WDW Half Marathon - Race Recap - Part Two

Here we are again, friends.  I told myself that if I didn't get back to my blog today, it probably wasn't going to end up happening at all, as has happened so many other times before.

Where were we....?  Ah yes, starting the race.  Well, I'm going to make the whole race recap part pretty short (or, at least, I'm going to try to make it pretty short...you all know by now how wordy I can be.) Anyway, the race started at 5:30 am for the elite runners, of which I was surprisingly not one!  I know!  Can you believe it?!?  They don't consider a 13' or so mile "elite"?  The nerve!  As I said before, this year at the starting corral, I was a nervous nelly.  I was unsure of my performance since I had, idiotically, not been training like I was supposed to.  I just tried to really pay attention to my surroundings which, unfortunately, seemed to include the stench of poop.  That's right, (and my Team ASPCA partner, S, can back me up on this!) it VERY MUCH smelled like someone took a nice pre-race dump next to our corral (and there was nary a port-o-let in sight, so it wasn't simply drifting over from one of them).  Whatever it was, it was icky!  Luckily, Disney does a great job of providing pre-race entertainment and distraction, as well as the on-course entertainment!  I didn't realize it but apparently Drew Carey ran the race with us, as well as Allison Sweeney (host of The Biggest Loser and former Days of Our Lives alum) and Joey Fatone from N'Sync and a slew of other celebrities and celebrity athletes.

My favorite is the start of the race.  As soon as Donald Duck counts it down, a huge display of fireworks goes off!  This year, it seemed even bigger than at last year's Princess and Wine and Dine halfs (Halves?  Whatever.).  My husband helpfully reminded me that this was probably because they were celebrating 20 years of the event.  (Thanks, Rob!)  This year, I had to turn around to be able to see the spectacular display that runDisney sets up on the overpass.  At last year's Princess, because I was in the last corral (Corral H), I got a great straightforward view of the action.  However, I also had to wait an extra hour to even start the race!  So once we finally made it up and started the race, I was running alongside my partner, S.  As we had been talking prior to the race about pace times and everything, I learned that she hoped to finish the race in 2.5 hours (Which she totally did, by the way!  She's a running beast!), and I figured my time would be closer to 3 hours, at best.  I ran the first mile with her (foolishly not taking any walking breaks, as I did faithfully for last year's Wine and Dine) before stopping to walk.  It had been so long since I had run that I forgot my run/walk splits initially and accidentally ended up doing a few 2 minute running, 2 minute walking splits before realizing that this isn't really helping me to get anywhere since it's a 1:1 ratio instead of the 2:1 that I usually tend to strive for.  Oh, and by the time we got just past the Mile 2 marker, the winner was already on his way back.  I looked across World Drive and saw him out there with just the bicycle pacer and a wheelchair 'runner' or two keeping him company.  I watched in awe as the elite runners passed us ordinary folks on the other side of the median.  I kept my eyes peeled for the first female runner. I always love seeing the really kick ass ladies and noting that, in this particular case, the first female was only about in 6th or 7th place overall (at most) and she was handily kicking the men's butts who were behind her!  A very inspiring sight indeed! It wasn't very long after this that I met my first couple of Team ASPCA participants.  As they passed, the guy yelled "Go Team ASPCA!" and I smiled.  Turns out, we ended up going back and forth throughout the race.  Sometimes I would pass them, sometimes they would pass me.  It was fun to have a team to be a part of during the race!  I really felt like I was running for something important, more than just for myself and for that medal!

I kept up my 2:1 run/walk ratio as I made my way through the Magic Kingdom.  I got to see the new roller coaster they're working on in the new and improved Fantasyland and had the perfect timing approaching the castle as I was greeted with a flourish of trumpets from above.  I stayed to the left going into the castle so I would have the best chance of having my picture taken.  Unfortunately, there were lots of people stopping completely to pose for the cameramen and they had to be told by the guys to "keep moving, keep going, there are plenty of chances to get your picture taken."  This fact, and the narrowed passageway in front of the castle, made it impossible to actually run so everyone ended up slowing to a walk until you get to the bottom and the course widens again.  This year, I stopped at the bottom to get my picture taken in front of the castle since there were a bank of cameramen and very little line.  As I continued, I decided to stop for a bathroom break in Frontierland, since they had actual restrooms and not port-o-lets.  That ended up being my only bathroom break the whole race, which was fine.  I think I actually managed to get my fluid balance right this time!  (Unlike at the Wine and Dine where I drank far too much Powerade AND water and ended up possibly causing hyponatremia, which yielded a significant amount of nausea, a really nasty headache and little enjoyment of the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot afterwards since I didn't actually want to eat any of the food that they had there.)

Trumpeters above the entrance to Cinderella castle

Continuing on through Frontierland and out the back of the MK, I think you end up just shy of the 7 mile mark.  At this point, the newness of the race had worn off for me and I was still staring at the next 6.75ish miles to go.  This is precisely where I began to slow down and think to myself: 'It's a good thing that this will be my last half for a while, these are not fun.'  At that point, realizing that I hadn't had any additional fuel since the start of the race, I pulled out another Gu gel and started sucking on it a little bit at a time.  Then this guy next to me started asking me questions, 'How ya feelin'?  Feeling pretty good still, strong?  Any aches and pains at all?' I look over to see Team ASPCA's Coach Spencer talking to me, seeing how I'm doing so far.  I feel bad because I was mostly focusing on finishing the Gu so that I could get going again and didn't really answer many of the questions he asked.  I tried to be conversational a bit, but I probably wasn't the most sociable little butterfly out there.  After a little bit, he moved on and I got back to remembering that I still had about 5 miles left to go.  The stretch between the exit from Magic Kingdom and the main part of World Drive is the worst, in my opinion.  The course is narrowed significantly a good portion of the way so that you can easily get stuck behind walkers when you're trying to run (even as slowly as I was) with little way to get around them and you come around this bend just as the sun is rising above the treeline and are greeted with blinding sunlight right in your face!  I didn't wear sunglasses this year, so it was particularly painful.  Plus, you're also running next to a golf course for part of the way and it smells a little like sulfur.  Ick.

I think one of my favorites on-course this year were all of the marching bands!  I freaking love marching bands, hands down!  Towards the beginning of the race, I passed a marching band playing "Apache (Jump On It)" complete with the kick ass drum section going crazy and I laughed so hard.  I then proceeded to do my best impression of the dance that's supposed to accompany the song while running....I got a few titters from people behind me.  That's satisfying.  :-) 

I got into a little trouble around Mile 9.  My hamstrings were starting to cramp up and my right calf was a little tight so I stopped along the side of the road to send Rob a quick text message letting him know that I was probably just going to walk out the remainder of the race (since he was meeting me at the end) while stretching my hammies and my calf.  When I got back on the course, I walked for a bit and then ran some so that my time wouldn't be absolutely horrid.  It was probably about Mile 8 that my run to walk ratio drastically declined.  At that point, I had stopped being faithful to the ratio I set for myself and kind of just figured I'd wing it based upon how I was feeling.  Though I hadn't been paying attention to my splits during the race, when I checked my times afterward, I somehow ended up keeping my pace pretty consistent.  I don't really know how, but as Rob reminded me later, I am a fast walker.  I mean, FAST.  Like speed walker almost, but without the crazy swinging arms.  So, even with mostly walking the last 4 miles (with just a few running breaks mixed in), I managed to keep about a 13:30' per mile pace.

The last few miles were relatively unremarkable, except for some of the cars passing honking to encourage us, which was nice.  Being familiar with the course from running the exact same one for last year's Princess, I started to get exited as the miles ticked by and I approached the finish line.  As I entered Epcot, I saw a fellow Team ASPCA participant who was going at about the same pace as myself and introduced myself.  We ran together a little bit through Epcot before I eventually pulled away.  I finished the race with a time of 3:04:17, which put my overall pace at 14' per mile.  This ended up being just a minute beyond my time for the Wine and Dine half marathon that I had, for the most part, diligently prepared for.  I was incredibly happy about this revelation since I figured my time would be closer to the Princess finish of 3:18:07 or worse.  Still, I'm really looking to see if I can get my time down to 2:30, but I know that will take a lot of training and hard work to get there!

An armful of post-race goodies!

Usually, as I approach the finish line, Rob will be there and will take a little video of me finishing and I'll be able to find him pretty easily after I cross the line and grab my medal.  This time, there were just so many people that it was almost impossible.  I tried calling him, but he didn't hear his phone.  Thankfully, he kept a keen eye on me and he ended up finding me a little after I got into the finish area.  He also, smartly, brought his Mickey ears to put on so that I would be able to pick him out from a distance since he was the only person in a bright orange shirt wearing Mickey ears!  (At the Wine and Dine, I gave him an obnoxiously flashing LED necklace to wear and that worked remarkably well to help me pick him out, since it was night time!)  Once I gathered all of my post-race goodies provided by Disney (Powerade, water, runDisney snack box) and had my photo taken with my medal on, I met Rob and we headed over to the Team ASPCA tent to reunite with my partner, S, and the rest of the team members who had finished.

Reuniting with my running partner and teammate, S

Team ASPCA running buddies!

My partner, S, and I celebrating our finish

Once at the tent, I sat down and iced my knees a little bit.  My ever-familiar left knee pain was back at about Mile 5, so I knew the end of the race would be no picnic.  I was just hoping that the bags of ice that I picked up would help to reduce the inflammation and pain a little bit until we got back to the room and I took an ice bath.  Team ASPCA provided us with some post-race snacks to help our nutrition.  I had a bagel dipped into chocolate peanut butter.  Now, I had never had chocolate peanut butter before and, frankly, never even heard of it.  But, let me just tell you, it was damn delicious!  Especially post-race, it just hit the spot!  At the end of this race, I was starving and ready to replace a lot of those carbs I had used up during the race!  After I ate the bagel/peanut butter combo and drank a bunch of water, I was ready to head to the car and go back to the hotel.  Thankfully, Rob drove our car to the end of the race so that we wouldn't have to take the bus back to the hotel since it can take a while to wait for it and then, finally, arrive back at the hotel.  My partner, S, was grateful as well since she had to get showered up and checked out of the hotel before heading back home and, due to my late finish, she was running out of time.

Once we got back to the hotel, S and I parted ways, congratulating each other and I headed up to Rob's and my room.  I immediately proceeded to foam roll a little bit and do some stretching while Rob was sweet enough to make me an ice bath.  The man is a perfectionist when it comes to ice baths and this was no different!!  He took great care preparing it for me, it was adorable!  When it was time for me to get in, I had a little trouble since, well, it was so cold!  I finally got in and sat there for about 20 minutes before getting out.  I put on his hooded sweatshirt and sat in a towel and sweatshirt on our balcony in the sun, watching the animals outside, it was marvelous!  A little bit later, after Rob got in the ice bath for a little bit, Rob was - again - awesome and he picked up some soup from Olive Garden as well as a guilty pleasure: breadsticks with alfredo dipping sauce!!  I figured I had just run a long race, so I deserved it!  I can't even describe how delicious it all was.  It was almost like I hadn't eaten in years.  I'm sure the enormous amount of fat is probably not the most optimal thing right after a race but, oh well!  I loved every minute of it!

After we enjoyed our lunch and uploaded the photos we had taken so far, we got changed and headed down to the pool at the resort.  Apparently, this was where all the action was.  There were a bunch of runners wearing their medals or their bright yellow race shirts poolside.  The whole scene seemed a little funny to me!  I figured swimming a little bit would be good for me, helping to work my muscles a little bit with little impact (especially for my knee).  We also went down the waterslide and hung out in the hot tub for a little while.  Once we were sufficiently relaxed, we headed back up to our room to watch the Ravens/Broncos game and have some cocktails.  Thanks to the amazing Ravens win in double OT, I was a happy camper!  I sat there, reflecting on the day and thinking just how amazing it had been!  The whole weekend was absolutely amazing and something both of us needed following a somewhat stressful holiday season!

Egg white ham and cheese omelet, bacon and their spectacular jungle juice, YUM!!

The next day, Rob and I went to Boma at AKL.  Boma has one of the best buffet brunches I have ever had.  (It's right up there with the buffet brunch at the Bellagio in Vegas and the Mission Inn here in the Central Florida area.)  It's spectacular!  Afterward, we started seeing some of the marathoners come back to the hotel with their big ass spinning Mickey medals that I so coveted (and still do, to be honest).  Seeing them really inspired me and got me thinking that I would really like to train for a marathon in the future.  As I told Rob, I'm pretty sure the marathon would be a one-and-done type of thing since it takes such a training commitment, but it's on my bucket list!  I'm fairly certain that once PA school is over, I'll make half marathons part of my regular routine as I have this past year.  I really enjoy them and they are a lot of fun to participate in!  Another observation I have from this weekend is that I really love staying on Disney property during a race event.  I know the WDW Marathon Weekend in particular is a little different than, say, the Princess since there are two running events and a whole bunch of runners that turn out for it.  But, because of this, it was really fun to be surrounded by fellow runners and feel that sense of camaraderie!  Everyone getting ice at the same time for their ice baths.  Everyone walking around wearing their medals or shirts.  We all know what we went through and that's a pretty cool feeling that I haven't been able to experience before!  If I do another WDW Marathon Weekend event, which I almost certainly will, that's how I'm going to do it!  And I will probably also try to be a part of a fundraising team too!  This entire experience, from beginning to end, was one of the best I have had with half marathons so far and certainly something I will always remember!!  

My Donald medal

I'll post some pictures a little later on with some of the animals we saw while staying at the AKL.  For now, this post has become really long so I'll end now.  Again, thank you to all of you who donated to a GREAT cause and helped make this weekend so special for Rob and I! 

Walt Disney World Half-Marathon 2013 - Race Recap - Part 1

I knew it!  I just knew it would happen!  After the Princess Half Marathon last year, I didn't do a race recap and I was disappointed in myself for never bothering to write one up.  Plus, I figured it would come in handy as a way to kind of track my progress and keep track of my nutrition for future races.  But alas, I didn't do it.  So then I ran the Wine and Dine Half Marathon in November 2012 and I told myself that I wasn't going to let that happen again!  I just was NOT!  Well my friends, it happened...again.

I actually have some good reasons for why it happened though!  Very good reasons!  I ran the race on Saturday night, Nov. 10 and I had an interview at my number one choice for PA program that I wanted to attend on Tuesday, Nov. 13.  As soon as I was done recovering from the race, I had to focus on preparing for the interview and then actually going to the interview!  Then, naturally, I worried for days on end about how I did in the interview.  I went over and over the details of my responses to the questions asked and whether they were 'good enough' or demonstrated enough discipline to be granted acceptance.  Then on Friday, Nov. 16th I found out that I was accepted!!!!!  I then, of course, was distracted by the celebrations that took place!  And then, of course, Thanksgiving was upon me, heralding the arrival of the holidays...and, as we all know, that in and of itself is one GIGANTIC distraction!

And so, here we are.  January 15th, and I am going to complete an entry about my half marathon on Saturday morning at Disney!  This race was one of the all-time BEST experiences I have had as of yet running one of the Disney half marathons.  As anyone who has read my blog since September has seen, I was trying to raise money for Team ASPCA since I had pledged to become a member of Team ASPCA and run in the 20th Anniversary of the Walt Disney World Half Marathon.  The process started when I signed up to be part of the team in September, I think it was.  Since I would be a "Hometown Hero" and wouldn't need transportation to the race or hotel, my goal was to raise $950 just to be able to run in the race as part of the team.  If I wanted to stay in a hotel, I would have to raise an extra $200 per night of the stay.  I ended up getting together with a friend of mine and raising money as a team within Team ASPCA.  Together, our initial goal was $1,900, however, since she lives WAY out in the boonies, she really needed to raise the extra money for at least a one night stay in a hotel to avoid having to get up at, like, 1am and drive to the race.  (The funny thing is, as it was, she still ended up getting up at 2am to get ready for the race and we both stayed at the same hotel on Disney property!)

Thanks to enormous generosity from lots of our family, friends and co-workers (even the lady who does my pest control donated a hefty sum!), we were able to not only meet but exceed our goal and got separate hotel rooms for our stay at the race.  We even raised enough to earn upgrades to a premium hotel - the Animal Kingdom Lodge (Which was a big surprise to both of us!  We had no idea there was even a possibility of an upgrade!).

We saw several giraffes from our room balcony! It was so awesome!!

Okay, so we've gone over Team ASPCA and the fundraising, check! The upgrade, check! I guess now we'll go over the race weekend schedule.

I ended up having to take a half-day of work on Friday so that I could go home and pack, pick up my race packet from the Wide World of Sports Expo, check in to our hotel and get ready for our Team ASPCA reception at 6pm that evening.  It was a really good thing that I did, too, since Packet Pick Up was absolutely jam-packed!  The last two races I've done with Disney weren't anywhere near as bad as this one when it came to crowds and waiting in lines for stuff. (I think I read that there were over 65,000 runners participating in the races this weekend, which is why it was so crowded!)  For instance, this time, once I picked up my race bib and headed over to the Jostens Center to pick up my race shirt, I was re-directed to a loooooooong line, snaking around the Wide World of Sports and, finally terminating at the Jostens Center.  This had never happened before.  They had to wait until people left the Jostens Center before they could let more people in because it was so busy inside! The pictures below show the line to get into the Jostens Center (center of the bottom picture).  To get an idea of how long the line is, look at the placement of the yellow truck in both pictures...and where the picture is being taken from.  I am taking the pics while standing in the line, and I'm not even in the back of the line at this point!  Oh, and let's not even talk about trying to leave the Wide World of Sports!  The line of cars was insane!

Okay, so packet pick up complete.  Then, we head to the Animal Kingdom Lodge (AKL, for the purposes of this post) to check in.  I had no idea what to expect since I had never run a race as part of a team before and I had no idea how the reservations worked, etc.  I pretty much just expected that we were going to get a parking lot view from our room, which turned out to be a good thing.  What we got was SO much better!!  Upon checking in, I asked, "So I don't suppose we're going to have an animal view here, are we?" and the clerk said, "Welllll, it's a garden view." (Which I took to mean, it's pretty much the cruddiest view you'll get here.)  I accepted this cheerfully, gathered our paperwork and moved onto the room.  When Rob and I walked in, I immediately walked to the balcony to see if there were any animals that we could spot.  I saw some weird birds on a log and an ostrich.  I figured, well, that must be what they mean by "garden view": yes, you get to see animals, but it's not the highly coveted animals that you'll get to see.

My SUPER-yellow race shirt and race bib, and the view from our balcony!

Oh how wrong I was!  After getting unpacked a bit and generally organizing things a little more before relaxing, what came wandering by our room???  A giraffe!!!  In fact, there were 3 or 4 giraffes that came wandering over, looking for food!  This made my evening!  From here on out, I just knew this was going to be an unforgettable weekend, and it was!

My FAVE!!!!

Around 5:45pm, my Team ASPCA partner (S), Rob and I headed over to the Coronado Springs Resort for the Team ASPCA reception.  It was a really informal event with some light appetizers and a few giveaways.  We received our Team ASPCA singlets at the event, which I was SUPER excited about!!!  We also received goody bags that had some snacks for race day in them (banana, bagel, gatorade, etc), which was really sweet of them to do for us!  We got back to our hotel around 8pm and I started laying all of my stuff out for the race.  Finally got to bed around 8:15 and, most likely, didn't actually get to sleep until around 9 or so.  Since this was the first time I had stayed in a Disney resort prior to a race, I had no idea how it would affect my sleep pattern before the race.  Well, let's just say, I must've had a TON of adrenaline prior to the race because I only managed to get about 3.5 hours of sleep.  I woke up at 12:45 to use the restroom and then I couldn't get back to sleep.  I'm usually not so nervous or excited for a race that I can't sleep, but I must've been this time.  I forced myself to lay there in bed until 2 am, when I finally allowed myself to get up and start getting ready for the race.

3:10 am, all ready to go!

The morning of race day is electric to me.  There's no feeling like it!  Typically, even despite having trained excessively, I still feel nervous and excited all at the same time and I can't wait to start!  Now, here is where I have a confession to make.  You remember me giving all of those perfectly logical and sane reasons as to why I never wrote a race recap for the Wine and Dine??  Yes well, these are some of the very same logical and sane reasons for why I didn't really train for this race after the Wine and Dine was finished.  Like, at all.  As in, zero running from Nov. 10 - Jan. 12.  Zip.  Yyyyyyeah, so, this led to a bunch of added nerves for me.  Though I know I am strong and I probably could easily finish one of the half marathons without any training, it's always the recovery that becomes the issue without training.  As I drove to packet pick up Friday afternoon, this thought rolled over and over again in my head.  What if I don't finish?  What if I can't finish?  What if I get injured?  What if my knee acts up and I have to stop at a medical tent and be bussed back to the finish line??  What if...?  Though I firmly told myself to stop this nonsense, I'm fairly certain these thoughts remained in the back of my mind that night, which is probably why I couldn't sleep.  The morning of the race, I didn't allow myself to think anything but positive thoughts.  No negativity, no what if's!!!  Just have fun!  This is Disney!!  No one knows how to put on a more entertaining race than they do, hands down!

Outside S's door before meeting up with the rest of Team ASPCA

Team ASPCA in the lobby at 3:15 am SHARP!

What a mouthful of granola bar and complete surprise looks like

Getting on the bus to go to the race....eeeek!

A word about my pre-race nutrition for myself for future races.  (Feel free to skip this part all of you out there who are not me and will be bored by this...)  ;-)  Okay, so I ate a banana upon waking up and brought a granola bar, the Clif bar provided by runDisney and the half a bagel provided by Team ASPCA in the goodie bag.  I ate the granola bar as I was walking toward the bus (see oh-so-attractive pic above) and I ate 1/4 bagel on the bus.  I ate the rest of the bagel when we got there and ate the Clif bar walking to the starting corral.  Once the race had started, I ate a Gu.

As I stood next to my Team ASPCA fundraising partner, S, I was beaming with a smile and I'm pretty sure I was talking her ear off with useless chattering about other Disney halfs I have done: stuff that didn't really matter but filled the time. I half believe that she probably wasn't listening to much of what I said anyway because she was focusing on and mentally preparing for what she was about to do: run her FIRST half marathon.  That was a comfort to me since I figured, otherwise, I was probably pretty obnoxious to be around!  We barely made it to our Corral E prior to the 5 am cutoff since the lines for the port-o-lets were so long, but we made it!  Phew!  Now, we just stood there waiting until it was our turn to start the race.  Every once in a while, I would turn to her and jump up and down with excitement and she would just smile and sort of roll her eyes.  I don't blame her! :-)

This is where I'll leave off for now.  Guess I'll have to split this into 2 parts since it's already been an hour and a half and I'm almost out of time!  I WILL return here to finish with Part 2 of the Walt Disney World Half-Marathon 2013 Race Recap!!  Promise!  (Hmm...maybe I shouldn't promise...)

Halloween Horror Nights...revisited

Since it's still not yet Halloween and I just remembered to actually go get my picture from Universal, I thought I'd share the picture of Rob and I from the Rip Ride Rockit rollercoaster that we went on at the Media Preview of Halloween Horror Nights a few weeks back.  So, without further hesitation, here it is in all of its glory!!

As you can see, I LOVE this roller coaster!  It's so much fun with all of the music playing in your ears while you fly through the air!  Totally awesome, and even better at night!!

Baaaaad Kitty!

This picture almost perfectly exemplifies me this evening: under blanket, laptop open and drink in hand.  I'm a baaaad kitty (at least that's kind of how I refer to Bailey - my cat - in a playful way, when she's been getting into things she shouldn't be getting into).  In my case, I've opted to take the past four days off from running.  Monday's lapse was simply part of the "I'll do it tomorrow" school of thought, only to realize, too late, that I had commitments on Tuesday evening and couldn't run that night.  Tonight, my next planned evening to go running, I simply decided "F*&k it," I didn't really feel like it.  So, here I am, under blanket, laptop open, drink in hand...er, on the side table next to me, but still.  Pretty close!  I kind of thought, "Maybe I'll just drop a run this week...see how I feel..." and, well, here I am.  Now I just figure that I'll run on Friday at some point (I will have to run, Rob and I have already planned Fajitas and Margaritas, so I'll need to work off those extra calories!) and then get my 10K in this weekend.  No big deal.  So here I am, cutting myself a break.  I've been working hard and have been very dedicated to my running schedule so far, I deserve a little break!  I'm going to enjoy it!!!  After all, life's not always about running! 

Vacation Hangover

This morning I found myself decidedly groggy...and it lasted pretty much all day long, bummer!  I went to bed nice and early, got a huge amount of sleep last night and didn't even drink that much yesterday despite it being a football Sunday so what could've been the problem?  Yes, oh yes, the dreaded "Vacation Hangover!"  I find that the more enjoyable a vacation has been, the bigger the vacation hangover.  It has absolutely nothing to do with how long we have been away, just how much fun we had on the trip!  Therefore, I think you can probably extrapolate just how awesome this particular getaway was!!

I took Thursday and Friday off from work and we went to our favorite, the Hyatt Siesta Key Beach.  This place is like THE end-all-be-all beach getaway destination!  The rooms (more like super high-end condos) are incredible, the pool is ritzy what with the fancy cabanas lining the perimeter and a bar where they pour quite a stiff drink and the beach is gorgeous with staffers setting up whatever chairs and umbrellas are needed and providing kayaks, paddleboards and a variety of other beachy toys (corn toss, bocce, football).

Our room with a sweet beach view!

After we arrived on Thursday, Rob and I went out to paddleboard and kayak around for a while since I hadn't done any running that day.  I figured paddleboarding would be a good "cross-training activity."  What was cool was that we saw a bunch of fish while we were out there when we made our way out to this new area we hadn't been over to before, near some rocks...cleverly titled "Point of Rocks" and ended up kayaking back to it the next day and doing some snorkeling.  We've been coming here now for a few years and are still discovering new things about the place!  The last time I tried paddleboarding, there were a bunch of boats, which made it a lot rougher and harder for me to stay balanced.  (My balance is notoriously crappy anyway, so boat wakes don't exactly help matters.)  This time, it was totally calm, which made it easy to stay on the board.  I was surprised that I didn't fall once, I kind of thought I would! 

Of course, I was actually IN the water when I went paddleboarding

Rob & I enjoying the calm waters of the Gulf

Pretty kickass sunset, if I do say so myself...

...which I do....

We watched the sunset from our room and got ready to go out to our one 'fancy' dinner during the trip. We went out to a really nice dinner at the Crab & Fin in St. Armand's Circle.  We've been going here almost each time we come to Siesta Key.  This time it was good, but the server wasn't as good this time as our server last time, Michael.  I felt kind of weird, like a stalker, but I kept watching Michael across the room and wishing he was our server.  He always has a funny story and kind of laughs like Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynd) from the original Bewitched.  Plus, last time, he gave us extra chocolate dipped pineapple pieces at the end of the meal!  Michael!  Must remember Michael. 

Friday morning, I went for my 8 mile run spanning almost the entire length of the island.  I did pretty well, averaging about 12:30 per mile.  I was surprised since I figured, with 8 miles to cover, I'd probably end up way slower than that!  The one negative to the run was the fact that my Nike+ watch conked out with just 1 mile left to go...so I only got credit for 7.01 miles, but I know I covered the entire distance so it's alright I guess.  I don't really understand though since I charged it the entire night before I got up to run.  Kind of bizarre!  It was really awesome though, I got up and out to run around 7:15 am and got done around 9 am.  When I got out there initially, I was cold because the sun hadn't come up yet and it was just really cool out with low humidity (for a change).  When I actually started running, that changed though and I warmed right up!  The community in Siesta Key is just so nice!  When I was running, I passed a bunch of people who all said, "Good morning" and this one girl I passed at the very beginning of my run and then again at the end even said, "Good job, girl!" to me with a smile!  That was pretty sweet!

The rest of the day was beautiful!  We hung out on the beach from about 10:15 am to around 5 pm with some kayaking thrown in there.  It was just so perfect!

Andre setting up the umbrellas and chairs for the guests

View of Crescent Beach from our balcony

Anyone ever see Segway's on the beach before??  Yeah, me neither...

Nothin' but blue skies....do I see....

....and clear waters...

Closing out another beautiful day on Siesta Key

The next day, we (again) hung out on the beach all day long...which was heaven!  We went kayaking again and then snorkeling by the rocks.  On the way out, we saw a stingray, a HUGE school of bait fish which kept jumping on top of me when I was swimming through them and tickling the crap out of me.  We also saw some sheepshead, permits, snook (BIG snook), a bunch of different types of wrasses (my favorite was the fairy wrasse), sergeant majors (of course), spotfin butterflyfish, drumfish, pretty sure we saw a two barred rabbitfish and a bunch others that I can't even remember.  By now, I'm sure you get the point that it was seriously awesome snorkeling!  We WILL be back!!

Well, that about sums up our time on Siesta Key.  We moved over to a place in Lido Beach (near where Rob and I got married) and had a rather Twilight-Zoneish evening there complete with redneck wedding, free pizza from a nearby birthday party, our friend getting lost looking for an ice cream place and a call from my brother notifying my parents that their house had been broken into (which later turned out to be untrue).  Altogether a very weird night indeed!

Now it's time to get myself together and start planning my runs out for the week ahead.  This week, I'm supposed to be doing 5 mile training runs and a 10K weekend run, which will be a nice relief from the 7 and 8 miles I've run the past couple of weekends!  I was excited when I got home today because I received my Team ASPCA training shirt along with a Team ASPCA tote bag!  Yay, goodies!!

And, as always, thank you to EVERYONE who has donated so far!  We're already up to 53% of our fundraising goal and we've only really been going at it for about a month now!  I am already so overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from friends and family members, I only hope that it keeps up so that we can run the half-marathon in January!

If you haven't done so already, please check out our fundraising page!  It's fun to see that thermometer thingy rise to the halfway point!  And, ALL DONATIONS ARE ABSOLUTELY WELCOME!!!  NOTHING IS TOO SMALL!

Team Steph B. and Steff S.

Week 7 and a Look Ahead to Week 8

Hello faithful reader(s),

Last week's training schedule had me doing runs during the week of about 4.5 miles with a dreaded weekend run of 7 miles.  I was a little worried after my first run on Tuesday because I woke up the next day with that same left knee pain that I've had in the past (which started after the half marathon earlier this year).  I wasn't sure if I should even run the rest of the week, but I figured I would just keep wearing my knee brace and see how far I could go on Thursday's run.  I did take it a little easier on myself, running only 4.16 miles instead of the given 4.5 miles but since I ran 4.91 miles on Tuesday, I thought the two runs probably averaged out to about 4.5 miles and I was fine.

The training schedule I'm following, courtesy of Hal Higdon

I have to admit, I haven't been following the training schedule to the letter doing all of the in between runs but I do try to get at least two runs in during the week with the long run on the weekend.  I've also been trying to play tennis with Rob as my cross-training activity.  I'm not trying to kill myself here, just have fun, get in shape and enjoy the experience!  Last year during my training, I would follow everything on the schedule exactly as it was written but I found that I kind of got burned out on it come holiday time and ended up not as in shape as I wanted to be for the Princess Half Marathon.

This year, once I complete the half marathon in November, I will still have the half in January to keep preparing for, giving me further incentive to keep training through the holidays!  I'm really looking forward to that since it will, hopefully, help keep the holiday weight gain to a minimum. Ah the things us women have to think about sometimes!  I also thought of a totally awesome bonus for the January 12 half marathon!!  Rob's birthday is on January 9, so we'll most likely be celebrating the weekend of the half marathon and probably on the Saturday of the race.  You know what that means!!  I will have SO MANY extra calories that I've burned from the race, I'll just happen to be able to give myself a freebie day on whatever I eat and drink!  (Though, honestly, I probably would've anyway...I mean, it's 13 freaking miles!  I think I will deserve it!)

I've been really lucky this past week as the weather has been completely gloomy and wonderful!  That has really helped to keep the heat down in the afternoons which has helped me to improve my times!  I changed up my routine a little bit by running for two minutes now and then walking for 1 minute.  This has helped me to reach an average pace of about a minute quicker than my previous runs!  It also helped me run my fastest 5K ever last Tuesday!  I got home from running and ended the run on my Nike+ watch and it started flashing and beeping excitedly at me in honor of the accomplishment.  There's certainly something satisfying about that little acknowledgment!  I love this watch!  I was hoping to be able to link to my Nike+ profile on here so that you could see all my runs, times, etc...but I can't figure it out.  It seems like it will only post (easily, that is) to either Facebook or Twitter.  Perhaps I'll check on that some more and figure it out at some point!

In other news, today was a fantastic day for fundraising!!  Steff and I have reached 30% of our fundraising goal with a total of $570 raised so far and it's only October!  I am so excited about this and very thankful to everyone donating!

Here's the link to our fabulous fundraising page: Team Steph B. and Steff S.

Here are my runs by the numbers for this past week:

Tuesday

Total Distance: 4.91 miles
Total Time: 1 hr
Average Pace: 12:20 per mile

Thursday

Total Distance: 4.16 miles
Total Time: 53 mins
Average Pace: 12:41 per mile

Sunday

Total Distance: 7.04 miles
Total Time: 1 hr, 28 mins
Average Pace: 12:28 per miles

For all of you keeping track of energy gel reviews, here's my review of the new Gu Roctane formulation, flavored Cherry-Lime: It tastes nothing like Cherry, nor Lime.  It tastes like Chocolate actually, but a weird Chocolate not a good Chocolate, and I have independent confirmation of this from Rob.

As for the Gu Roctane Tropical Fruit flavor, that was actually pretty good.  Though, I will caution everyone to avoid spilling it throughout your living room, kitchen and dining areas as I apparently clumsily did.  I STILL have NO IDEA how that happened and I didn't even realize it until later that day, when I stepped in something sticky with my shoe and saw the trail of goo that I had created.  Needless to say, cleanup was not fun!!  So, my friends, do NOT do that!  Getting back to the flavor of the gel, I will say that it wasn't overpowering but somewhat fruity and pretty yummy.  In my book, it's up there with the Orange flavor Gu and the Berry flavor Gu.     

Looking ahead, I'm going to be out of town Thursday - Saturday so I'm wondering when I'll get my runs in this week.  I didn't think about it until now (which is too late), but I really should've gone running today.  I figured I should just let myself recover from yesterday's 7 miler.  Whoopsies.  So I'll run tomorrow and maybe I'll just have to do another run on Wednesday.  The problem with where we're going is that it's a small barrier island on Florida's west coast and I'm not really sure where I can run.  The place has a gym which has a treadmill, but I LOATHE the dreadmill...er, treadmill.  I get so very bored and I just don't think I would be able to force myself to eek out a 4.5 mile run let alone the 8 miler I'm supposed to do this weekend! I'll have to do more research I suppose, to figure out if running there will be a possibility.  I'm really looking forward to the trip though!  It's to my absolute favorite place: Siesta Key!!  I truly love it there, it's so beautiful and the beaches are seriously awesome!  Hopefully this time there won't be a hurricane to spoil the trip like there was when we went in August.  Stay away tropical weather!!

This is what I get to look forward to:

Aaaaaaaahhh

A Little Bit About My Week

I'm a little disappointed in myself for not writing more in the past week.  I meant to post about my latest training and time would just end up getting away from me.  I guess that's just how it goes.

My past week has been pretty busy, to say the least!  In terms of running, my training plan had me doing 4 miles during the week with a longer 6 mile run scheduled for the weekend.  Since my weekend was incredibly packed, I ended up running my long run on Thursday evening last week and I dropped one of the 4 mile training runs I was supposed to do.  I wasn't happy about it, but it happens.  I kept doing the 30s run/walk split last week during my runs and I ended up with an average pace of about 13:45 minutes per mile.  This week, so far, my run was slower, unfortunately.  I read in this Jeff Galloway training guide that if I stepped up to running a full minute and then walking a full minute, it would step my pace up from an estimated 14 minutes per mile (with the 30/30 split) to a 13 minute per mile pace.  This doesn't make any sense to me since the ratio of running to walking is the exact same and should, therefore, yield the same per mile pace.  I tried this minute on, minute off method and, sure enough, my per mile pacing was about the same (though, as I said before, a little slower than last week because it was pretty sunny with little breeze).  I think I'm going to try running 45 and walking 30 maybe to get my pacing up as well as running fartleks with Rob sometime soon.  While I'm not really concerned about my pace too terribly much for the half, I really would like to try and keep my time somewhere below 3 hours.

My run yesterday (where I tried the minute on/minute off pacing) was kind of funny, in terms of the scenery.  During the run, I saw a ton of butterflies, a big fire (complete with helicopters circling above it) and ended it with a double rainbow right in front of our house!  I wish I had pictures, but alas...by the time I got my phone, the rainbows had disappeared.

Here's the weekend rundown:

On Friday night, Rob and I were able to attend Halloween Horror Nights at Universal since he covered it that morning for the news station he works for, Local 6.  Unfortunately, for the third year in a row, it rained on Media Night for us.  However, the folks at Universal were pretty awesome, giving us all free ponchos and free beach towels (we scored Spongebob and Simpsons towels!).  Also making it a fantastic evening was the fact that the food was free (tasty items like sliders, coconut shrimp, jalapeno poppers, pasta and a HUGE dessert station that took up a good part of the Monster Makeup Show lobby area we were in), there was an open bar and we were escorted to the front of the line to all seven of the haunted houses (and Rob and I even got to go on the Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster and bypass the line!).  We also got to see Penn & Teller who came out to do a Q & A session with us (us being the media, that is).

Waiting to get into HHN 22 in our free ponchos

The haunted houses this year seemed a little lame, to be honest.  I had high hopes for the Penn & Teller 3D haunted house since last year's 3D house was so very awesome but it was definitely disappointing.  There weren't many of their 'scarachters' inside and the only time I was even slightly frightened was when an air jet blew on my feet to distract me from Elvis waiting to pop out and scare me.  My favorite haunted house was definitely the Gothic house.  It had some pretty awesome sets and effects.  I really liked this one part where we had to bend down to get underneath an obstacle and then got scared just on the other side of it by one of the characters in the house that jumped out at us.  Pretty tricksy, Universal! I just felt that they really did a great job with the house in making it unique and interesting...and the characters inside were well concealed so you couldn't really see them waiting to jump at you.  That always ruins it for me.

Creepy guy getting a little fresh with me

After we finished up the first few houses, we headed back to the 'refreshment area' to get more drinks and we ended up joining up with the Fox 35 group (Rob's old station) to avoid going to one of the lame shows the Local 6 group was going to see.  Boy were we glad we did!  We went straight to the Rip Ride Rockit, bypassed the ridiculously long line and go to ride it at night!  I love that ride so much because you get to pick the song you listen to while you ride it and it was even better at night because you couldn't see the track!  Seriously AWESOME!!!  Hopefully I'll remember to check my ticket when I get home so I can link to the picture of us on the coaster that night!  Another memorable moment was hanging out with one VERY drunk news anchor (who I will not name, but I will say that this person does not work for Channel 6).  It was totally hilarious, I couldn't tell whether he was hitting on me, just messing around for his friends or was just completely loaded and unaware of how he was acting.  He kept putting his arm around me and, for a while, we walked like that through Universal, with Rob right beside me.  Yeah, he was so drunk that he didn't even realize that I was there with Rob despite the fact that Rob was next to me the entire night.  This guy definitely felt it the next morning, there's no doubt about that!! If you want to check out some pictures from the event, one of the producers in our group was taking pictures and posted them on the Local 6 site here. (No pictures of us, unfortunately.)

Rob's HHN Collage

The very next morning, we got our butts up and out the door nice and early so we could go to the Gator game!!!  I got Rob tickets for our 10 year "date-iversary" present.  I had only been to one Gator game before and, that time, we ended up having to sit in the South Carolina fan section directly behind their band.  Not the most ideal seats (but they were good, just the same. I just felt guilty cheering for the Gators and sitting there).  Saturday, it was a completely beautiful day for a football game, with the exception of the heat!

The front of The Swamp

Rob had done a bunch of research and came up with a strategy for where we would park, where we would tailgate and what we would do after the game.  The man had a plan!  Everything was going really well, until we found the group we were going to tailgate with.  Okay, so I went to school at University of Maryland, not exactly a huge football school but I did some tailgating there during my 4 years.  I know what it can look like and, because of this (and the write up on the Gator fans' website), I had an idea of what to expect.  The site said 'you bring your own booze, but all the food is only $10.'  Rob and I thought that was a good deal and I didn't plan on drinking anyway, so that's where we went.  I had visions of brats or burgers swimming around in my head as we walked to where they said they'd be set up.  We eventually found their tents and saw a tiny little table with what looked like some pie plates on them, one of which was empty.  Rob and I kind of looked at each other like, 'Is this it?' and he talked to a couple of people about where the food was, if we had missed the grilling yet or not, etc.  We were pointed to the head dude who said, "Aw yeah, we're not grilling for today's game...but feel free to help yourself to anything on this table. (At which time he pointed to the tiny table of pie plates)  We've got some quiche over here, I think it's, uh, like sausage and bacon and, uh, like cheese.  That's all ya need for a delicious quiche, right?" to which I said, "Egg?"  Rob looked at me and said, "So what do you think?  Do you want to just eat here?" I looked over at the sad table with the half eaten quiche and the empty pie plate next to it and said, "Um, I don't want to pay $10 for a crappy slice of quiche.  That seems like a rip off!"  So, we walked our butts back up the hill to the student union and settled on some nice, game day Panda Express....in the air conditioning, no less!!  And, by the way, WHO tailgates with QUICHE?!?!?  Seriously!

Showin' some love

We finally got done and headed into the game just in time to catch the Gators charging onto the field!  Our seats were pretty freaking sweet!  We ended up sitting in the alumni section, which was nice because we were only in the sun for half of the game, because of the luxury boxes behind us that eventually blocked it.  I still ended up getting sunburned on my forehead and nose (and it's already mostly peeled off actually) but the game itself was super fun!!  I LOVE college football! It's definitely my favorite over the NFL, though I'm just a football girl and will take any kind of football I can get...well, except for high school probably.

View from our seats

After the game (Gators shut out Kentucky, by the way!), we went back to our car to freshen up a bit and then went to what used to be the Purple Porpoise (it's now called The Swamp) and had some dinner before heading back to O-town.

You can kind of see my sunburn there already!

Rob's Gator collage

And, there ya go!  A little glance inside my last week.  This weekend, I'm supposed to run a 5K but since I couldn't actually find any 5K races this weekend, I'm just going to run it on my own.  I'm thinking about signing up for some more races soon.  There's this UCF 5+2 miler that I might do since it corresponds pretty well to my training schedule.  I just need to check to make sure that we'll be in town that weekend and not at the beach one last time!

That about wraps it up!  Have a great weekend everyone!

As always, don't forget to please donate for our upcoming race!  

Team Steph B. and Steff S. Half Marathon Donation Page