Victory! My first 10K completed without injury! I'll do another post when I get some more of the pictures they took. 

I crossed the finish line at 1:21:58 according to my watch. 

 

The official records say 1:22:10.  I came in 56th out of 61 women in my age group in the 10K.  I didn't finish last!  I came in 613th out of 638 total runners in the 10K. 

People say that we need to get out of the way and let God work, but I think many people don't know how to do that. It can be difficult to understand what our responsibility is and what God's responsibility is and not get the two confused. In running it's a little easier than it may be in other situations. I know I have to dress appropriately, move my feet, pump my arms, make my lungs expand, practice, set goals, push myself, etc. Then when race day comes I have to take my concerns that I'm not fully prepared, set them aside, and let God do what He does best. Show Himself. He didn't show his power in making it so that I won the race or even my age group, and I didn't expect Him to. I won by running faster than this woman

That makes me a winner in my opinion no matter what the official results say.  J 

 

 

Thoughts Before My First Midnight Run

Tomorrow night is my next race, the Midnight Run.  Yes, I’ll really be running at midnight.  That’ll be something new!  The 5K starts at 11:25 p.m. and ends at 12:10 a.m. so they can start the 10K.  They allot only 45 minutes for the 5K, and I ran 41:48 this morning.  I’ll really be racing the clock this time!  I’ll try to take a nap in the late afternoon and have a little bit of caffeine so I won’t be tired.  I’ve been trying to go to bed early the last month or so and was asleep by 7:00 last night (!) so my late nights are a thing of the past. 

I'd love to see you at the race.  Festivities begin at 9:30 p.m.  My race starts and ends in the Causeway Plaza Shopping Center parking lot in Dunedin.  2602 Bayshore Blvd.  That's at the corner of Bayshore Blvd and Causeway Blvd. 

Now, for two new things.  It has happened.  I put a piece of Dove dark chocolate in my mouth and let it melt and was not transported to my happy place.  It tasted fine, but it didn’t do for me what it used to.  I haven’t had any Dove dark chocolate in a week or two, so it’s not like I’m chocolated out or anything.  I guess God is changing my tastes again.  He did it with Dr Pepper; now I can hardly take more than one drink of Dr Pepper because it’s just too sweet.  Looks like he’s doing it with Dove dark chocolate too.  And you know what?  That’s okay.  God’s in control of my life, including my taste buds, and He can add or take away whatever He wants to.  J

I wrote this June 24, a little more than a week ago:

The scale isn’t moving but clothes are getting looser.  I want the scale to go down AND clothes to get looser.  Why won’t the scale go down? 

Why am I so concerned about a number no one will ever know?  Why not be happier about what people can see?  Why can’t I just be happy about looser clothes? 

People may not know the actual number, but I can report weight loss when the scale goes down.  That’s the reason - so I can have good news to share.  But I already have good news to share, and it’s not about me.  It’s about Jesus, and what He did doesn’t necessarily show in people’s physical bodies.  Many times it does, but that’s not the point.  Jesus paid the penalty for my sin by dying on the cross and then defeated death and hell forever by rising from the dead.  His victory for me was primarily for my spirit, not my body.  If it results in me shedding pounds because I’m not nearly as selfish, greedy, and indulgent as before, then great.  If it doesn’t result in that, am I still thankful and will I keep showing my thankfulness by being obedient even when the results of my obedience aren’t visible?

Day 6

I really can get by on a lot less food than I normally eat. 

I don’t have to have chocolate every day.  I usually keep Dove dark chocolate on hand but sometimes go a week without having any.  In my Christmas stocking Brianne put a package of fun-size caramel Twix, which I really like, and some Dove.  On a shopping trip I got myself a bar of dark chocolate with bacon just to try.  I had been having one piece a day since Christmas and thought I was being disciplined.  Now I see that I can stretch it out even more than that.  I considered adding powdered cocoa to my fruit smoothies for chocolate taste.  I even checked the ingredient list and there were no milk products, just cocoa.  Fine, right?!  God spoke to me and said it’s really not necessary to add it.  I can do without.  This is a fast to rein in my flesh, not to see how close to the edge I can get without violating the guidelines.   

A fast is a good way to find out what’s wrong in your thinking, like with the chocolate.  I just couldn’t understand why I wasn’t losing weight.  I don’t think the chocolate was the only factor, but it’s what was revealed to me just now.  We’ll see if there are other things.   

I was at a dinner book club with friends this evening.  Of course it was at a restaurant.  I took a container of smoothie and a container of broth. 

One of the other ladies set her piece of chocolate cream pie down in front of me. 

Not directly in front of me like she was offering it, but…it was in front of me.  (It's kind of hard to see the pie, but it's just in front of my silver container with black and blue circles on it. Brianne's not here or I would have her make the picture black and white but leave the pie in color.) The victory is that I wasn’t lusting after the pie.  I looked at it but felt no compulsion to eat it for several reasons:   

1. It wasn’t mine.  That would be extremely rude!
2. I don’t like pie.  If I eat it at all, I eat only the filling because I don’t like the crust.  And in most restaurants whipped cream tastes very “industrial.”  This probably would’ve too. 
3. If I’m going to have chocolate, I’m not going to get it from Piccadilly pie.  It’s going to be quality chocolate that’s worth every calorie!
4. I’m fasting.  Duh!  Eating that pie or anything else right now would be direct disobedience to God and therefore sin.  Eating it another time may not be.  But I’m fasting now. 

So I had a victory tonight.  Thank You, God!  It really wasn’t even that much of a battle.  As soon as I saw it I knew I wasn’t going to eat it.  My mind still went through the thought process, though.  I just realized two things as I read over this entry. 

1.  Today was quite the day for chocolate, huh? 
2. That piece of pie never got eaten.  I don’t know why.  She didn’t even take it home to have later.  It seems as if that pie’s only reason for being was to teach me something. 

The War Is Already Won

When my dad and I were in the ER waiting room last night I was very hungry.  We got the call that they were taking my mom there just before we sat down to supper and it was now an hour after that, so about 7:00.  After a while of sitting there thinking about how hungry I was, I remembered that there were vending machines behind me.  The thought of getting something from them, though, was gross.  It actually turned my stomach.  A couple years ago I would've known that it wasn't a good choice but I would've tried to make the best of it somehow.  Whole-grain Sunchips maybe?  A granola bar? 

Well last night I didn't get anything.  Neither the food nor the drink machine tempted me.  It wasn't that I fought a battle and won; the battle, no the war, has already been won!  Woo!  I didn't even have to fight.  I just stood (or sat) in the victory that was already mine.  How peaceful!

I still owe y'all the rest of the race report.  I've been so swamped lately with my mom's injury and hospitalization and taking care of Brianne, my dad, and all the household stuff for them.  Since I'm on here anyway, I might as well do it now. 

We started running the race and got into a decent pace.  People were passing us, but that was okay.  I WAS RUNNING THE RACE!!!  A little bit after the 1-mile mark I saw the first person I recognized since starting.  He was holding up his phone to take a picture of me and I hollered, "I'm doing it!"  I was almost giddy!  Soon after that I saw my daughter who took a few pictures and encouraged me to keep going.  That made me happy too!  Then we didn't see anyone we knew until the very end. 

We continued on the course, which we knew very well from all our practice runs.  As we neared the end I started hearing music and seeing people I recognized.  Melisa and I had worked some on having a strong finish, but it's very difficult to push at the end when you're so tired.  Seeing people I knew, though, and hearing them cheer for me, FOR ME!!, energized me!  Two friends who had already finished came back and ran across the finish line with us.  That was fun!  I picked up my pace and practically sprinted to the finish!  I posted a few days before the race some tips for spectators.  One of them mentioned being specific in your cheering.  "Yep, it is nice to hear “ohgoodjob” but lemme tell you it is so much more fun to hear “OH HERE SHE COMES, JEN JEN JEN, OVER HERE! WAHOO!!!! KEEP RUNNING, OH MY GOSH YOU ARE DOING IT! WAHOOOOOOOO!!! JEN KEEP RUNNING!!! I LOVE YOU!” No lie. Go all out. Your 30 seconds of screaming will carry me an entire mile. I will float on your cheers, puff my chest out and let your cheers be my fuel." 

I found out how true that is!  Seeing and hearing my friends cheering FOR ME gave me energy I never knew I had!  Thank you to everyone who was part of that!

Here are some more pictures:

Before leaving for the race.  I'm so nervous I'm already sweating!

Close up of the shirt I wrote on.  Thank you, Kendall!  I wrote on the purple one too and took it along to change into afterward because I knew I'd be sweaty, but there was such a strong breeze I didn't have to.

 I'm running so fast you can't even see me!

Here we come!

There we go!

My dad and me after the race.

Gotta get to work now.  Thank you to everyone who has prayed for and encouraged me.  Keep it up!  I'm still running!  This was only the first of many(?) more races to come!

Do it anyway!

I walked/jogged my usual 3 miles with increase on Monday when Brandice came over.  Yesterday I could do only 1-1/2 miles.  I just wimped out and plain didn't want to.  I'm feeling sluggish this week.  Today I didn't want to do it either, but I knew how important it was that I do since I didn't do the whole thing yesterday.  I told myself that at the very least I would walk the whole 3 miles.  I ended up doing my usual walking and jogging +70 steps, right on schedule!  Thank You, God!  I feel so much better than I would if I'd taken the easy way out.  Physically I'm tired, as usual. Spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, though...ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!  Victory!