I have this amazing friend named Suzanne. Her amazing joy and zest for life is an inspiration to me and I asked her to write about her recent adventures. You’re going to read this below and think she’s describing several years worth of races, but nope. Most of it happened within the last 12 months! Enjoy the crazy adventures of Suzanne (oh, and she names a whole bunch of people, most of whom are our mutual running friends and most of whom she . . you guessed it . . met online!)

Beth, Me and Suzanne at the Chicago Marathon!!

Suzanne and I met online originally, but since then our friendship has included talking each other into and then rooming together (with our friend Beth, above) at last year’s Chicago marathon. She has stayed in my guest room, I have toured her beautiful inn near Austin, TX, The Inn at Salado
and she really has become like family to me. I asked her to write about her adventures of the last 3 years and specifically about her crazy journey to becoming a Half Fanatic and a Marathon Maniac (you can read about that nonsense HERE They are HARD CORE people!). Enjoy! (oh, and my commentary is in red. Because I just couldn’t help myself!)

Well, call me Crazy….but I run a lot of races.  I never ran when I was younger. I just started when I was 48 years old. I Ran/Walk/Finished the full marathon at Disney World in 2011. Barely trained (yes, she just said she barely trained for a full marathon)… and I had no idea what I had got myself into at the time. I remember calling my husband at mile 20, sobbing, saying “peeps are dropping like flies around me! But I think I’m going to make it!”

That medal is in a shadow box in my office.  That was it!  I did it, and I was done.  Then my good friend Cee convinced me to do the Goofy (half marathon on Sat. followed by a full marathon on Sunday at WDW Marathon Weekend) in 2012.  That was my turning 50 party!  And I have been going ever since.

That year (2012) I did 15 marathons and 9 half marathons (pause and let that sink in for a minute)  I became a Marathon Maniac and a Half Fanatic. I did 3 marathons in 3 states in 9 days which got me to my Marathon Maniac status of 5 stars! And 4 half marathons in 9 days to receive my 5 moons from Half Fanatic. Another achievement met.  Who knew I’d move on to meet a new challenge. (editor’s note: so you know what you get for all those stars? A t-shirt. That you have to pay for yourself. Yup.;)

This year, I have switched to more half marathons and new goals. But before I did, I could not turn down these two full marathon medals; the Texas Marathon and the Little Rock Marathon. It had been all about the medals, but somewhere it switched. It started to be about who was going to be at the races and how I was going to get there (marathon maniac meets the amazing race would have been a great reality show). And that’s when the fun really began. But the medals help to remember.

So. I’ll share some of my memorable medals with you.

My Most  Obnoxious  Medals (the big ones on the left) I earned running the Texas Marathon (editor’s note: guess which one that is? Us Texans are so subtle . . .) and the huge Lucky Horseshoe is from the the Little Rock Marathon.

The Texas Marathon is special because my friend Laura (editor’s note: yup, they met online)and her family came out to see me and got recruited to work a water station. The most critical one at that. It was so great to see them every time I went thru there which was 8 times! Plus it was an out and back.  So I saw  my running friends the whole time.  The food table every 6 1/2 miles  was worth coming back to 4 times.

Little Rock… My 24 hour race. Drove in from Texas. Got there at 3:00am the day of the race and caught  2 1/2 hours worth of zzz’s in Cathy’s room.  Then ran and drove back that same day! (please pause here and think about what this woman is doing! Insanity! She’s awesome!)

Best After Parties (lest you think she’s all work and no play)

Mercedes half….. What can you say about a race that has free flowing beer that fills your cup through the bottom!  I know, sounds strange but you put your cup on this machine and the beer come in from the bottom. No nasty head to deal with.  And tons of food and snacks and band and inside and tables and chairs to sit on! Yay…. Great course…great race…Birmingham is a great town…tons of town support.

Cathy Bradford and Hemaili were my partners in crime.  OMG! They are crazy!  We are at Walmart at midnight, looking for stuff to keep us warm.  And food to stimulate the bowels…. Please fools, there’s a race in 5 hours.  We need sleep!
Met up with Jay on the course. And I taught him how to walk.  Lol. He went to RnR New Orleans the next week and he PRed it big time!

What the Hell am I Out Here For! (these are the ugly part of the good, the bad and the ugly;)

There has been a few of these between the last two years, but this one tops  the list – NC Half….can you say down pour and freezing cold in the same sentence. I fell in love with the medal and that is what got me thru this race. I thought my  roommate, Arlette, would never run again. But after a few days of drying off and thawing out, she was in it again!  It was so much fun figuring what to wear to be cute and warm and dry at the same time.  It was a good effort. Despite the weather, It was a great weekend. I drove from Orlando to Bainbridge to run a race. Then Bainbridge to The NC Half, Concord, to run the second one.  Met up with another friend, Shawn who lives in Georgia. She had one of her best races in that freezing cold rain.  It was great to share that day with her.  There were some technical issues she had to overcome before the race. And to see how happy she was after that race was worth the whole trip!(yes, that all happened in one weekend. I know, right?)

Big Time Peeps Meet up Weekend

Lincoln Half and Go St Louis…Last year, Lynn and Kendra ran this race and the medal was nice. I had to have this medal.  And so did Jenney , Deb , Melissa with Lynn and Kendra joining us.   What a group….so much fun. Shots, so many inside jokes….countless hours of fun. Oh, and there was a race too. Mellissa and Kendra met us for dinner and then we all ran the race. It was very historic with great scenery and a few good hills!

Then Deb and I drove to the Go St Louis race for Sunday.  More fun times….Deb and I stayed together running this race and we had the best time, eating twizzlers, running Holy hill, finding the priest to bless us with the holy water before the hill, seeing Melissa and Deb’s friend who had frozen water bottles waiting for us along the race.(yes, she just mentioned priests, shots and frozen water bottles in short succession. And you wonder why I love her?)

Most inspiring…..

OKC memorial half.

Shawn and Liz were at this race with me.  I think we all felt the same way about it. Along the way there are so many remembrance of the victims of the OKC bombing. But it’s an empowerment. Not a mourning feeling. You leave there feeling you can conquer anything. I visited the memorial afterwards where it was hard to keep your composer. What an amazing race! A must do for all!

Before this race (again, this happened in the same weekend . . .), I met up with Jen, Selma, Alan, Liz, and Shawn for the Irving Race.  Selma and Alan were doing the full.  The rest of us were doing the Half that day. Jen and I “ran” together.  It’s my best kind of together running.  We’d pass each other and somehow meet up again almost every mile.  The course was so you saw everyone once or twice.  It was a lot of fun. (I agree! I loved “our” race!) Afterwards, Shawn and Liz “showered” in the portable bathroom with wet ones, we ate a gourmet lunch, from the trunk of the car, and met Lola, who wiggled her way to OKC on the dashboard. Great road trip entertainment.

Lets Get This Done, I Have Another Party, I Mean, Race to Attend!

Capital City half, Columbus, OH….Race started at 8:00am. My flight to Maryland was at 12:40 so I could meet up with my friends, Jill and Elisa  to run the Long Branch Half the next day. Want a PR, that’s what you do! Overbook yourself. Met some great runners in Columbus.  Didn’t know women could get their thighs that muscular. (are we sure they were really women?)

Made the flight to Maryland like a professional running back would score a 99 yard running touch down. Southwest Airlines should pay me for all the comedy I provide their passengers.  I told the flight attendant when i gave my order, I wanted 3 glasses of water. He looked at me funny.  brought me a can of water right away and then a glass of water during the beverage service.

Then, I drove to the NJ shoreline where I met Jill. It was great to hang with her, again, in my home state. We had dinner, laid out our flat runners, and just had a blast talking.  We like to do that.  Then we met up with Elisa in the morning.  The plan was to help Elisa get a PR under a three hour time limit.  We were successful and came in at 2:52!  It was great sharing that happy day with her.  And I didn’t even make her cry.(this is why running friends are the best kind of friends!!)

Traveling with my Best Bud – The Perfect Weekend

Running with the Cows and Cox Racing group Half –  Cee is my partner in crime.  I love when we can run races together. So we drove thru OK and headed thru Wichita where we picked up Krista. The three of us headed up to Kansas City, KS and got one of the cutest medals.  It was great to inspire Krista to become a Half Fanatic and a Marathon Maniac.

We dropped off Krista and headed to Ft. Worth to join our husbands and my daughter. It would be Mothers Day for the half in Ft. Worth the next day.  Liz would also join us.  I was very happy and thankful that my daughter joined me for this race. And that my husband, Rob came for moral support.  It was also the 6th race in 16 days which helped me reach  another goal of 6 moons for Half Fanatic status.  I was extremely happy to spend this day with some amazing people including, Randy, Dale, Mary Kaye,  Leslie, and Bill, for the after race feast.  It was the perfect day for me.

OMG. The views are spectacular!

Thelma and Louise Half, Moab, UT. Steamboat Springs half. Colorado. Bainbridge half Georgia.
These three races I did without knowing anyone and the views were enough to keep me entertained. Solidarity and running are a beautiful thing.  I loved them.

Favorite halfs this year

Tink, Mercedes, OKC, Thelma and Louise, Steamboat Springs.

Most hills I’ve ever done….this year! 

Rockwall Half great prep for the Utah and Colorado runs. Met some great half fanatics that I’ll be seeing at a lot of them at my upcoming Texas races.

So within these last six months, I have completed 6 halfs in 16 days and 13 halfs in 73 days.  My total half marathons for this year equals 19.  With 2 marathons to date. It has been a great “run”.

So now I’m on this crazy ride of achieving 52 halfs in 365 days!  God willing, my goal is to have that completed by New Years Day but I am taking it one step at a time.

My next goal is to get 28 races in 183 days.  Then I will see if it is feasible.   In the meantime, I going try to keep having fun with old and new fiends and setting new challenges. Each race is a new experience and I’m having a blast seeking them out.

Just reading through this has me completely exhausted. I can not even fathom that on top of all of this crazy running, she runs an inn, volunteers in her community, and still has time for her wonderful daughter, Becca, and her friends. Suzanne, you bring new meaning to the word “dynamo” and are kind of a freak of nature . . .and I love every bit of it! Hope you enjoyed the ride!

Happy Running!

Jen