Team Point Two Scrapbook

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Merry Christmas

I can't believe that this year is already coming to an end. Last year at this time Tony & I were in The Netherlands...having tacos for our Christmas dinner. This year we are surrounded by family & friends. I feel very blessed. This year has been my real first year of running (at least my first year of running races). I'm very proud to call myself a marathoner...with 2 marathons under my belt! Along this wonderful journey I have met so many nice and wonderful friends through twitter. My online support system has been my saving grace during many hard times this year. Thanks to all of you that follow this blog and continue to give me support! I also wanted to thank my team (Team Point Two) for a wonderful year! After my wedding I jumped right in with two feet and haven't looked back. I'm so thankful that I was chosen to be a part of such a special thing. Merry Christmas to all my running friends. I hope you were like me, surrounded by family & friends!
Merry Christmas from The Bergin Family!

Video

Here is a quick version of my running video. I'm going to add to it in the next few weeks. Enjoy

Las Vegas Marathon (Race Report)

Where do I start? This race report could get long and might be boring. But I really want to start from the beginning.

Tony & I flew in on Thursday night around midnight. So we didn't do much but check in and sleep.

Friday
We decided to do the Expo before all my family and Team Point Two teammates got in. Pretty overwhelming! My first marathon didn't have an Expo, just the race. I'm very glad that we got in before the huge crowds. Later that afternoon my parents and bother arrived from Nebraska. It was so nice to see them again! The last time was our wedding in Hawaii. After a nice supper at The Cheesecake Factory we met up with my teammate LJ. It was so nice to finally meet him!!! We talked like we were best friends...just picking up where we left off. At this time I voiced my one concern about the race. What am I going to wear? I brought a ton of stuff with me, everything BUT a running jacket. After about an hour of talking my family returned from gambling and were ready to head back to the MGM for bed. Good idea!

Saturday
Was my day for taking it easy. The only thing I had planned was a meeting with a Twitter friend acmedragon337 at the running Expo and taking my parents to Jersey Boys. My whole weekend was full of meeting people that I have only talked to online before. It was fun trying to pick them out of the crowd. As for acmedragon337 I turned around and instantly knew Tim ;-)It was nice to get to chat with him and meet some of his friends. He in turn got to meet my teammate LJ. At this time I gave LJ my new flip video camera. He promised to get some great shots from the marathon (which he did!). Later that night my parents and I went to Jersey Boys and my brother and husband went to the Metallica concert. As I went to bed I didn't feel very good, but was hopeful that I would feel better in the morning.

Sunday My alarm went off around 3:15 am and I was still feeling SICK! I walked to meet my mom and we headed to Starbucks to get some coffee. I then went back to my room to do my pre race "getting ready" ritual. I was so preoccupied with not feeling good (worried about getting sick on the course) and the weather (would I be too warm or cold) that I left the room feeling as if I forgot something. As we took the tram over to Mandalay Bay (where the race started) I realized what I forgot....my Garmin watch. How stupid can I be? So this just adds to the list of worries. Luckily Tony was still in the room and he ran my watch over to me. Just in the nick of time. While I was waiting for my watch to arrive, out of the thousands of runners guess who I run into.....
Tim!!!
It was so nice to see a friendly face to settle my nerves before I headed out for the race corrals. Burrrrr it was cold out. At this time I took off my sweats and jacket and kissed my family good bye and headed to find corral 5. By the time I got there everything was jammed. I was somewhere in the 6th or 7th corral (which added more stress because I wanted to try to stick with the 3:45 pace group) and ended up stared a couple minutes behind my actual corral.
THE RACE
As we were release I instantly started thinking about catching up with my pace group. I tried to keep an eye on my Garmin to make sure that I was sticking to an 8:30ish pace. At this point the course was flat flat flat and keeping this pace was easy. I knew that an incline would be coming so I tried VERY hard not to go too fast. I also tried to enjoy the strip as much as possible. I still think it was wild that the whole strip was shut down for us, really an AWESOME experience. Around mile 4 I started feeling pretty queasy and was trying to talk myself out of being sick. At mile 6 I couldn't go any longer and had to make a quick stop. After this I started praying that this would be my last stop and was thankful that I made it to the port-a-potty. And this my friends is when the wheels start slowly falling off. I was pretty shaken up over being sick and it was hard to get back into the right state of mind. When we leave the strip I know that the inclines are going to start so I get out my shuffle and hit play and listen to my favorite podcast Phedippidations. I'm hoping that Steve can get me to mile 18 where I believe the course will start going downhill (yes I was wrong). After about 1 mile I notice that my foot is starting to hurt. It is on the top of my left foot. It feels like someone has a nail and is slightly tapping on it with a hammer. I find it hurts the most when I'm going up an incline. At this time I also start thinking about my Team Point Two teammates Nicole and LJ. I wondered if I had passed them and not seen them. When I reach mile 15 is when the wheels really start coming off. I'm not feeling good, and my foot is throbbing with each step. I'm going up hill and I can see the other runners at mile 22 flying down the hill to the finish. So I convince myself that the inclines will all be over at 18. I get myself to mile 16 which seems to flatten out and I start thinking, yep this is it flat and then downhill. I even start feeling better, I have my 4th GU and then the most terrible thing happens...we turn the corner and MORE incline. I can see in the distance the turn around point and its a long way away. Here is where the tears start coming and the fatigue is back. At mile 17 I can't hear Steve anymore because I'm praying over and over. Please let me see LJ, please let me see LJ, please let me see LJ. Around mile 23 my prayers were answered. For a split second I glanced up and saw a HUGE sign that said Team Point Two (that's all that I saw, I hope Nicole took a picture of her masterpiece!). I first see Nicole and think I LOVE HER she made me a sign, I then see LJ....I grab him and mumble something and finally spitout RUN WITH ME. I don't really remember the last 3.2 miles of the race. I just let LJ talk me through the tough parts. The one thing I do remember at the very end was seeing the 4:00 pacer run to my right. LJ said "your not going to let him pass you are you?" I decided I couldn't have that, so I pulled out my rockets and sprinted to the end...and finished in FRONT of the 4:00 pacer. Too bad that he started behind me! Do you see him behind me with his little sign? I officially crossed the finish line in 4:04:12. Here is some of the video that LJ got of me at the finish. I was so lucky that he was there to help me through the toughest part of my marathon. Thanks LJ!!!!


I will end my race report here. At the moment I am putting together a video that I will post as soon as I have it edited. Thank you to all my Team Point Two teammates, my friends and family who supported me through this whole training period. BUT especially my parents and brother who made the trip to Las Vegas, my husband who took great care of me throughout my training and LAST but not least....John Ellis, my coach, my hero, my friend! We've had many highs and lows since May, but without you John I would have never ran this marathon. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for always believing in me!

NOT my race report

Just wanted to post a quick update. We just got back to Fredericton after our weekend vacation to Las Vegas. I am looking forward to posting my race report from the Las Vegas Marathon. BUT I have been gone for almost a week and have a ton of homework and emails that I have to get done first. I will mention that I ran into a few minor problems during the race, but had two of my wonderful Team Point Two teammates there to help me through my race. I will also be writing a section about all the wonderful people that help me along the way. I am truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family! So I will end this and get back to my homework. You can look forward to a video that I will be putting together too ;-)

BIG 20 MILER

I just finished my 6 miles today feeling a little bummed. I feel like I'm falling apart at the seems. My hamstring injury finally got better and then the pain seemed to move into my butt, then to my lower back. I just want to make it to Vegas healthy! Tomorrow is a big run for me....20 miles. The farthest distance that I've ever done in marathon training. When I was training for my first marathon the farthest distance that I got was 16 miles. Last week I ran into major problems during my Sunday long run. I was dehydrated and started cramping and had to call it quits after mile 9.

So that following Monday I decided to give up coffee until after the Vegas Marathon. Holy cow! I never thought it was going to be that hard. I think it took me all week to get rid of those caffeine headaches. Can you tell I was addicted??? I have been replacing all that coffee with water. I'm feeling much better! Tomorrow I'm going to be practicing my nutritional intake for the marathon. John has me running for 1 hour then walking 5 minutes REPEAT until 20 miles. I will post an update tomorrow after I run. Now I'm off to bed.
See you on the road!
lucky7runner

Las Vegas Marathon Route

busy at school...

I have been back at school for 4 weeks now. I'm still trying to figure out how to get everything done in one day. I wish there were more hours in the day! So far I'm having a great time in school. I get to be creative and I have also found a way to show my love for running at the same time. A few examples are these recent book covers that I had to design (I was pretending I was writing about my life). Can you pick which one was the overall winner?


I also talked my Art teacher into assigning the designing of the Team Point Two logo. Here's what I made.

Final example is probably my favorite. For my Video Production class I'm writing and shooting my own running commercial. I'm taking my favorite running quotes "my Sunday mornings aren't for sleeping in" and "my holidays aren't for taking it easy" and making a commercial. I will post it as soon as I'm finished. So these are the main reasons why I haven't been posting as much as I should. BUT I'm finally getting into the swing of things, and should be posting more.
See you on the road!
lucky7runner

Running with George

I finally had the chance to put all my pictures together from the Oct 10-11 weekend. At the very last minute I turned the World Wide Festival of Races into an additional race that is dear to my heart. Almost a year ago our friend George passed away and I saw it as a perfect opportunity to honor his memory. Here are some of the pictures from that weekend. We had runners from New Zealand,Italy, the US, Canada, and Kuwait (just to name a few). My friend who is serving over seas didn't have a camera to take his picture but he sent along this message:
"Even though I run almost every day, this run was great and gave me an opportunity to reflect on the important people in my life as well as this past year. Believe it or not, but the 10k fell on my 365th day of this deployment....pretty awesome timing for thoughts and reflection."

Thanks to all of my friends who took part in the Running with George event! It really meant the world to me and George's family! Please enjoy the pictures!

THE WORLD WIDE FESTIVAL OF RACES

On the weekend of 10-11 October 2009 runners from around the world will 'virtually' come together to celebrate their passion for the sport they love by running The Worldwide Festival of Races Half Marathon, 10K and 5K distances.
Are you registered? As of today there are over 900 entrants in 42 different countries. How cool is that! To learn more about this race please visit The Worldwide Festival of Races website.
I personally will be running the 1/2 marathon portion on Sunday Oct 11. Why don't you join me? This is a free event and you will be running with fellow runners from all over the world. Below is a great video that I found on Runcast TV. I hope that you will be joining me and fellow runners this weekend.
See you on the road!
lucky7runner