St. Jude Fundraiser and Turkey 10 mile fun!

It has been a busy and fun-filled weekend so far!  Our fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Hospital was a great success last night! We set up balloons and a table with our donation box right beside the registers so my daughters could ask people for donations as they were getting ready to leave.  I wish y'all could have heard my 7 year old, Addy, asking everybody for donations.  My girls worked so hard last night and we managed to collect $540.35 in our donation box!  Our fundraiser was in honor of Jaxon Schoenberger, a 6 year old boy who recently passed away from an inoperable brain tumor known as Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma.  There will be 5 of us who will run the St. Jude Half Marathon in Memphis on December 6 in honor of Jaxon.  I am so looking forward to this race and so thankful that my girls will have memories of such a special fundraiser at our restaurant, Rocky Creek Catfish Cottage!  A big thank you to my husband and father-in-law for letting us camp out for a few hours and for their donation of $1000 to St. Jude!

I got up bright and early this morning to run the Turkey 10 miler in Creola, Alabama with my sole sister, Pam!  Pam and I trained together last year for our first half marathon!  We will be representing Lucedale at the St. Jude Half in a couple of weeks!  My gps got us to the race about an hour early.  The race started at a park so we didn't have to use porta potties!  Yay!!  There is a well known bridge in Creola called the Dolly Parton Bridge.  You can see why!

Luckily we did not have to run over the bridge, just under part of it when we started the race!  I told Pam I would try to keep up with her as long as I could.  We started out a little fast.  The first mile was 10:22 and I hung with Pam for about 3 miles and dropped back because I was worried I would get too tired.  An older man kept trying to talk to me and asked me what my time goal was for today.  I answered him "I don't know..."  He said "oh you just want to finish?"  I'm like "yeaaa that's about it!"  I realized I had not really set a goal for myself for today and I was okay with that.  My last 10 mile run was back in September and I ran it in one hour and 53 minutes with lots of stopping and starting.  I had not been able to do a 10 mile long run before the Pensacola Half Marathon because of my second knee injury.  So I ran miles 3-5 around 10:40-10:50 and walked through water stops.  I took a walk break at the turn around at mile 5 to eat my Blueberry Muffin Larabar.  These are hard to chew, but I have not been training with goo (Gu) and I had a Larabar about halfway through the Pensacola Half and it kept my energy up!  I started running again and mile 6 was my slowest mile at 11:20 because of my Larabar walk break.  Where we were running was mostly paved roads with a few houses.  Not the best views, but that usually doesn't bother me.  The weather was great, but I did run against the wind during mile 8-10.  My pace for miles 7-9 were 10:49, 10:40, and 10:52.  That's a pretty steady pace for late in the race!  Mile 10 was my fastest mile at 10:30!  I was so happy to see the finish line and it seemed like it took forever for me to get there, but I made it.  I could see Pam the whole time I was running.  She finished about a minute and a half ahead of me!  My finish time was one hour and 48 minutes!  I could not believe I had done so well!  I was so happy!!

We took a few pictures and most of the food had already been eaten so we headed on back to Lucedale.  It was an easy hour drive!  I have managed to rest today and I looked back and some of my 10 mile runs from a year ago and I actually beat both of my 10 mile long runs from last year by a few seconds.  I was in top shape last year because Pam and I trained for 5 solid months for our first half marathon which was November 29, 2013 in Orange Beach.  This half is actually coming up next weekend.  Seeing how much I have improved has really given me some confidence back in my distance running.  Since my new knee injury in September, I was not able to get the long runs in to prepare for Pensacola which was my third half. I ran my second half marathon in June and all of my long runs were 11 minute pace because it was so hot down here already.  I ran my fastest 10 miles of the year today and it was almost a 10 mile PR!  I'm expecting a good time for the St. Jude Half Marathon.  I love how with running, you never know what will happen on race day.  Will it be a good day or a bad day?  I just never know, but now I know what I'm capable of and the best part is that my knee doesn't hurt... AT ALL.  God gets all the glory for this.  He really showed me what I am capable of today.  I didn't get tired out there and I am a lot stronger than I thought I was!  I hope this encourages you to keep working at whatever you are passionate about.  There will always be setbacks, but the comebacks are the greatest part of the journey!  God bless you all!!