Kathleen's Adventures

Saturday morning, Stephanie, Randy, Jon and I all headed up to Huntsville to run the Texas Trail Run, the race formally known as Sunmart (the largest trail race in the US). Essentially Sunmart pulled out as the big sponsor after 19 years and they weren't sure if the race was going to even happen. Roger Soler Sports out of San Antonio put it on, but on a much, much smaller scale. The good thing about it though is Sunmart was usually a 50k/50mile race. This year around they did it as a 20k/50k, so those of us not in 50k shape were still able to race. There is no way I could have run the 50k just four weeks after IMFL . I wish my body worked differently, but it just doesn't work that way for me. Our biggest challenge of the day was getting to Huntsville. Houston had a rare early-season snow/ice/winter storm on Friday, leaving many frozen streets, bridges, highways, etc. We left around 5:45am and saw quite a few wrecks on I-45 in town. We never felt unsafe and just drove very ...

This was me a year ago, on my way to a HUGE PR somewhere around mile 29 at Sunmart , and in a picture that went on to grace the cover of Inside Texas Running . This year, I was elated to walk/run 4 whole miles (at a whopping 13:50 pace) in Huntsville State Park while cheering on a dozen or so of my friends racing. Crazy how things happen and how things can change, but I am ok with it. Of course this year was perfect weather compared to last year's record high temps, but I cannot do anything about that. This year I also got to spend time with some very special people in my life and I cherish the time we got to spend together. Sunmart is not going away, and I will be back for sure, not necessarily as a cover girl again, but for sure ready to take another huge chunk off my PR there. (I was bummed to find out last night when looking through the results that I was completely oblivious there was a celebrity amongst the crowd on Saturday...but that is probably the way it should have be...

Sissy and I made the cover of the Inside Texas Running January, 2008 Magazine. Watch out!!

In the few days leading up to Sunmart, it was like I was having déjà vu all over again. Forecasts were predicting record highs for race day, just like Chicago had been. The last two years that I have done the race, the temps were in the 30s at the start and did not warm much from there. This year, however, it would be over 70 at the start and would quickly rise to a record high of 82, with 80-90% humidity. Despite the lovely outlook, I was still excited. Robert, Shawn, and I all met up at Ruthie’s house early Saturday morning and rode up to Huntsville together. We were questioning why in the world we were going, with the weather so bad, but then all decided we were going because we knew other people were going and we don’t like to miss out on things, however bad they may end up. We quickly found our Houston Fit group as well as a few people from Houston Racing. Turns out we had a pretty big group. Sissy, a friend who is doing IMAZ with us next April was also there. I talked her into th...

The Saturday before the race both my left and right IT bands quit working 8 miles into a 12 mile run. So that wasn’t very cool and I was left very apprehensive heading into Sunmart. It was unfortunate because I had been looking forward to it so much. I went to the chiropractor on Monday, got a massage on Thursday, and did lots of foam rolling, stretching, and icing leading up to the race. Saturday morning started pretty early at 5am. I had a car load of people riding up there with me, so that was fun. Mishele, Elizabeth, Ruthie, Jill, and her husband Bob all piled in the car and we were off, with Madelyn and Charmaine following. The temperature slowly dropped as we headed north and fell from 40 in Houston to 31 in Huntsville by the time we got out of the car. A quick run through the breakfast line and it was time to start. By the way, breakfast was awesome. They have a huge buffet all lined up with steaming hot food. Loop 1 – 6.1 miles, 1:20 The first part of the course is a 6 mile out...