AFC Marathon

PRs all around! Woohoo. This is the second time I have run this race. I ran it a few years ago before the pregnancy and last year I ran the last 5k or so with Christy up the hill into Balboa Park.

Our day started out at the wee hour of 4:00 a.m. when our alarm clock went off. I had just put the baby back down from a mid-night feeding and snuggled back into bed. BEEP BEEP BEEP! Up again! We were on the road by 4:35 headed to the park to catch one of the buses to the startline. This year we got there in plenty of time to get a parking place and and early bus to the start line.....plenty of time to check bags, warmup, stretch and hit the "spankys" (portolets). We had a great time warming up and visiting with all the other "skirts" out there - so many customers from the expo were thrilled with their new skirts. Camopink and minidot were everywhere! It was so cool to have a minute to talk all of our skirt customers about their race plans, etc. and share "good lucks" and high fives with everyone before the race. This is the fun part about our business and we feel we are very blessed that our work and passion are one in the same.

We lined up toward the front of the pack and watched the elite runners in the "special" starting corral doing their warmup pickups and stretches. As the last 3 buses rolled in, they national anthem began...and still no Arma & Nassim (our plan was to meet at the front of the start line). I looked into the windows of the last buses rolling in wondering...hmmm - is Arma on that one? Did she make it? Next minute the gun went off and off we went! I must have blocked out the hills from the beginning....for some reason I remembered the course as being all downhill in the beginning for first 10k. But as we headed out from the start from Cabrillo Monument we had a few good climes up away from the point before the descent down into the city began. My race plan was to PR from my last marathon of 1:29:57 and make the most of the downhill miles since I knew the last 2-3 miles were uphill into Balboa park and I would most certainly be slower. It was a very challenging course with the hills and the heat and sun right in your face for most of the 13.1 miles. Here are my splits: 6:41, 6:38, 6:21, 5:56, 6:27, 6:37, 6:39, 6:37, 6:40, 6:41, 6:43, 6:45, 7:14 - finish time 1:27:42 (average pace 6:42). I am quite happy with this PR from my pre-pregnancy personal best of 1:29:15!

Here's a few shots team Running Skirts coming across the bridge into Balboa park about .5 miles from the finish line.
(Cindy coming over the bridge and running into the park across the bridge below)











Below is a great shot of Christy leading the pack of men along the finish line stretch - she also had a great pr race. Here are her splits: 7:07, 7:20, 6:46, 6:40, 7:26, 7:35, 7:35, 7:35, 7:32, 7:38, 8:20, 8:09, 8:16 - finish time 1:39:28 (average pace 7:36)













Arma even flew south for this great race! Here she is all smiles as usual looking fresh as a daisy in the home stretch. Arma also ran a PR of 1:39:57.












Arma's cousin Nassim from LA, joined Team Running Skirts on Sunday for a great PR of 1:54:24

Happy Birthday Cindy, Christy & Madi!












Wow - what a crazy fun-filled week! It's a family tradition to spend our birthdays together every year (Christy's daughter Madison shares our birthday too). Our birthday just happens to fall during the week of the America's Finest City Half Marathon also. The birthday theme for 9 year old Marathon Madison this year was "Rockin' Dance Party!"

Imagine 20 8-9 year old little girls rockin out and dancing their hearts out to ABBA and the latest Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers tunes. Highlights of the evening included the "So you think you can dance-off contest", the macarena dance, freeze dance, the limbo and of course - ice cream cake! Birthday girl Madison even entertained all the guests with an enthusiastic solo performance or two. (I wish I had some video footage - so adorable!). By far the highlight of the whole night though hands down was when 4 year old Avi jumped on the "stage", grabbed the mike from the DJ and announced "I just want to say that this is the BEST DANCE PARTY EVER!!!!!!". Hysterical! Sing it with me "Oh, what a night!".

Now, onto the AFC report coming soon.

While not as big as Muskoka Rocks, these two beauties might as well have been 2 geological wonders by all the ruckus they have caused.












Finally - they emerge! I have been waiting for these suckers to finally break through baby's swollen red gums all week. The poor little guy has had a fever for days and has been oh so grouchy. To think I complained about getting up with him 2x a night. During this momentous top teeth cutting week - we topped out at 8-10 soothing, lullaby singing, feeding sessions during the wee hours of the night. Coffee has been my friend this week!

Thankfully, now that they are out, he is back to his happy go lucky self and sleeping a little better again. I have to say, that I never took into consideration sleep deprivation when orchestrating my grand race plan for this year. I thought once the baby was out of the womb and I have daycare or hubby care covered, the training would be smooth sailing. HA!














Photo from Muskoka Rocks race this weekend. We were blessed with a gorgeous sunny day up in cottage country. This is a great event that benefits Camp Oochigeas. The race is very well organized and perfect for the whole family. There's a 5k, 10k and 1k kids course, refreshments, and even a live band at the finish.

Val and I toed the line for the 10k, not sure what to expect as we have heard over and over that it's a "challenging" course. The 10k course was definitely the most challenging I've ever run...very hilly, but the beautiful scenery and lake views made up for the pain of the hills. I was still feeling some soreness in my hamstrings from my last strength training workout, so I didn't really push the pace and just held my pace at a moderate effort. I pretty much ignored the garmin and ran on feel. Here are my splits: 6:26, 6:38, 6:41, 7:15, 7:06, & 6;34.

16  4685 cindy lynch    42:04 LF35-39    2/22      6  4:13   42:01
23  4801 Val Gates      43:21 LF30-34    2/16      7  4:20   43:18

Check out the race kit for Muskoka Rocks - one of the best I've seen in a while for a fairly small event....Race event flyers, spa coupon, salon coupon, lipstick, hair products, goody hair elastics, potato chips, m&ms, bottled water, locally made bbq sauce, sweat towel, toothpaste sample and magnet from Mynextrace.com

Home again! What a great weekend at the San Francisco Marathon! The hubby and I had an entire "date weekend" after dropping the kiddles off at Grandma and Grandpa's. Woohoo!!! It was much overdue and I can't tell you how much we enjoyed ourselves. We started with some tasty "cow" at Fog City Diner on our way to the expo set up...we even enjoyed a glass of champagne (counter productive to expo set up!). Delicious and nutritious :-P We celebrated each night with an exquisite dinner out. My favorite was Boulevard where we had a forbidden encounter with a scrumptious basket of bread and some fabulous wine.

The San Francisco Marathon Expo was located at Pier 30/32 on the Embarcadero. It was a great venue with a nice layout. Bart Yasso's booth was right around the corner and we enjoyed watching the hoards of runners lining up for signed copies of his great new book "My life on the run". We had a super busy expo and it was great to meet all the Bay Area runners. I especially enjoyed working with one of our favorite "skirts" Glorybelle Lillie. Glorybelle, THANK YOU! Your rocked the RunningSkirts.com booth and you rocked the SF Marathon! You definately are a speedy skirt!

After two very busy expo days on my feet I took Cindy's advice and "indulged" in an icebath. We had room service bring up 4 buckets of ice, not to mention the water was already icy cold, and I settled in for my 10 minutes of torture. AAAaaaaagggggghhhhhh.....IIIIIII hhhhhaaaatttttteeeee iiiiicccceeebbbaaatthththththhhhhhhssssss! The torture! Once my dues were paid I popped into a nice hot super long shower and then crawled into bed and ordered up some room service. In hind sight Vietnamese cuisine is probably not the best pre-race meal. duh! We were staying at the Clift Hotel though and Asia de Cuba was the room service restaurant and I was so exhausted after 2 days of busy expo that I couldn't muster up the energy to blowdry and put on makeup. I would just so much rather get the extra much needed z's. I scarfed down my meals (yes plural...couldn't decide what to order) of Calimari Salad, Salmon (another one of Cindy's pre-race recommendations) and some baked plantain fries. Delicious but uuugh...full belly ache.

Wake up call came at 4:15 am although it was a pretty restless night. I forgot how loud it is in the theater district! There must have been 4 murders and 10 fires because there were sirens all night long! Anyway it was still very dark when I made my way to the huddles of the race start. I was sporting my CamoAqua Running Skirt and matching Tank and a fabulous pair of navy blue gloves...thank you Gypsy Runner! It was a bit chilly standing around waiting for the start but I made my way to the portapotty lines where it was substantially warmer. The lines were long and slow going and I had to scramble to find the Wave 2 start in time.

It was still very dark when the race started and I was wondering if I had made a bad decision choosing the First Half. I was looking forward to running over the Golden Gate and that was the specific reason I chose the hilly half and now I was realizing it might be dark. The race started good. I was running a little faster than planned for the first mile but it felt fine and my Garmin was telling me it was a 22 minute pace. My garmin stinks! I have got to upgrade to a new model! I overheard someone behind me say there were 3 big hills. I logged this in my brain and carried on. The first hill was a doosy going up the presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a little bigger than expected and the legs were pretty tired at the top but I knew I had made it to the bridge so all was well.

The first half of the bridge was a big long uphill climb....it seemed to climb upward forever before leveling out for a second and then scooping down. It was super windy too...I didn't even think about the wind factor. It was a lot of fun having those huge gusts of wind at your back...weeeee. It was a different story though with the head winds. Yikes. I was blowing all over that bridge. It was the funniest thing and I was just laughing out loud as I blew side to side with the gusts of wind. I came close to blowing right into the oncoming runners. At this point I knew it wasn't going to be a pr day. Then I saw Bart Yasso. He high fived me and yelled out "good job". How cool...I was running over the Golden Gate Bridge while high-fiving Bart Yasso. In a runner's world, does it get any better that that? It was definately a highlight of my race. That, and I actually kicked a pigeon. It flew out of nowhere and landed right in front of my foot. It was so random and weird. There was not a lot of time to react and I thought it would move but it didn't so it got one of my new Mizuno's right in the hooha. Sorry little guy!












After running over the bridge we had a nice downhill into the Presidio. I love downhill! But I knew there was another hill to climb through the Presidio so I took it easy. That hill was a beast. I think it was a 10:45 on my Garmin...uuuughh. Should have done some hill repeats! Duh! There were a lot of people walking up it in front of me and that's not a good sign. I did make it to the top without walking (took all the mental power I had left) and then I realized I had just mounted 3 of 3 hills. (wrong!) I sped up to enjoy the last 4 miles of "downhill" finish. Weeee I love downhill and I picked up the pace. I passed a lot of other runners and I was wondering why none of them were picking up the downhill pace. Stupid! I should have known something was up. After turning a corner I see all the runners in front of me climbing another nice steep hill with no plateau in sight. Oh jeez...I thought it was a downhill finish. Well it wasn't. It was one climb after another.

By mile 10 I started having some stomach issues. Oh no. I think I have to go! I started scanning the route for portapottys because I was now in dire need. I've heard about situations like this from Cindy. She refers to it as the "goo poo's". I was trying out the new Gu Roctane and I'm thinking that might have been my problem. That or the Vietnamese food for dinner last night. Once I got up to the top of the latest hill though it seemed to subside. Then I saw a portapotty and thought about stopping for a second. No, I can make it. I feel better now and if I don't stop it just might be a pr day. Then another climb...and another stomach cramp. Yikes...should have stopped. Oh No! I was now scanning the neighborhood sidewalks for a makeshift "portapotty". I was freaking out that I was going to have one of those "lifes most embarassing moments" Paula Radcliffe style. This was such a huge distraction to my race. All I could think about was that I was going to have to go and it wasn't going to be pretty. Where are the portolets when you really need them and why didn't I stop at that last one?!

Then we turned into the park. I knew it was the home stretch and that I would make it, hopefully, across the finish line where I could dart off to a beautiful blue box. Whew! I sprinted it in passing everyone near me, not out of competitiveness, but out of the sheer urgency of my situation. I heard the announcer yell out "Christy Baker from Cardiff by the Sea" and I smiled inside because I knew I was finished and I knew it was a PR. Thank you God for letting me finish this race with my dignity intact. Of course, once I got through the shoot my stomach was fine.

All in all though I really enjoyed this race. The scenery was beautiful, the weather was perfect and it was a fun, challenging course.

Splits:
mile 1 7:45
mile 2 7:29
mile 3 7:36
mile 4 7:39
mile 5 7:40
mile 6 8:25
mile 7 7:23
mile 8 7:33
mile 9 7:40
mile 10 10:46
mile 11 4:22 ?
mile 12 8:13
mile 13 7:17
mile 13.2 1:33

Big News! Camo Running Skirts are now available in both running skirt & athletic skirt style. A lot of you have been looking to get your hands on one before the Army run in Ottawa and other summer marathons & races. Get yours today, before they are gone again!










For those of you Californian's - be sure to come out and see Christy this weekend at the San Francisco Marathon Expo. Swing by our booth wearing your RunningSkirts.com gear and get a free gift! (no purchase required). If you are running the half marathon in San Francisco, you get to choose which half of the full marathon course you'd like to run. The first half goes over the Golden Gate bridge and offers amazing scenery, yet more incline/hills. The second half is flatter, but doesn't go over the bridge. Aw - decisions, decisions. Christy is running the first (scenic) half as a training run. For those of you running the full marathon in San Francisco - you rock! I ran the first year of the SF Womens Marathon several years ago before they changed the course and oh my goodness those San Francisco hills knocked the wind out of me. The weather in the city is always perfect for running - hopefully you all get another perfect running day this Sunday. Good luck & have fun.

P.S. Christy - we'll be waiting for your SF Half Marathon post and review!

Yawn! Another all-nighter (no I'm not talking about one of those late girls nights out full of laughing, dancing and great girl times!) Actually...there was a little dancing or should I say waltzing with my favorite little man to the tune of mommy's froggy rendition of Rockabye Baby at midnight, 1:00 a.m, 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m. and then up at 5:00. I jokingly told the hubby yesterday, the last time I felt this tired was at Christy's bachelorette weekend in Vegas! The little guy now almost 9 months old is trying to sprout his two front top teeth - one of them is already poking through, but the other one is still hovering on the brink and driving him nutso. He already has two front bottom teeth and compared to the last few days - those were a piece of cake to get through. This time around, he's had a fever and has been absolutely miserable unless he's being held or within arms distance of mommy. Any of you running mommies have any tips or advice, please send comments?! I must sleep soon, especially now that I am ramping up the mileage for the fall marathon.

The long run on Saturday went well, other than being cut a bit short on time. Val and I planned to run our favorite woodsy trails in Midhurst for 2 hours at a comfortable pace. We headed out early at 6:00 a.m. and were almost an hour into the run when we heard a thunderstrom in the distance. For my California friends, thunderstorms out here are nothing like thunderstorms at home....the lightning here literally strikes the ground. Last year we saw an actual lightning bolt strike and split a big oak tree in half next to our car when we were driving. When a thunderstrom is coming here, people pretty much stay indoors until it is safely passed. With that said, there we were 1 hour into the wilderness from where we parked the car to start the run when we started to hear the first rumblings in the distance. We decided to head back to the starting point a bit early instead of waiting until we reach the one hour planned turnaround time.

We have been running these trails for a few months now, but it never fails, every week on our way back to the car, we seem to get lost. Wouldn't ya know it - we did it again! Took a wrong turn somewhere and nothing was looking familiar. Granted, this getting lost on the trails has been a bit of fun and adventure for us in previous weeks as we were always discovering new places...lakes, rivers, old wooden bridges, etc. that we had never seen before. Saturday, with the ligtning storm moving in quickly, being lost was not even slightly amusing. We immediatly turned on our Garmin 305 "return to start" feature to assist us in navigating back to our car. (This is a really cool feature btw). With each roll of thunder, we silently agreed to pick up the pace a bit in search of familiar landmarks and trails. After 20 or so minutes of strange trails and "didn't we already cross that log a few minutes ago?", our Garmin got us back to familiar territory. At this point it was raining pretty heavily and we got into the discussion of how being in a tall woodsy forest is the last place you are supposed to be during an electrical storm. Pace getting faster. The last 5k of trails to the car are full of some good steep hills and we normally save a little gas for that point in the run, but those hills on saturday were not even a concern as the thunderstorm was now practially on top of us and we were caught in the downpour. As we scrambled up last of the hills the lightning and thunder were very close & I started thinking about the metal car key in my running skirt pocket and whether the garmin on my arm would attract lightening....at this point we were running full speed toward the car. I'm not gonna lie, my panting mantra was "Please God, Get us to the Car, Please God Get us to the Car, Please God Get us to the Car". At about 800 meters out I missed the turn to the parking lot and somehow wound up running right back into Val - the look on her face was priceless. She must have been thinking why on earth is Cindy running back away from the car now? I laughed and turned myself around and followed Val back down to the trailhead. We both were cheering as we sprinted for the car. Whew! Post run Tim Hortons has never been better!

This weekend we had the pleasure of visiting Kincardine for the Womens Tri there. For those of you who've never been, Kincardine is a beautiful little town on the shores of Lake Huron. This all women event is a very well organized triathlon event and I highly recommend it to any ladies in Ontario that are thinking about trying a tri. There are competitors of all levels in the race...from the first-timer to ironman/world competition athletes. We were blessed with a rain free day this year....it was a little iffy at first as the swim was delayed due to fog over the lake preventing the view of the buoy.

I loved watching all the participants cross the finish line - especially the 78 year old....that's what I want to be doing when I'm 78 - thank you for the inspiration. Wow!

As for my training program - I have realized my fall marathon is quickly approaching and I need to start looking at building my distance in my training program. That, and I read Gloribelle's blog and wow - the mileage she is already doing! (You are my inspiration....have I mentioned that I tried to do handstand pushups? it wasn't pretty btw - talk about headrush) So, I downloaded a training program (ok I'm saying it out loud now...it's official) for a 3:10-3:15 marathon and what to my surprise do I see??? my long run last weekend should have already been up to 16 miles. uh-oh. Reality has set in. The longest run I have done since having the baby is the half marathons I've been running after working the expos. There's a big gap between 13.1 and 16 miles in a week. So- I gave it a go on Sunday and managed to get in 15 miles nice and easy. I don't know if it's my tired legs from the races, or the humidity up here, but my legs felt so heavy and stiff. At about mile 14, I was seriously contemplating my decision for the fall marathon (maybe I should stick to halfs?). Of course I'm going through with it - God willing - after all, I even talked Christy, Val and my long lost running buddy Teresa into it too. I am altering the schedule slightly - it has us running mileage every day, but I know that I do better with a rest day or two tucked between the long run and speed work day. I am joining a local gym this week also - one with a great daycare so that I have NO excuse to not get in my strength training. I have found post baby with all the recent weight loss, I have lost a lot of muscle and strength. I am quite sore after harder workouts still and I think with a little strengthening and more muscle mass - this will correct itself. Here's Hoping!

Nissan 10 Miler & 5k event - Distillery District Toronto, Canada Running Series
(Our "speedy" skirt Josiane is so fast, she had time to go to the car and change before we finished!)

After running the half marathon in Calgary with the rolling hills course & altitude, my legs were feeling pretty heavy last week. I had a workout with Val and coach Ken on Thursday - some form and hill work, a rest day on Friday, and then a 40 minute easy run on the waterfront trail on Saturday. I'd never run a 10 mile race distance before and wasn't too sure on how to pace it, what shoes to wear for the 10 mile race, etc. Since my average pace for the half marathon was 6:55 miles, I thought I could probably manage at list 6:45 splits for the 10 mile distance, especially since it was supposed to be a fairly flat course. The only challenge would be the heat and humidity of the Toronto waterfront. After my rest day and easy run on Saturday, I took an ice bath to help flush the legs. I woke up yesterday feeling pretty fresh and energetic, so I decided to try out my Brooks Racer ST3s for the 10 mile race. I have worn them for a few track workouts, but never raced in them. I also have the Brooks T5 racers which are really super light - I wore those for the Canada Day 10k. The ST3's have a bit of a post in them and offer more support & Brooks advertises them great for distances of 5k races up to the full marathon.

It was overcast and slightly raining as we toed the starting line. Team RunningSkirts.com was represented by our "speedy" skirt Josiane Aboungono, Val Gates, Arma Afsar and myself sporting the new aquatreuse Running Skirts, aqua strappy tops and chartreuse performance tank tops. The course had a few gradual inclines, mostly road and a little gravel terrain and a footbridge to cross. There was some headwinds around the Leslie Spit area and again on the return back to the distillery district. Here are my splits: 6:21, 6:30, 6:38, 6:49, 6:37, 6:35, 6:29, 6:29, 6:43, & 6:41.

Team RunningSkirts rocked the race - see the results below:



Overall Female-10 Miler Run Awards-Top 6 receive awards

Place Time      Number Lname        
===== ========= ====== ===========
1   58:34.2 30 STEVENSON,NICOLE
2   59:40.7 31 ABOUNGONO,JOSIANE 
3 1:02:28.7 1136 PATTEN,BECKY
4 1:03:02.0 1243 ROBINSON,SEANNA
5 1:04:56.2 1599 YAREMCZUK,NATASHA
 6 1:06:01. 895 LYNCH, CINDY       
7 1:06:50.2 444 DORRI,SEPANTA
8 1:07:03.4 143 AUGAITIS,RASA
9 1:07:21.6  35 BOULTBEE,APRIL
10 1:08:10.7 848 LESNOWSKI,SUZANNE

























Val Claiming her victory prize money

Women 30 - 34 - 10 Miler Run
Place Time      Number Lname
===== ========= ====== =======
1 1:08:40.01042 MORRISVANESSA
2 1:09:48.61725 GATES,VAL   
3 1:11:36.11283 SARA,ZIPPIN
4 1:13:53.1111 ALDANA,KELLY
5 1:14:29.21594 WOODWARD,YAEL


















Women 35 - 39 - 10 Miler Run

Place Time      Number Lname  
===== ========= ====== =========
1 1:06:50.2 444 DORRI, SEPANTA
2 1:07:21.6 35 BOULTBEE, APRIL
3 1:08:10.7 848 LESNOWSKI, SUZANNE
4 1:13:52.0 34 BOULTBEE, MELANIE
5 1:14:27.1 1648 AFSAR, ARMA     

Little Buddies - We had a nice post-race bbq at Arma & Andrews place. For those of you who don't remember, Arma is my friend who I ran with during our pregnancies.
We ran several 5k and 10k races throughout our pregnancies and we both continued running within weeks of our deliveries. She had her baby boy about one month after mine.
Here's a few pic's of the two little ones from yesterday. Hard to believe my baby is 8 months old now & Arma's baby boy is 7 months old.

We have received a lot of press for our Running Skirts over the last 3 years, but after reading this months skirt feature in Runners World magazine and seeing our own products in full page print, I have to say I feel like we have finally arrived and we are truly honored to be published the world's leading running magazine.

If you haven't checked out the latest copy of Runners World (August), you've missed the feature on running skirts! As one of the original creators of a skirt designed specifically for running, we were thrilled to participate in the running skirt review and photo shoot. Our ruby snow is the skirt featured in the cool full page shot accompanying Kristen Armstrong's cute story about her running skirts experience.

Also in the product review section, our red and white polka dot "mini skirt" running skirt is featured. You can also see the Runners World Running Skirt Review here.

Also our ultra skirt Beverly Anderson Abbs was featured in the skirt timeline at the bottom of the page. She was the first ultra skirt (she won Miwok 100k back in 2005 in our running skirt, and has since won many ultras in our running skirts and strappy tops).

We have known that running skirts are not simply a fad or fashion statement, but a new performance running option for female athletes. This issue of Runners World proves that Running Skirts are here to stay.

We take pride in our high quality products and will continue to develop and improve our designs however possible. We couldn't do this without our valuable customers and feedback, so thanks to you all!

Yeehaw! Greetings from Calgary, Alberta!



















The Calgary Marathon takes place during the kick off of the Calgary Stampede (one of the worlds largest rodeos). The festivities are opened with a grand parade through downtown Calgary.













This is a really cool marathon, half marathon, 10k event and they even have a "timbits" kids run on race day! Get this - the marathon finishers are awarded with a belt buckle in lieu of the traditional medal too (similar to the western states 100 mile finisher buckle). We had a great time at the marathon expo, the people out here are always so upbeat and friendly!

I registered for the half marathon a few weeks ago, not realizing it was only 5 days after the Canada Day 10k race. After my 10k on Tuesday, which ended with a sprint about 800 meters out from the finish, I was quite sore. I decided to take a few rest days on Wednesday and Thursday. With the marathon expo taking place, I never found the time to run again on Friday or Saturday and by the time Saturday night rolled around, I was starting to second guess the decision to run the half on Sunday morning. It's always a bit challenging to run on race day after working the expo skirt booth on your feet for 2-3 days straight, not to mention I was pretty sore after the 10k race on Tuesday. After my traditional post-expo ice bath torture session to help flush the legs, I was feeling pretty rested and I decided to toe the line on Sunday - if nothing else, as a training run to make up for not running over the last few days. The weather was perfect - clear and cool, but not cold at the 7:00 a.m. start. I wasn't sure what I was going to run, but I was hopefully optimistic that if everything went well and my legs were ok, I'd be able to take a few minutes off my last half marathon time and run a 1:30 or better. My race plan was to go out and try to hold a 7:00 minute per mile pace and pick it up on the last 10k if I was still feeling strong.

It was a hillier course than I was expecting, but it was very scenic. The course started downtown and ran through the Stampede Grounds and the runners were greeted by a lineup of cowboys & cowgirls on horseback and spectators that were enjoying their traditional stampede pancake breakfast. It was funny - their wasn't a lot of applause, but mostly people standing with blank stares at us runners as we cruised by. I can only imagine they were thinking "what on earth are these crazy people doing running?!?". I did appreciate the occasional "go girl!" or "go skirt!" as I passed by. The course than ran through the Calgary zoo. I recall seeing a flock of pink flamingos as we entered the park and I was looking out for the Tiger (we were told we might see) cage, but as we started winding up a slight incline out of the zoo my mind switched gears and I tried to get back into concentration mode. On a side note - one thing I really enjoyed about running while pregnant was the nice mellow pace of the races and actually being able to take in the scenery and race spectators, etc. I remember last year when I was here I ran the 10k while about 5 months pregnant and I actually carried a digital camera and snapped photos along the route. After leaving the zoo there was a portion of the course on a small gravel/dirt road and then back to the streets heading back toward downtown. We ran along across and along the beautiful Bow river. I remember seeing a great one man country band, and a few other bands along the route. Once I reached the halfway or probably 12-13k point in the race, I recognized the 10k course from last year. With about 4-5 km left to go I was feeling pretty strong so I picked up the pace a bit. I remember there were a few good hills before the finished and tried to talk myself through them one at a time. Before I knew it, the finish line was within eye shot and I gave it one last push to finish in 1:30:40. Here are my splits: 6:27, 6:50, 6:54, 6:51, 7:02, 7:02, 7:05, 7:01, 6:48, 6:45, 7:06, 6:41, 6:46 finish time 1:30:40. I was surprised to finish as 3rd woman and 1st place age group! I was expecting a lot of speedy ladies to run today, but I'm not complaining - it was great fun to win another prize this week!
















We won shiny prize medals & big arse white cowboy hats too! Yahoo!

Results:           10k    gun       chip
1/242 F 30-34 3645  40:20  1:24:33  1:24:31  4:01  Maggie Finlayson  Calgary AB                 
1/141 F 20-24 3529  40:06  1:27:11  1:27:10  4:08  Erin Sask         Calgary AB                       
1/205 F 35-39 3480  42:58  1:30:40  1:30:38  4:18  Cindy Lynch       Barrie ON 

Happy Canada Day!



















Team "RunningSkirts.com" Cindy, Arma & Val

Today was the HBC Run for Canada event(s) across the country. Team Running Skirts was out at the Toronto Waterfront event in full red & white glory. We were lucky to get a wonderful sunny day.

Here are my splits:
mile 1 6:22
mile 2 6:30
mile 3 6:34
5k time 19:26
mile 4 6:32
mile 5 6:31
mile 6 6:12
finish 39:51:06





Our "speedy skirt" Josiane won the 10k event, I came in 3rd woman and Val was 6th woman. We were awarded with HBC Gift Cards - woohoo! $1000 for Josiane, $100 for me & $25 for Val. Let's go shopping! For those American readers, HBC stands for Hudson Bay Company or "The Bay" similar to "Macy's" department store in the US. I think this was the first race that I've ever won prize money. I've run for a team before that won team money rewards before, but never been lucky to be handed a check myself. It's pretty cool!

Iron Girl Del Mar...what a fabulous event! This 5k and 10k is for the ladies only and was super fun. It was really really baking hot and we actually felt like horses running the start and the finish on the horse track at Del Mar...it gave Cindy's famous running mantra "HORSE TO THE BARN!!" a whole new dimension!

This event was the best though and I will list some reasons why...

Great Girlie Energy
First names on all race bibs
Great goody bags including the adorable plush Aflac Duck with the abnoxious quack (see picture) and flower leis
Free Buffet Breakfast (yum!)
Cute Technical Race Tees
Free "finish line" photos
Cool jumbotron at the start/finish
Rudy the announcer
RunningSkirts.com rockin booth
Free massages at the finish
Earrings for the top 3 finishers in each age group
Mother/Daughter category
Everyone had fun!

We had so much fun and I highly recommend this race to all ladies everywhere! We're looking forward to the next one!

Please join us in our thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery for "Jen Skirt" who was hit by a car during a recovery run last week!

Jen was running in her neighborhood early Tuesday morning last week when a lady in an SUV rolled a stopsign and plowed into her. Jen has multiple facial fractures, broken teeth, cuts, bangs and bruises to say the least. To all our fellow running friends - please be careful when you are out on the streets and always expect the unexpected. Don't trust the drivers, most of the time, they don't see you. Always have an "escape" path. I know we can all be guilty at becoming complacent or absorbed in deep thought sometimes during our runs and even assume that we are always safe when we obey the traffic laws, stay in the running/bike paths, etc. Always run aware!

Thankfully Jen survived this accident, we wish her a speedy recovery as she's got more training to do...she is Boston bound in 09!

Whew - it's been a whirlwind week since the Rock n Roll marathon weekend in San Diego.
After a busy weekend at the marathon expo we had the pleasure of running with our "Skirthusiast" Jen as she finished her first marathon. We waited for Jen at the 18 mile mark
As you can see in the photo to the left - she was looking great at this point. All smiles & energy! Her original race plan was to run a 3:40 or better and she started with the 3:30 pace group. At mile 18 she was right on target with the 3:30 group and looking strong. We joined Jen at mile 18 where the course winds through Crown Point.

Here she is still running strong at mile 20. It was funny, right before mile 22 as she continued to pick up the pace and run negative splits, Jen sheepishly asked "so, when am I gonna hit this wall?". We assured her that she had done all the hard work and all her training miles and as long as she continued to stay hydrated and fueled up (hello espresso love gu!), she would be just fine. We had to chuckle at her enthusiasm - she had WAY to much energy these last few miles. She would spot friends from her training program or fellow San Diego Track Club members and she would sprint up to them, cheering them along and trying to carry on a conversation as if it was a casual short training run. Some of them looked at her like "who is this psycho chick that wants to chit chat right now?....doesn't she know we've been running for 20+ miles?". We reminded Jen to hold back a bit & save all that extra energy for the last few miles and found ourselves laughing again as she exclaimed "only 4 miles left - wow - that's it???".

By mile 23, the last few miles were flying by as our splits were getting faster and faster (To be honest, Christy and I were expecting to scoop up the pieces of Jen at mile 18 and run her in at a nice mellow pace - we had no idea we'd be getting in a tempo run on Sunday!) I think our last splits were sub 7 minutes.

All in all - Jen ran the perfect marathon race. She started out at an easy pace and ran the first with the pace group and then slowly picked it up on the back half.













An excellent first marathon and Boston Qualifier - 3:25:32 - here's a photo of the three of us after the finish. Congrats and well done "Jen Skirt"!

RunningSkirts rock San Diego! We had a great weekend at the expo. Thanks to all our loyal skirts for showing up in their gear. Yes, we launched the new skirt colors, yes they are awesome and yes, promise they will be available on our site soon.
















We had the pleasure of finally putting a face to the our countless painful double loops around the track (the infamous but effective yasso 800s!) Mr. Yasso himself was autographing copies of his book at the marathon expo.

Here we are with a local Marine sporting or new camo athletic skirt and camoaqua running skirt. The marines had a booth at the expo and a marine challenge where you had to hang on the chinup bar to earn a cool marines tshirt! The rock n roll marathon expo finishes at beautiful MCRD in San Diego - a great way to finish the race.







Guess which twin is behind the bear sporting the new camo-aqua? Our booth was stationed across from the Big Bear Marathon booth, we couldn't resist sneaking into the bear head at the beginning of the expo on Saturday.
















Here (on the left) is Bart-Elvis-Yasso! One of the hundred elvis or should we say "elvi" running the Rock n Roll marathon this year. We had a great time at the finish line celebration cheering on all the skirts. These two elvi were hilarious & jumped out of the marathon pack for a quick snapshot with only 800 meters to go to the finish.













Dean Karnazes was at the marathon expo and also ran on Sunday. We have some video footage of his motivational talk and race day coming soon.

Just returned from the big Marathon weekend in Ottawa.


















We had a lot of skirts out on the course for the 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon events. Photos & video footage:



After working the expo and being on my feet 3 days in a row, I wasn't sure what to expect on Sunday for running the half marathon. The half marathon started at 9:00 a.m. - 2 hours after the marathon start. It was a warm sunny day already at 9:00 a.m. I did take my ritual night-before ice bath to help flush the legs, but at the 3k mark on the course, they were still feeling pretty heavy. I plodded along noticing that my first 2 mile splits were a bit aggressive as the course led us into the Quebec portion of the course. I tried to rein myself in a bit and hoped to run the 2nd half a little more agressive. Here are the splits: 6:47, 6:57, 7:17, 6:58, 7:15, 7:10, 7:06, 7:13, 7:24, 7:20, 6:53, 7:09, 6:52 - you can see where I hit the hillier portions of the course. I finished the half in 1:34:04 (garmin said 1:32:50 - wierd!) I've come to the conclusion that my garmin just doesn't work right on raceday - maybe it's the proximity to hundreds of other garmins in the pack. Anyone else experience this with their Garmin 305?

The marathon course had a few good climbs but for the most part was rolling hills into Hull, Quebec and along the Rideau canal in Ottawa. All in all it was a pretty pleasant race, a little warmer than I'd prefer, but manageable. It was really green and pretty (I missed the famous tulips - sorry, Carlene!) Where are those tulips anyway? I'm convinced they must just be on the full marathon course only. There were lots of water & gaterade stops, one sprinkler and even a sponge stop to help combat the heat. I arrived at the finish line one soaking wet drowned rat...but a cool soaking wet drowned rat in a cute new camo/aqua running skirt.

Oh yeah - I could have done without the obnoxious "space invader" dude in the red skull cap and white jersey with ipod on (you know who you are!). Apparently my new camouflage/aqua running skirt rendered me invisible because he just kept cutting me off. I understand this happens in crowded courses & that's perfectly understandable, but it was pretty thin where we were in the pack - probably only 4 of us stretched out along an entire street at that point. For some reason, this guy would keep running up next to me and than would step right in front of me as if we were going into single lane course....not once, or twice, but 3 times. I had to keep darting out from behind him and moving aside to get back in stride. He was wearing an ipod, so perhaps he didn't hear me either...or maybe he was just bitter he was getting outran by a skirt! Now I sort of understand why race directors are starting to forbid the headphones though, it can be a hazard for runners that are oblivious and discourteous to other runners around them.

Our RunningSkirts.com Olympic hopeful won the Mississauga Marathon 10k event this last weekend. Josiane ran the 10k as a training run in 35:11. She is hoping to run an Olympic Qualifier at the Ottawa marathon in a few weeks! Congrats Josiane! Please join us in supporting a fellow woman to accomplish her Olympic Dreams. Even a dollor or the cost of your daily starbucks can make a difference for Josiane!

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