Weekly wrap-up a bit late?!

I'm a terrible blogger and I suspect it's only going to get worse as the holiday season amps up.  I'm pretty busy this time of year as I'm a petsitter and my clients all go out of town for the holidays.  I was not actually working a ton last week, but preparing for the work I'll be doing this week!  

I also ran 17 miles.  I got in a 4 day streak of running thanks to some not-so-cold weather and my new treadmill.  Then I forced myself to break a day before putting in my 6 mile long run on Friday.  

The run went great, but that afternoon I was pretty sore and worried I might have pushed myself too much for the week.  I'm better today after a weekend of rest.  I ran my three miles this morning and feel great. Rey comes home tomorrow and we have family things going on as well as me running in and out to work.  I think I'll say now Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, just in case I don't make it back on Wednesday for WAW!  

I don't even have any photos to share!  GASP.  I'm unsure what the world is coming to, but I'm sure I'll make up for it next time I post.  

Do you have special plans for Thanksgiving?

WAW

I don't have a lot going on this week, so my mind travels to my favorite place, naturally!  I thought for Wide-angle Wednesday, I would post a couple shots from Savannah's favorite place to be at Disney.  She says it's "home" and never wants to stay anywhere else.  This may have to do with the fact that she never has stayed anywhere else and this was her first experience with Disney World.  We will be staying here in February for the Princess as well!

 

 Do you have a favorite resort at WDW??  Truth be told, Pop is not MY favorite, it's Savannah's.  My fav is Animal Kingdom Lodge! Oh and I forgot to mention as well that a wonderful friend of mine gave us 2 nights DVC at Beach Club Villas for the Princess trip as well and I'm SOOOOOOOO excited to get photos!!

Training Plan Opinions

Oh yes, I know I've asked before.  I'll probably keep asking all the way up to the race!  You're okay with that, right? You get to see all the pretty red X's for runs I've done already.  It's exciting!

So here's the thing...

I'm terr-i-fied.  Let me clarify...I'm terrified of long runs.  I ran 8 miles, my longest run, this summer, and then I was out for nearly two months with an injury for pushing it.  I am so worried that I'll get injured as I up the miles again.  Anything 8 and above just makes me shudder.

Anyway. I changed things a little because where you see the "7" on the blue, was going to be a 5K race but I decided I didn't really want to do that race.  It's pretty expensive and the one review from last year didn't look promising.  So, I had to start upping my miles and I decided that a half a mile each week might work?  I know Galloway (I don't do run/walk, but have looked at his training programs) bounces around each week, only doing long runs every 2 weeks, but I'm worried that might actually be harder on my body than just upping it a half a mile each week.  

I did make it a little shorter twice, once before I do 9 and 10 mile runs and then again before I do 11 and 12 mile runs.  Help!  Is this ok?  I marked off the .5 on my 12 mile run because I'm positive I do not want to run 13 in training, I want the first time I run 13 to be the half, and again, want to make sure I don't get injured...AGAIN.  How does my taper look?  Is 7 too long or too short a week out from the race?

I know those of you reading this are not doctors, but I guess I just need your training experience, especially those of you that are prone to injury.  I've already cut my weekly runs to 3x a week vs. the 4x a week I was doing over the summer when I got injured.  I think that has helped and it gives me more time to recover.  

EDITED: Ok, here is what I came up with modified.  It's more like Galloway with every other week going up.  It seems like a little less mileage than I thought it should be, but I can always add in an extra 3-4 mile run on those weeks if I feel like I'm not getting enough training.  I'm thinking this will help me from getting injured. 

I don't know, maybe I'm just paranoid because I've been injured so many times on this journey.  I know it's not going to help me to worry about it so much, I need to be positive about it.  Worrying won't change whether I get injured or not.  

Suggestions? Words of wisdom? 

Weekly Wrap-up OR "If You Give a Girl a Treadmill..."

It's been a busy week here, not for work (that will pick up for Thanksgiving) but for everything else.  We had our Disney Day to celebrate 100 days until our Disney trip and then Friday when I ran I officially celebrated in my head since it was 100 days until the race! 

Training went well, the weather cooperated two out of my three run days, so I was able to do 4 easy miles outside on Monday with Dallas, 3 miles on the TM at the gym Wednesday, and then my long run outside on Friday.  I was scheduled for 5 miles for a long run, which I realized I don't really care for.  It's too long to call a short run but too short to really feel accomplished.  I need to run for over an hour apparently, for it to feel like a long run! 54 minutes just isn't the same.  LOL. It flew by, however, because I was mentally planning our park touring at WDW.  All the changes with Fastpass+ have thrown a wrench in my normal obsessive trip planning.

 

It ended up being a great run and the planning in my head helped pass the time.  I came home to just about the best mail day, ever! 

My MIL purchased a treadmill for us as a family gift this year.  It arrived as well as THREE Sparkleskirts!  A girl has to look good when she runs.  Truth be told, I won't wear anything but Sparkleskirts anymore and not because they are cute, but because of the massive pockets in the legs and the no riding up.  Love them.  

Dallas & I put the treadmill together in about thirty minutes with only minor cursing.  I thought since it was smaller than gym treadmills, it would fit well in the living room.  Not so much.  It really took up a lot of space. 

I had already run five miles, but you know I couldn't just let it sit there, unused!  I jumped on (in one of my new skirts, naturally) and did a mile test drive.  It worked great, BUT, my house is older and it shook nearly every corner of the house.  Dallas came in and said his computer monitor and glass were shaking in his room! 

I decided to try and put it in my room.  My room is an addition build onto the house, so I thought the floor might be different, and I was right.  Once I moved the furniture around, I was able to put it in front of the window looking out into the back yard.  Perfect!  Dallas did a test run this time and it didn't shake the rest of the house, so this will be it's permanent home. 

Have you read the "If you give a mouse a cookie..." type books?  Let's just say that is how my brain has been functioning this week.  When I went to take a photo of the treadmill in my room, I realized that I hated the color of the room.  The trim looked dirty and the bright blue we had the room painted looked dated.  So naturally, I had to paint the whole room yesterday! LOL!  

Not kidding, I got a treadmill, had to rearrange my room, and then had to paint it.  I picked a grey color, which is actually really abnormal for us.  Our whole house has color, we lived in apartments with white walls for so long when we were young, we swore to paint all our walls bright colors when we owned our own house.   I don't have the funds to replace all my curtains & bedding right now, so I wanted something that would look ok with them for the meantime.  I like it better than the blue, but the jury is still out.  It needed a fresh look though, so I'm glad the blue is gone.  

Today was not a normal day to run, but it's in the 60s this morning, breezy, and beautiful,  so I had to go out just run for fun.  I need to do that sometimes when following this training schedule.  I ran up around the lake and just enjoyed the beautiful sunrise. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm just marking off the runs and it gets a little...too planned or something.  This morning I just let go of the numbers and just ran.  I had a little flash of  "that girl" (myself) I think of occasionally ... I posted about it months ago, if you missed it: Getting Personal  It was a positive run, it feels like I'm healing myself when I run sometimes.  I don't want to ramble on, repeating myself, so I digress...

I'm glad I have been getting some things done around the house because next weekend work will pick up and the whole following week I will be slammed with petsitting for the Holiday!  Rey comes home too, YAY!!

How did your week go?  Do you ever do the  give a mouse a cookie thing?  Do something that makes you do something else and end up doing a bunch of subsequent stuff? Do you ever feel a little bored or tied down by a training schedule and just want to go run?   

WAW

Just squeaked in here with my Wide-angle Wednesday!  I have an excuse though, I was actually taking photos all day. 

After getting my run done this morning, I came home and decorated.  I'm a little crazy about celebrating Disney when we are counting down to a trip.  We do "Disney Days" that are usually themed around a movie or ride.  Since the trip will be a Princess trip, just me, Savannah, and her friend Eleanor (who has never been to WDW!!), I wanted to do something big for our 100 days.  I decided that the best way to do this was to collect 100 things that represent rides/Disney/magic and put them on the table.  Let me tell you, this was harder than I thought!  It took me a few days just to make the list and I wanted to purchase really only food items, so I had to find all the things myself.  

*funny side note:  Savannah walked in, looked up at the 100 that I tried to write with sharpie on the balloons, and said, "WHAT are THOSE?!?!?"...apparently she didn't see the 1 and just the two balloons with 0's on them...ahem...guess I don't do zero's very well. LOL

If this makes no sense, basically each thing represents something Disney:  Rubix cube for Pop Century, oranges for Soarin', a globe for World Showcase, matching t-shirts, fastpasses, rubber bracelets to represent Magicbands, our countdown chain, beach towel...you get the idea!  It was fun and I printed out a list so the girls could try to find everything. It was like a table scavenger hunt and they had fun finding everything. 

 

Naturally there has to be themed food as well, so I picked some easy things like goldfish (Nemo), and animal crackers (Safari), but decided the big food item should be one of Savannah's favorites.  The first trip we ever made with friends, we went to DTD and ate our first dinner at Rainforest Cafe.  I know you can find them around the US, but Savannah had never been to one outside of WDW (still hasn't) and she was blown away.  My friend ordered a VOLCANO for dessert and I think her head nearly exploded.  Ever since then she insists that we go to RFC on our first night and get a VOLCANO!  so I decided to try my hand at it...

Pretty impressive, right?  The girls dug in but they barely put a dent in it before they were stuffed.  Those are stuffed faces.  LOL

Then they pulled out the maps that I had on the table and Savannah started showing Eleanor each of the parks.  After they spent some time doing that, they had to get ready because it was time for more photos.  Eleanor has never had a photo shoot, so I told her I would do a mini-one for her.  It was chilly out, but she braved it and was a trooper, even got up in a tree!  Shots came out great, she loves them. 

So there you have it!  Tons of wide-angle Wednesday, so much that it took me until nearly 9pm to post them! 

Do you ever do anything special to count down to a Disney trip or a race? 

Princess Questions

If you haven't noticed, I'm kind of a planner.  I make my Disney dining reservations exactly 180 days out when they open, I plan my park days according to crowd calendars, and I'm generally neurotic about planning all things Disney.  Since we are nearing 100 days until the Princess Half Marathon, my mind has started racing (haha, see what I did there?) with the "what-ifs" and planning details of the race!  This isn't really a blog post at all, it's really just questions I have about race details. 

I've pretty much got my costume figured out, I know it will be Cinderella and probably this top (ahem...possibly, unless the holidays make it tighter, then it's not going to work. LOL) 

 

 Unsure on the tutu because I'm stalking the Sparkle Skirts website for a Cinderella themed skirt to come out.  I really only run in Sparkleskirts now, but if they don't, I'll go with the tutu. 

On to the questions!  I've done a lot of reading and know some of the answers to these, but I want the actual opinion of some of my blogger friends. 

What time did you head down to the buses to get to the race?  I'm thinking 3-3:30am?  Are any of you staying at Pop?  I have a friend who may or may not be running the race and I think I'm most nervous about being ALONE for 2 hours before the race starts.  I know I'm not "alone" with 25,000 other women around, but I'm not normally the type that just walks up and talks to people I don't know.  Race retreat? Have you done it? Again, I know I will be meeting up with some of you and taking pictures or whatever, but I also don't want to be a third wheel or following anyone around like a crazy-stalker-blogger-chick.  ;)  Is the race retreat something I should consider so I'm not sitting there alone?  I'm laughing a bit because here I thought I had lots of questions, but looking at it, it's really just that I'm nervous about being alone before the race starts.  I'm good once we start running, but it seems that 2 hours surrounded by people in groups that know each other is what makes me most nervous...not actually running 13.1 miles!  LOL! Help a girl out here, can you think of anything I need to plan for or think about?  A friend will be bringing Savannah & Eleanor to the finish, how long do you think it will take them to drive (she'll have a car) from Pop to Epcot to the finish?  I know there will be a lot of traffic.  I'm drawing a blank now on anything else.  Gah! How's that for blogging?!! Genius.

Weekly Wrap-up

 Another week has flown by!  I think the closer we get to the race, the faster it's going.  I remember thinking about how there were all these RunDisney races before "my" race...Dumbo Double Dare, Tower of Terror 10 miler, Wine & Dine...and Wine and Dine is officially over!  Wow!  Speaking of that, congratulations to those of you that ran Wine & Dine last night!  I was following until I went to sleep (basically before you even started running. LOL) and was excited this morning to wake up and see all your pics and bling.

I had a sore start this week, Monday I was still sore from really pushing on the 10K Saturday.  Soreness was totally worth the PR, however! I just took it slow.  I got all three of my runs in for the week, my long run was just 4.5 miles. The mileage only goes up from here!  I was thinking about how I have learned to not push my body TOO much, and how much better my running feels when I'm not pushing to the brink of injury.  I can be a bit of an extremist, if you hadn't noticed.   Lauren came across some of those motivational quotes that have been redefined, and I loved them!  This one was perfect for me and where I'm at right now, it really resonated with me:

 

I feel really good about my training as of late, and really balanced.  

In other news, we are approaching 100 days until the trip/race and so Wednesday I'm doing a big Disney Day with Savannah & Eleanor.  I have amassed a list of 100 magical items (mostly from around my house) that I'll decorate with and we'll have Disney themed food as well.  Should be fun to celebrate our 100 days.  Yesterday I also customized our magic bands!  For whatever reason, yesterday they opened up February and you can choose your color/name for your bands.  We actually got to choose two each because we have a split stay.  Naturally one of my bands was BLUE, to match my Princess Half Marathon costume.  ;)

I hope everyone had a nice week, I'm gearing up for the holidays, my busiest time for petsitting.  I have already seen Christmas lights on houses?  Has anyone else noticed this? 

WAW

First and foremost,  I want to wish everyone luck this weekend at Wine & Dine!  I hope you have a blast, I'll be stalking following you on twitter and FB! Meg arrived yesterday, so I'm already getting my Disney fix on!  I cannot wait to see all the pics and hear about the meetup.  April (aka my twinkie) I'm excited you get to attend another RunDisney meetup and this time you'll know people! LOTS of photos, people.  LOTS.  I demand it!

Speaking of photos.  It is Wide-angle Wednesday, so I should get to it.  I had a photo shoot the other day and realized that the colors were peaking and wouldn't last much longer.  When I got home from the shoot, Savannah & I headed out for a walk to get some photos before all the color is gone.  We had to rush a bit as the sun was going down, but sunrise/sunset is the perfect lighting for anyone wondering, and so we did get lots of colorful shots.  I will have to do this in two separate WAW weeks because there are just too many photos for one post!   The first two shots are actually from the park where I had the photo shoot.

Savannah found a leaf that was as big as her head.  

On our way to the park. This is a street I run all the time on my 4 mile route around town. Tons of color!

 

 

We got to the park just in time to get a few shots before we lost the light.

I caught my favorite shot of the day (maybe even the year) when I turned to see Savannah taking her own pictures.  I LOVE this photo, I know part of it is because it's my daughter, but it's just beautiful to me. 

 

So, are you getting any vibrant color where you're at?  I have another Princess Half question to ask about the retreat, but I'm afraid to ask right now when everyone is busy with W&D, I will wait until the weekend is over in case people miss this post! Happy Running!! I have a 4 mile run on the training plan this morning.

Bonehead 10K Recap!

What a day!  Today was my 1 year Runiversary race!  I have been running off and on for years, with injuries, but last year I finally was able to run my first 5K.  You can read about that journey here.

In any case, this past year has been the year I really trained and realized that I AM a runner.  It's also been the year that I realized that I am going to run the Princess Half, something I have been dreaming of for over three years now.  Today I wanted to run the 10K instead of the 5K because I wanted to see if I could improve on my time to submit to Disney.  I ran my first 10K back in June and submitted it when I registered, but was hoping to shave a bit of time off that.  I went into it this morning not sure I could do anything of the sort, being out for over a month and a half with an injury has slowed me down.  Dallas didn't want to run, so I was solo this morning!  It was dark still when I left, I had some petsitting to do on the way.

It was also COLD!  42 degrees this morning for the start. After doing my petsits, I drove to where the race was.  I had picked up my packet Friday and found out it was the exact same route as last year's 5K, and the 10K is just a double loop.  I figured I would like this and I was right.  The hills, not so much, but I knew there were quite a few of them and for some bizarre reason I seem to plow through hills, so I was hopeful.  

The great thing about small races (about 100 people) is that you just don't have the same issues with crowds or parking.  I parked right on the street in front of the start/finish, I could see it when I got out of my car.  I was able to sit in the car until 15 minutes before the race, which was good b/c it was freezing! 

The start/finish was just past that stoplight, you just cannot see it with the SUV in front of me.  I stayed warm in the car, made a trip to one of the two port-a-potties and waited until close to race time so I wouldn't freeze waiting. When I finally got out, I was nervous about standing around alone.  This was my first race I haven't had people with me, but it was fine!  I stood with a few other people and we ended up chatting until it was time to start.  I'm normally really shy with new people but this felt comfortable for me. 

Right on time, everyone lined up.  It's funny with small races, they tell the fast people to get in front and almost EVERYONE starts backing up and laughing.  I think it's the opposite with big races, so I find it amusing when it happens.  I was so cold but as soon as we started I warmed up.  I don't remember thinking I was cold at all the rest of the time.  I took my gloves off at the end, even. 

I don't want to put people to sleep, I know I get really detailed about my races, you can skip it all if you want!  I started off slow and continued to try to pace myself the first 3 miles.  I have trouble starting out too fast and I really wanted negative splits for this race.  About a half a mile in, after everyone had already started to spread out a lot, two women dressed as Wonder Woman passed me.  They didn't pass me super fast and I decided that I wanted to try to keep them in sight as long as I could.  This worked out really well for me!  I know some people like to focus on someone and try to pass them, but I knew if I did that I would fizzle out too fast.  

The hills were a pain and there were many, but I started watching the garmin closer on them and realized that I could buzz down a hill at a superfast speed (without much effort) and then that speed I gained, I would lose going up, but still it wouldn't hurt my overall time.  I did this for all the hills and it really helped.  I only took two walk breaks for just seconds, one on a huge hill and one the only time I went through a water station.  

I continued to follow the Wonder Women, sometimes they would turn a corner and I wouldn't be able to see them, but I would eventually spot them in the distance, their blue capes helped.  

I tried not to speed up too much coming into the 5K, everyone was clapping and cheering b/c they had no way of knowing who was finishing and who was continuing on.  It caused me to speed up, but I slowed down after that to catch my breath.  It really thinned out at that point when only the 10K people were left.  I could only just see the Wonder Women and when I looked back I saw a couple people behind me.  It was nice though, I just ran like I was training but trying to find a balance with pushing but not too much.  

It flew by the 2nd half and as I approached the water station/little turn around onto another street, I just passed it by.  The guy coming down the hill behind me waved and said he would catch up with me soon and I laughed and told him he probably would!  Naturally, I wasn't about to let that happen, and that lit a fire under my ass for the last .75!  I could see that I was going to PR but I was unsure by how much, so I dug deep and really pushed that last half a mile.  as we rounded the corner and headed towards the finish, the Wonder Women had just finished and one of the event coordinators was cheering me on and said something about the guy behind me.  I turned and saw him coming closer and I just full on out sprinted!    I was laughing, I'm not sure how, since I couldn't breath, but I was! There was no way I was getting passed right before the finish! LOL.  I crossed the finish line without being passed, and the guy came up to me a bit later, and told me I was just like his x-wife...he kept thinking he was going to catch me but I would always take off!  ;) 

My garmin said 1:04:40 and I was over the moon, but still unsure of my exact chipped time.  I went over to the Wonder Women and thanked them for letting me chase them the whole race.  They naturally had no clue I was doing that or that I was even behind them, but we had a good laugh about it.  We were supposed to head down to the Brewery to get our free beer and that is where they would be doing awards, so I walked down there.  It was open just for the runners and it was so nice to sit with a beer and relax.  One of my closest friends and her husband co-own this brewery and it's just the coolest place even when I'm not hyped up on a runners high with a PR!  The Cream Ale was fantastic and just what I needed after that run.

I got my beer and worried that I would feel awkward since I didn't know anyone, but I happened upon a girl I had been standing with before the race and I talked with her and another woman she was talking to.  It was great!  She took my picture. 

 BTW, no finisher medals in a small race, but at least I got a free beer, right?  We sat down and waited for the awards and it was just really nice.  I think it was the nicest time I have ever had after a race.  The Wonder Women even came in and sat down next to me, so more people to chat with!  As they went through the awards, I started to get excited because I realized that since it was a small race, there was a chance I would place in my age. 

 I was pretty sure when Wonder Woman #1 won 3rd in her 30-39 age division and then Wonder Woman #2 won 1st place in her age division 40-49.  I knew I was next because there was no one between me and them when we were running.  Sure enough, I placed 2nd in my age division! When I went up to get my water bottle prize, she gave me a hat too, saying they liked my skirt, so I got extra!  LOL. Thank you Sparkleskirts! It might have been the beer going to our heads, but we decided to take our picture together with our prizes.  Yep, me and 2 other women I don't know!  I love the running community.

Everyone started to thin out at that point and I was ready to head home for a shower.  As I was walking out I asked my official time and it was 1:04:47!  Seriously not even something I had considered, I was hoping for maybe 1:06 before the race, so I was really excited about it.  When I got home I immediately emailed RunDisney with my change in proof for the Princess Half and I'm excited that it might get me a smidge closer in corrals!  Fantastic run today, it might even be my favorite to date! 

Ahhhh, just one step closer to having my precious! ;) 

 

So do you socialize with other runners when you are alone?  I didn't think I would be able to since I'm normally pretty shy, but it was a blast!

Happy November!

I'm really just stunned that it's November.  It will take me until December to get used to it.  

 I have been waffling on whether to do a November blogging challenge.  I have been in a bit of a blogging funk and wanting to find some inspiration in my blogging lately, and it seems like a good idea, but I don't think I'm going to.  I think at some point in the 30 days, I would start feeling like I HAD to blog instead of blogging when it felt right.  I seriously just sat here contemplating it not five minutes ago and just finally made the decision not to while typing this.  I would like to use some of the prompts that I found on the BLOGEMBER: Blog every day in November Challenge though to help me out of my funk, and find a way to  relate them to running/training.  I think I will try that once a week or so to get my creative juices flowing. Today, however, is all about yesterday's Halloween fun! 

Savannah is 13, but still not ready to give up trick-or-treating just yet!  She decided to be Grumpy Cat this year and met with some of her friends to trick-or-treat for just a little bit before heading to a party/sleepover. 

After trick-or-treating with some of her friends and their younger siblings, we headed to her BFF's house for a Halloween party.  They really went all out with decorations and spooky foods, I wish I had taken more pics, but I set up my tripod for them to use in a photobooth area with another camera  and left them to do their thing.  They are getting a bit old to have my hanging around taking pics all night.  

Besides, I was sitting upstairs with a nice glass of wine and good conversation.  I can't always be the photographer, sometimes I just have to be the wino. ;) 

Before I left for the night, I took a few shots of them outside, shooting off fireworks and releasing a few lanterns. 

Smoke bombs made for spooky-smokey-Halloween shots!

 

Tomorrow is my 10K and I'm excited, but a little nervous b/c my heel feels a little tweaked.  Not sure why, it doesn't really HURT, but I'm paranoid about it since the injury and careful when it feels "off" at all.  Lots of rest today and packet pickup this evening!  

How was your Halloween?  

Did you go to any parties?  Did you dress up?