Great Job Jo Ann, you are doing awesome and your times are great. Great to hear you are working towards bettering yourself with the hill work, etc. I am adding that facet to my workouts this week, it's hard to find hills in Dallas but found a bridge near my house that will do the trick. Keep up the good work and hope your buttocks get to feeling better!!

This is what is more important to anything else, running for a cause!! Raised $385 for The Susan G Komen Foundation!! Running gives me a great physical feeling but helping to raise monet for good causes lifts me up spiritually!!

Congratulations on that PR Kirk!!! And to all the others that got out and did races this weekend!  You are all awesome.  I would love to do the Dallas R n R next year because my son lives in Fort Worth and it would give me a chance to visit and let him come out and see what I'm doing now.  I only get to see him about every other year or so.  It would be fun.

I did the Bataan Death March Memorial yesterday.  There are a 15 mile and a 26.2 mile route.  I did the 15 mile last year and this year.  I had a much harder time than expected yesterday and am just glad I finished.  I wanted to quit so bad during it.  There were horrible winds the whole way.  I was struggling because I had bruised my hip earlier in the week.  It was just rough.  The course I already knew because I had done it last year, but it has a lot of long slow inclines and several places where you are walking in sand.  One stretch is an arroyo with about a mile of sand going on an uphill incline.  I did the whole course in just seconds under 4 hours last year, with about 20 minutes of that time lost to portapottie lines.  This year it took me almost an hour longer and was 4 hours, 48 min and 45 seconds.  I had to stop to rest a few times, which I never have to do when I've done this event or walked a half marathon before.  I think it was battling brutal winds that were 40 to 45 miles an hour according to the weather.  The forecast had called for "breezy" but this was definitely more than breezy.

The participants are actually called marchers rather than runners because it's to commemorate a famous march in World War II.  But a lot of us are in it to support the military but also to set our own time.  The only awards are for the 1st and 2nd place in the 26.2 mile but we can wear timing chips, which most do.  You don't have to if you don't want to.  There were 6400 this year, which was up from somewhere over 5000 last year.  This was the 22nd annual event and a record setting for participants.  There are about 3/4 of the participants military in teams or individual categories.  The rest are civilians.  I started out the first few miles at a pretty fast walking pace but was too sore from the hip to run.  But by mile 3 it was getting hard.  At mile 8 I really wanted to go to the first aid tent and give up.  I did sit down though for about 10 minutes and right next to me the medics were patching up some really severe blisters on both heels of one of the girls in a military uniform.  Saw lots of people at the tents or out by the side of the route taking care of blisters.   After about 10 minutes I got up and started going again and at mile 10 really was ready to quit again, but sat down for a little bit again and was chatting with one of the volunteers.  Then I got up and the course started going downhill, and I seemed to get my second wind and was able to pick up the pace and make it through the rest of the course.  I made sure all the way to drink lots of water and gatorade, and ate a half a banana a couple of times because I kept thinking maybe that would help.  I think it did those last few miles.  When I wanted to quit so bad though, what kept me going was that the original Bataan Death Marchers didn't have the option of quitting until they dropped dead along the way.  All these military men and women and veterans that were there when they are out fighting for us they don't have the option of quitting.  That's what kept me going.  It wasn't just a race, it was a show of support.  My brother retired from the military a year and half ago and served in Desert Storm and later in Afghanistan after 9/11.  My niece, his daughter, is going into the Marines in July after she graduates in June.  His other daughter had wanted to go into the Air Force but when she was in high school developed Crohn's Disease which eliminated the possiblity of enlisting.  So this event I had hoped to break my record of last year but instead I really learned about pushing when you want to quit and in adverse conditions and a deeper appreciation about what our military people and other people in other circumstances face when they want so badly to quit but have to keep pushing on, whether it's fighting cancer or amputees, or other situations in life.

I'm really sore and tired today, more than usual, and have blisters on the bottom of my feet but I am so happy that I did it and didn't quit no matter how tough it was this time.  I want to do it again next year.

Congrats JoAnn! You are setting PR's all over the place! Your times are improving every event!

Chuck! Great time in your HM!

Congrats to all others who ran this weekend!

Awesome story Linda, you are a real trooper!! God Bless our military!!

Wow, Linda! You gutted it out with a great attitude. Good for you!

I'm so excited to see all the great weekend experiences for the over 50 crowd. Age really is just a number.

I just celebrated my one year running anniversary with a 10K training run. This Gallowalker just ran the last 5.5 miles of that 10K without stopping! (I had to stop at the half mile mark to cross a busy street) The pace was slow, but each mile was faster than the the previous mile and my heart rate stayed below 150. Finally, progress. There have been a lot of ups and downs in the last year, but I'm glad that I have kept a consistent running schedule (my husband claims I'm obsessed) and that I have learned to shrug off the"bad" runs.

I have a 10K race in two weeks. Now I must decide if I want to shoot for a time under an hour or if I want to shoot for a nonstop run. Decisions, decisions.

Edit:

Just realized I ran an hour without stopping. I never thought that would happen! Woohoo!