We're baaaaack (again)!

It has been FAR too long between posts - and for that I apologize to our readers (Hi Mom!). We have been busy traveling which has made the first few months of 2012 fly by. So far its been NYC, California (for Nate), Florida, Tunica, Las Vegas, and New Orleans (for me). Whew. Lots of fun has been had, but we are TIRED and ready to spend some much needed time at home with our Nashville friends.

In between all of that, we've been continuing to work out at Crossfit CFT, which has been lots of fun. We've been working hard and getting stronger, which will hopefully show in our running! And speaking of running....we've got some races on the books finally! We're excited to get back into the running season, and run our 30th race (and then more after that). Our first race will be the Girls On The Run 5k at Shelby Park (our favorite course, and the namesake for our puppy). We were supposed to run this race back in 2010, but Mother Nature had other ideas, so we're excited to give it a go this year! A few weeks after that we will run the Memorial Day Dash for the 3rd time. We love this race, and are looking forward to doing it again!

We're working on a few other races for the Summer, and will let you know once we have those planned! In the meantime, we hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend with family & friends, and hopefully some sunshine!

Happy New Year!

Cheers to 2012! We are finally getting back into the swing of things after a great trip to Virginia to see my family & friends. We drove which was actually kind of fun, and that meant we could take Shelby with us, which was great!

As usual, the holidays remind us of everything we are lucky to have, which is a lot. We have wonderful families, amazing friends and lots of support for Team G Shock. Its been 2 1/2 years since we started this team and we have had an incredible time thanks to all of you.

I am also reminded of reasons why we started Team G Shock (other than the obvious - my Dad).
Over the holidays we lost a wonderful family friend who was very dear to my heart. Mrs. Huffman put everything she had into her fight, and she fought until the end. She was the sweetest soul I have ever known (and I feel confident saying that because I have known her my whole life). We will continue to run our races and raise awareness with Mrs.Huffman and all of the other cancer fighters we know as our inspiration.

One of my favorite pictures from our wedding day. 

Mr. & Mrs. Huffman dancing among friends. 

Event #29 - Snowflake 5k

This past weekend was our 29th race - the Snowflake 5k. I'm still having a hard time comprehending that we've run 29 races since we started Team G Shock - but that's a story for a different day.

It was a freeeeeezing cold day in Nashville last Saturday. Of course it had been warm all week but the one day we needed to run outside, it was cold. It did help put us in the spirit a bit more though, along with the Christmas music that was playing at the race and a visit with a certain jolly man in a red coat (more on that later).

There was a good crowd at the race, and about 350 people ended up finishing. We ran a pretty good race - stayed together the whole time (or within sight of each other) and finished together at the end.
Here are our official results:

119th place - Nate Towne - 28:41
121st place - Sara Towne - 28:42

On a side note - we both got 11th place in our age groups, which keeps us in the upper half for our ages! We took a few pictures at the race (as always), so here are those.

Before & very chilly!

After the race!

Then we decided that the before & after 

photos looked too similar. So we had some fun.

Nate showing off his sweet Under Armor pants 

(best investment EVER for cold weather)

He then attempted to take a picture of me high-kicking. 

This was after about 3 attempts:

Trying to figure out the best method.

This was as close as we got - which I promise 

is not as high as I can go!

And finally...

We got to see Santa at the race! :) Merry Christmas everyone!!

We're running another race!

Since we felt so outdone by my family on Thanksgiving, we figured its about time for us to run another race! So we will be running our 29th race (29?! How is that possible?) this Saturday right here in Nashville! We've run the Snowflake 5k once before, but that was 2 years ago, so it will be fun to see how we do this time around!

Keep an eye out for results & photos. And keep those fingers and toes crossed that its not TOO cold!

Trotting With The Turkeys!

Last year, Nate & I ran a Thanksgiving race when we were visiting his family in Minnesota. It was fun, minus the fact that it was 7 degrees during the race. Well, that was kind of fun, but not something we wanted to do again. So this year, when we were headed back up to Minnesota we skipped the Turkey Trot for fear of freezing our faces off (literally). Of course, little did we know it would be 50 degrees in Minneapolis this year, but that's just how life goes I suppose.

Luckily, we had family members running different Turkey Day races in both Virginia and West Virginia to pick up our slack. First, my Dad and my brother Geoff ran the Virginia Run Turkey Trot in Northern Virginia. Nate, myself and Dad ran this race back in 2009 with some family friends for our 7th race - its a great course. Geoff & Dad had a good race and ran together for the first 2 miles of the course. Over 4,000 people ran the race so it was a good crowd for sure! Here are the results (and some photos - thanks Mom!) from their race:

2077th place - Geoff Ross - 31:58
2880th place - Joe Ross - 36:22

Dad & Geoff before the race.

Where's Dad? Can you spot him crossing the finish line?

 After the race & ready for some Turkey!

And not to be outdone, my other brother Drew ran his second race ever on Thanksgiving! If you remember, he just started running and ran his first race in October so we're really proud of him for keeping up with it! Once again, Drew ran with Melinda and some other relatives joined them this time to get their Turkey Day started off right. They ran the Union Mission Drumstick Dash 5k in Charleston, WV and had a great time. Spoiler alert - Drew has already improved on his time from the last race which was only a month or so before this race!

Here's how everyone did:

89th place - Taylor Weaver - 30:34

106th place - Tracey Weaver - 33:14

119th place - Melinda Snodgrass - 35:22

128th place - Drew Ross - 36:51

Drew, Tracey, Taylor & Melinda at the race

Kim & Drew. 

Kim is a friend of Drew's who ran with her office. They brought 

the most canned goods at the whole race and won an award for their donation!

We're so proud of our family for helping us keep Team G Shock running (literally) even from far away!

A New Look!

Since Nate had a new look for all of Movember, we decided it was time for Team G Shock to get its own new look! :) We hope this makes it a little easier to get around, plus its nice to have a fresh new blog to look at!

Enjoy! And keep your eyes out for some race updates coming soon!

Movember - WRAP UP!

Well, I can't believe it's over. We have officially come to the end of Movember! Nate did such a great job putting up with the 'stache and he couldn't have done it without all of you. He also did a great job putting up with me sticking a camera in his face every morning, which made updating the blog MUCH easier.

A big thank you goes out to everyone who donated to the cause! We received 23 donations and raised $1000!! Once again we are amazed by the support we have received for Team G Shock. It makes everything we have done way more worth it than it already is.

The 'stache is gone as of this morning. Nate shaved himself a pencil mustache first, and then went all the way.

a very relieved Nate :)

And in case you have forgotten how the month went for Nate, here is a look at his journey through Movember...enjoy!

Once again, thank you for the support, encouragement and donations! We will still be racing, so keep checking back for more race updates on the blog! And as always, GOOOO G SHOCK!