The Mueller Marathon: Sometimes Family Can Be Your Worst Enemy

June 8, 2019...the date the Mueller marathon tried to take me down. Make no mistake about it, sometimes your family comes down on you the hardest. If I was hoping for a break because I'm a Mueller, I was being naive.

This is us before we realized what
we'd gotten ourselves into.

Maybe it was just trying to teach me a lesson because I decided to make my first trail run ever a marathon. Maybe it just was giving me some tough love. Whatever it was, I got no warm fuzzies from the Mueller Marathon in Divide, CO. Starting at 9000 feet above sea level, with an elevation gain of 4000 -5000 feet (to about 14,000 feet) it was a true test of family loyalty.  Had it not been for Bethany who also naively agreed to run this with me, I would have left the family, disowned my name. Whatever I had to do to get away from this torture.

Me trying to make it up a hill. They all started
to look the same. So, so many of them.

The inclines were so steep. Too steep to run. We basically used the the ground to claw our way up them. So we figured, well, at least we can run the downhills.  Nope. Also steep..to the point where we worried we would pummel down the hillside.  So ultimately a lot of walking.

Don't get me wrong, the course was beautiful, making its way through Mueller State Park. But we should have known this race would be ridiculously hard since a normal marathon cut off time is about 6 hours. This race..well, they were kind enough to give us 9 hours to finish.

We quickly developed a love/hate relationship with one another. True of many family relationships, right? Bethany was cursing my name. Actually we were both cursing a lot of things. (Apologies to the families with small children we accidentally happened upon during our arduous trek).

Bethany and I finished at a solid 7 1/2 hours. We were just thankful to have made it in less than 9 hours, since there were many times we weren't so sure that was going to happen.

But we did it, and now I have a medal with my name on it. No inscription fee needed! And of course a cool race tshirt with my name. I'm sure Bethany will still curse my name whenever she sees that medal or wears that shirt. She may never forgive me...

Now for the pre and post-race highlights...

I arrived a few days before the race to "try" and adjust a bit to the altitude. I met up with my friend Nicole and her 2 super cool kids in downtown Golden.

I love having a chance to get to know the cool little humans my friend's kids start to turn into as they get older. And hopefully I didn't scar either her son or daughter with my tales of horrible first dates. But Jack is already leaps and bounds ahead in the chivalry department, prepared to treat a future lucky lady to dinner.  I also squeezed in a dinner with another college friend, Ami; as always, we had a great time catching up. Aaaaaand, I also had lunch with a friend from a prior job, Megan, who I quickly realized was pregnant, exciting news I was unaware of! As I write this, she is a new mom to this little peanut who arrived just days ago. Congrats and can't wait to meet him during my next visit!



Megan suggested a nice course for a little practice run. And I thought this hill was going to be hard. So beautiful though!






My race squad arrived a day after I did, and we of course, did a little sightseeing / hiking before the race in the nearby aptly named Garden of the Gods.

And when you travel with your race squad, you buy squad t-shirts.

#squadgoals

We also enjoyed some pre-race hot springs. Well, I might have gone back without my squad pos- race while they were road tripping back to the midwest.

The view from the barrel of hot mineral water. 

Lady date in the hot tub?

In all seriousness, I would have never finished this race without Bethany pushing me to keep climbing. And that badass was using this as training for the Madison, WI Ironman, which she finished just last month (September)! And Gillian was a great addition to the race squad, bringing me ice for my ankle, running out to pick up pizza. Love both you ladies from 9000 to 14,000 feet and back!

Checking #34 and the state of Colorado off the list! Slowly but surely, making my way to 50. Up next, Mo' Cowbell in St. Charles, Missouri, joined by my race squad Bethany and Sangeeta this time around! Stay tuned for that blog.

Arkansas, a.k.a. North Carolina

So it's been a while since I posted here. And as usual this post is well after I've run the race I'm writing about. ;)  In my last post, I was 4 days into a move to Naples, FL and 2 days into a new job. It's been almost 8 months there, and I'm started to feel a bit settled in, although I miss Chicago, my friends there, and my old life there everyday. Fortunately, many of my northern friends made the transition much easier by making the trek down to escape the winter months and enjoy the beaches of Naples!

A glimpse of Shanghai

This new job has given me a some work/life balance, so I actually committed to doing some legitimate training. Intervals, speed work, strength training, all that fun stuff. Last time I posted, I was registered for the Little Rock Marathon in March with a ginormous medal in my future.  Sadly, that future did not materialize. The week before the race I had to travel to China for work (another reason to like this new job!). 

I was scheduled to arrive back in Florida Friday night, to catch a Saturday morning flight to Little Rock. I was mentally preparing for running this thing jet lagged and tired. Unfortunately, we were delayed leaving Shanghai, so I missed my connection in Montreal because somehow they decided to close US customs just as we were all rushing up to catch our flights that had not yet left. Anyway, I spend the night in Montreal and the entire day Saturday in the Montreal airport, so needless to say, I did not make it to Little Rock. But I couldn't let that training go to waste!  Fortunately, I found a marathon the very next weekend in Wilmington Beach, NC, a state I'd not yet checked off the list. So I signed myself up, booked a flight and hotel, and I was set.

Of course, I had some flight delays and was worried that again, I might miss another race. Fortunately it worked out and I made it on time to get to the expo and pick up my race packet. The weather race day was a perfect temperature, although a little bit of drizzle was there to start us off. But I didn't care too much about that.

The course was nice and flat, although not a ton of support from spectators. But great volunteers! All in all, if anyone is looking to check off a race in NC, this one isn't too bad. Plus, the finish line had some good beer from Dogfish Head did hit the spot. And, in usual tradition, I did find a spot for some post-race oysters in town. Hieronymus Seafood and Oyster Bar is a low key, unpretentious spot for some great oysters and seafood.


The day after the race, I checked out historic downtown Wilmington. Oh, and I forgot to mention I did have a great companion traveling with me, Flat Stanley (one of my best friend's daughter had a school project, so I took him along to experience some highlights of NC).  We saw old battleships, cotton exchanges, and horse drawn carriages. There was also a cool shop called Black Cat that has a gift for anyone on your gift list!


So North Carolina held the spot of my 33rd marathon.  As I'm writing this, I just finished running a marathon #34 in CO, but that deserves it's own post!