Leadership Gainesville 34 5K

I know I already ran a race for April, but I couldn't pass this one up. Each year, Leadership Gainesville holds a 5K race at Ironwood. This is pretty cool, because I live at Ironwood, so to show up for this race, I simply had to walk out my front door and across the parking lot to the club house. Pretty neat, huh?

I've run at the golf course before, when they were closed for Thanksgiving, or some rainy day, but it did not prepare me or give me an advantage for this race at all. The race course started in the middle of the 1st fairway and over the 9th fairway to pick up with the cart path. Then we followed the cart path to the 8th hole and went off the golf course into the woods! Yes we ran through the woods past the dumpster and back to the 9th hole, did a loop and finished on the cart path near where we started the race. It was kind of weird, but hey a 5K is a 5K and I love to run!

My friend Liz and her daughter Kayla came to see me run and take some photos for my scrapbook. That is them below.

Here's one she got of me at about mile 2, after my trek through the woods. My calves were killing me and I had to stop to stretch them out, so I probably would have had a better time than I did.I pushed myself for the last mile, I wanted to post a better time than my 5 points of life 5K and here's me crossing the finish line. My official time: 31:20. It's nice to shave almost a minute of your time.I also ran into my friend Wade at the race. Wade has been out of athletics due to a torn ACL and corrective surgery. This was his first race back and he did amazing! I think his time was 32:45 and he pushed me to run faster. (I couldn't let him and his gimp leg beat me! :-)

I'm not sure where my May race is going to be. It seems that the races that I am interested in doing all fall the day after I am on shift and they are all out of town. And with no vacation spots available, I have to find one that fits in with my schedule. There is a posibility that I will be going to North Carolina to visit my Aunt Nancy. If I go, then there is a 5K at Tega Cay, so I will do that. If I don't go, then it looks like the SunState/Great Gainesville Road race 5K on the 30th of May is going to be my May race.

Stay tuned to find out!

April Race - Iron Girl 10K (Clearwater)

April shower's bring May flowers, but there was hardly a drop of rain in sight as 1500 runners lined up for the Iron Girl 10K in Clearwater. I love this race because this was the first ever organized race that I ran last year.

The race starts at Coachman Park right on the water and we run over the Memorial Causeway bridge into Clearwater Beach, turn around and come back for a second go at the bridge. Below is a picture of the bridge:

It's huge! The first mile of the race is all uphill. It makes you consider your strategy. I don't train hills, because there aren't any in Gainesville, so once I made it to the top I was spent. And I still had 5 miles to go. My goal for this race was to beat last year's time which was 1:09:00.

I'm the blur of pink crossing the finish line. My time was 1:07:57, which beat last year's time! Yay! Below is a shot of me with the bridge after I conquered it - twice!Billy is such a trooper. Both years he has gone to this race with me and both years men are outnumbered. The Iron Girl race series is for all women. It's very empowering and they are all about celebrating women. When you approach the end they somehow know your name and the emcee yells out as you cross the finish line, "Iron Girl, Kristina Patten from Gainesville, finishing. Let's hear it! Those cheers are for you, Kristina!" It's really cool.

The swag you get is pretty neat too. This year we got a re-usable bag, a cute little AFLAC duck that talks and an awesome dri-fit running singlet. I'm wearing mine in the pictures.

It was a good race, a good day to race and a good trip overall.

Next race is at Ironwood (which is where I live) on the 15th. It's a 5K and my goal for this one is to finish in under 30 minutes.

Late entry about Sarah's birthday trip to the Keys

My baby sister turned 30 on March 22nd. Her birthday wish was to go to Key West for her 30th birthday. So, Sarah, Mandy (Sarah's BFF) and I packed up and headed to the islands to party like a rock star.

Sarah (on the left) and Mandy and Louie's BBQ. Which wasn't really what we were expecting. This place was super fancy and the dinners were pretty expensive, so we had a drink at the bar and headed to Duval Street.

I don't recall the name of this bar, but there were hundreds of dollar bills plastered to the walls, pillars, and bar. People sign them and staple them all over. It was pretty cool, so we had to make our mark as well.

Here is where the night started to get really fun. After hitting a couple of bars and restaurants and pretty much drinking our way down Duval Street we ended up at Cowboy Bills. It was only about midnight at this point, but look at our rock star now! She was passed out at the bar and we got kicked out because apparently bars don't like this practice. Mandy and I walked back to the hotel with her, tucked her old ass in bed and hit the town for some more drinking and fun.The famous Key West sunset celebration. It was overcast and cool, but they view was still amazing.

Our last night in the Keys, which was Sarah's actual birthday, we drove to Islamorada. We started out the evening at Lazy Days for dinner. Sarah wanted to try lobster and I wish I could have gotten a picture of her face when she took her first bite! She hated it!! But no fear, Mandy and I finished her dinner for her. The waiter brought her a piece of key lime pie with a candle and we sang 'Happy Birthday.' The next stop was the Lore Lei for some more drinks. Here we got hit on by some old guys who wanted us to come back to their condo. Not so much! In an effort to get away from them, we headed to the next bar - The Safari Lounge. What a dump! It was dark and smoky and the clientele was quite suspiscious looking. We had one drink and headed out of there and back to the Lore Lei. After there we headed to the Whistle Stop and shot some pool and had a great time. We were obviously not locals, so we got our fair share of looks, but who gives a shit!? We were having such a great time! The picture below is our re-incarnation of all the pics that we took this weekend. It seems that in every picture, someone had a strange look on their face.

I think she had a good time. Maybe 40 will be in Vegas. ;-)

Silver River Kayak Trip

Tuesday morning Rudy, Joe, John and I took our kayaks down to Ocala to the Silver River for a day on the river. The weather was perfect! We put in near the Oklawaha River and headed upstream to Silver Springs. About 20 minutes into our trip we passed a family of monkeys. These things are wild and crazy! I was terrified that they were going to try to jump right into my kayak. Everyone feeds them, so when they see people they expect that they are going to get food.

We also saw alot of alligators. I've never seen alligators this big in the wild. After I saw this gator, I went around the corner and took the second picture, but when I turned around, that big gator was right behind me! I screamed and started paddling like crazy to catch up with the guys.

When we got to Silver Springs we were paddling around the main spring right next to the Glass Bottom boats! There were a few tourists milling around and it was funny that we could just paddle right up in there. Of course, we weren't allowed to dock or get into the water, but it was still pretty cool.
Perfect weather and perfect company made this the perfect trip.

March Race - Disney Princess Half Marathon

I am a bad-ass, fleet-footed, kick butt Princess. Sunday was the inaugural Disney Princess Half Marathon. This was my effort to redeem my less than stellar showing in DC at the MCM, so I was training for a time of 3:00. My marathon time was 6:13, so I figured, unless I wake up in the same state I did for the marathon, I was definitely going to make 3 hours. I would like to preclude that my last race, the 5 points of life 5K was my fastest pace ever! I flew by with a 10:25 pace, that shocked the pants off of me. (Well, not literally, but you know what I mean. Maybe next race ;-)

Saturday night/Sunday morning was daylight savings time, so we had to move the clocks forward an hour (you know - spring ahead, fall behind) What this meant was that I had to hit the sack about 8:30 to get enough sleep to not be dragging ass the next morning. I was staying with my cousin Michelle at a house my other cousin, Phaedra and her husband and two daughters were renting for their vacation. I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep with a very rambunctious 6 and 3 year old in the house, but I was so exhausted I passed out at 8:30 anyway.

I made sure I set 3 alarms on my cell phone and my cousin set her alarm too. However, at 4:30 a.m. (new time) my cousin comes into my room and says, "Kristina, it's 5:30." I FREAKED! Holy shit! How did I sleep through 3 alarms? The race starts at 7:00 am and we have to get dressed and get to Disney (about 15 minute drive), park and get to the start line!? I look at my watch, which I conveniently did NOT adjust, so I would be sure not to get confused in case my cell phone didn't automatically adjust for the time change and it read - 3:30. Which means that it is really only 4:30 and that is precisely what time I had my alarm set for. WHEW!! Tragedy averted.

We make it to the race and park the car and still have time to pee, which is good, because the 50 port-o-lets that they had were hardly enough for the 6200 women that were running. I leave my cousin and head to the start line. It was awesome! 6000 women and most of them are dressed as their favorite Disney princess. I saw Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, Tinkerbell. The few guys that ran were even into the spirit - I saw a guy dressed as a frog prince. And, sorry fellas, it is not cool to run wearing a tutu, but I give you a thumbs up for channelling your inner princess ;-)

Well, I am standing at the start line and my stomach starts growling and I realize that I forgot to eat breakfast. OOPS! Oh, well, no turning back, and I did have a big dinner, so I sucked it up and the start gun goes off.

I feel strong and my legs are working well in the cold 45 degree temperature. I was fortunate enough to qualify for the first corral of runners, so I think that gave me a bit of a mental advantage. I reached the first place where my cousin could watch for me, about mile 4 and I am flying! I grabbed a protein bar from her and choke it down so I can have some fuel for the next 9 miles. About halfway through we got to run through the Magic Kingdom and straight through Cinderella's castle! (I'll have pictures of that soon) People were cheering us all the way, it was so cool. After leaving the Magic Kingdom we headed past a golf course and through some service roads that most people don't get to see at Disney, then it was off to Epcot, which was our final destination. We ran around Spaceship Earth (the big golf ball thing that is associated with Epcot) and then the mad dash for the finish line.

As I crossed the finish, and looked at my stop watch, I couldn't believe the time - 2:30. I was way below my anticipated time of 3 hours. My fairy godmother gave me my medal and another sprinkled me with fairy dust. My cousin was there cheering for me, it was truly a great moment. All doubts I had about being a race competitor vanished.

I always set such high standards for myself and then get discouraged when I don't achieve them. As was the case with the marathon. I was really hoping to finish 26 miles in 5:30 and I didn't, so I was really hard on myself and couldn't be happy for the huge thing that I had done which was finishing a marathon.

Needless to say, I am pleased with my time - officially: 2:30:37, which equates to a pace of about 11:30/mile. It makes me feel good.

Here is a shot of the feet that carried me through 13.1 miles, I don't know if you can see it, but I wrote on the insides of both my lower legs "FAST FEET" I think it worked.

The next race coming up for me is the AFLAC Iron Girl 10K in Clearwater on the 11th of April. Last year's time was 1:09, so I am shooting for :59.

Here are the rules:
1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer.
2) Select the 4th picture in the folder.
3) Explain the picture.
4) Tag 4 people to do the same.~No cheating (cropping, editing, etc.)

So, the 4th item in the fourth folder isn't exactly a photo, but a video.

This was taken at my house on my 32nd birthday. I originally posted it in a blog on Myspace titled, "Why you shouldn't put candles on your birthday cake after age 30." My husband, thought it would be funny to put 32 candles on my little birthday cake. These were not regular candles, but the kind that relight after you blow them out. Sounds funny, huh?

Well it would have been except that he didn't account for how he was going to get the candles off the cake to put them out. They all kept relighting and he couldn't get them off the cake. Then to really add to the hilarity of the situation, the smoke detectors went off and scared the bejesus out of the cats and my niece and nephew. We were all laughing so hard! Billy eventually took the cake over to the sink and I thought he was going to turn the water on and put the cake under the stream. We ended up wetting a paper towel and grabbing the candles with that. By the time we were done, my cake had a think layer of wax on the top of it, but it still tasted yummy and we all had a really good laugh.

The next year, no candles on the cake.

5 points of life 5K

In my quest to run in a race every month this year, February's race was the 5 Points of Life 5K. This race was special for me, because my sister was running also. I met up with her and Billy at the start line (I was coming off shift, and about 4 hours of sleep) Sarah and I spent the hour until the start gun, walking and warming up and then it was time to head to the start line. She was so nervous! We were standing at the start line listening to her MP3 player and dancing and jumping around, which I think got her mind off the fact that she was getting set to run in her first race. I remember just how nervous I was!
The siren sounded for the start of the race and we were off! I hung with her for about the first 1/4 mile and then I told her to run her own pace and not worry about the people around her, then I took off. I felt so good! The course was through the UF campus. We started in front of the SW rec center and ran around the complex to Museum road, past Lake Alice to Gale Lemerand Drive and down past the big commuter lot then back around past the entomology buildings and the citrus growing fields back to Hull road and finished in the parking lot of the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. I was pretty amazed that for the most part I passed alot of people and was running really strong.
Fortunately, they were using chips to time us and we were able to get our official race times right there. My time was 32:17! This is my fastest 5K and my pace was 10:24/mile! I was pumped.
After I crossed the finish line and turned in my chip, I ran back to meet up with Sarah and help her finish. She wasn't that far behind and I pushed her to cross the finish line strong. Her time was 45:47! I am so proud of her!
After the race Billy and I took her out for breakfast to celebrate her first race! I think this will calm her down a bit more for the Princess half, which is only two weeks away!
I can't wait, it will be fun to spend the weekend with my sister and my cousin, running and hanging out.

K.