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

It's Time to Be Honest About Weight

Since I've been writing this blog, I've gone back and forth about whether or not to reveal my weight stats.  Initially, I was far too embarrassed to actually write down and publish how much I weighed.  However, since it's been about a year now and things are still going well for me, I think it's time.

As I've said in some of my early posts, running wasn't really about the weight loss specifically, that was merely a fringe benefit that I was taking advantage of.  Last year, I didn't pay much attention to what or how much I ate, I just kept faithful to the running routine and let the rest work itself out.  I still feel that running isn't about weight loss for me, but I am taking a more engaged approach to take advantage of the benefits of exercising regularly.  I'm watching what I eat more carefully using the MyFitnessPal app available on any smart phone or iPod touch.  Using this app, I have a set calorie goal each day and I enter all the foods, snacks and drinks that I consume each day.  I've done Weight Watchers before and this is somewhat similar, in that you track everything you eat, but the app makes it so much easier!!  You can use the bar code scanner to look up the specific brand of granola bar or yogurt or whatever that you ate and provide you the exact nutrition information, it's awesome!  It has several entries for various restaurant dishes too, which makes it an especially valuable tool!  I definitely love this app!  If anyone wants to friend me, we can track each other's progress and help each other out!

My username: shodgebreuer

Here are the facts about my weight.

As of last year, around the time I started running, I weighed a consistent 185 lbs.  I'm between 5' 7" and 5' 8".  Needless to say, I was overweight.  This was the heaviest I had ever been and I looked at myself and just thought, "Gross."  At the holidays last year, I weighed about 165 lbs and started feeling better about myself.  The running definitely helped me to feel accomplished but the weight loss helped me feel more confident about myself as well.  This year, when I started running again, my weight was at 155 lbs and, since then, I've lost a couple more pounds.  I'm really hoping to reach 140-145 lbs, but that is going to take a lot more effort with my food intake and running frequency!  (This is where training for that marathon wouldn't hurt!)  To put this in perspective a little bit, in high school and college, I weighed about 125 lbs.  I have no illusions that I will ever be back down to that weight again, but I would be happy with 140-145.  To be clear, I'm actually pretty content with my current weight of 152 lbs, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop working to lose weight.  Hopefully, through this continued running and use of the MyFitnessPal app, I can just kind of eventually shed extra pounds without having to try too terribly hard!

Here are a couple photographic excerpts from my weight journey:

Dec 2010

April 2011 on the way to the Bahamas

Right before I started running in June 2011

Feb. 2012 at 165 lbs

Tailgating Aug 2012

Maybe you can't really tell from the pictures, I just sort of went through whatever I had on Facebook and I don't think I really wanted to put many unflattering photos up on there for all to see.  Regardless, I see and feel the difference and it's pretty nice!  Yep, so I'd still like to lose a bit more to tone up and everything, but, as I said, I'm pretty content with where I'm at today.

Enjoy your day everyone!  Hopefully coming out of the 'weight closet' can help to inspire others.  If nothing else, maybe it provided a good resource to monitor your nutrition!

And, as always, don't forget about my Donor Drive for the ASPCA!!  Any amount is appreciated!  We've raised $130.00 so far and we're still really early into our efforts so this is fantastic!

Here's the link:  Team Steph B. and Steff S. Donation Page

Run Recaps

Since I have been so busy with my grad school app, I haven't had a chance to go over my recent training runs.  I won't go back over all of the ones that I have missed, just the last two.  I had my long run on Saturday morning.  Since I hadn't really thought about it on Friday, I had no plans to actually run on Saturday morning, despite the fact that I knew it would be the smart thing to do.  Saturday morning I woke up and laid in bed reading my Facebook updates and reading some news articles on my phone trying to avoid the inevitable decision: was I running today??  Even my Nike Sportwatch wanted to know!

Eventually, I dragged myself out of bed, prompted by the fact that I didn't want it to get any later before actually going running.  There was some bargaining involved (IF you go running, you don't have to do all 5 miles...IF you go running, you'll be able to have more drinks while watching football if you want...and so on...) but mostly, I just forced myself to handle it that old familiar way: take it one step at a time.  Get dressed, put my hair up, put my shoes on, get in the car, drive to the trailhead, etc.  I decided to run on the West Orange Trail because I wasn't really sure of a great 5 mile run around my neighborhood, plus I wanted something a little different!

BY THE NUMBERS:

Total Distance: 5.03 miles
Total Time: 1 hr. 7 mins
Average pace: 13 mins 27 secs

Now, I have to explain something.  Since I've started training again and I missed the first few weeks of my schedule AND I hadn't been running at all this summer, I wanted to avoid killing myself (and potentially injuring myself), so I decided to start running via the Jeff Galloway methodology.  His method has you do a run/walk for varying amounts of time.  What I've been doing is a 30 sec run and 30 sec walk and it's been pretty decent.  Next week, I think I'm going to change up the ratios a bit and make my runs longer.  While I've been following the Jeff Galloway method for the way I run, I've been following the Hal Higdon method for the distance I run as well as the activity schedule during the week.  It's early yet, but so far, so good!

During the trail run, I saw a Coral Snake!!  To you non-Florida natives, you may not really know about Coral Snakes, but they're one of the poisonous snake species down here.  I was just chugging along, running away and I look down and there it is, on the edge of the trail.  I did the old rhyme quickly in my head, "Red on yellow kills a fellow....red on yellow....is that red on yellow?  Oh my goodness, IT IS!!  AAAAAAAHHHH!" You see there are two types of snakes down here that look somewhat similarly, the Coral Snake is the poisonous species and the King Snake is the non-poisonous species.  Because of this, a helpful rhyme has been developed to help children (and adults) easily decipher which is which: "Red on yellow kills a fellow, Red on Black is a friend of Jack."  Needless to say, when you come upon a snake by surprise, these nice little rhymes seem to escape your head!  The ONLY reason I remembered so quickly was because, oddly enough, we had just been talking about these snakes at dinner the night before.  Weird little coincidence! 

Poisonous Coral Snake

Non-poisonous King Snake

Okay, so, for now I'm going to leave you guys with this entry since it's late and I need to get to bed! I'll recap my run from today in a blog posting tomorrow!

And please don't forget my run for Team ASPCA!  PLEASE DONATE to my team by following this link: Team Steph B and Steff S

Anything helps, even as little as $5.00 if that's all you can contribute!  Either way, I will be SO GRATEFUL!!  Thanks guys!

Coming Back to Life

Hello again my friends!

After a long break (including me forgetting to post updates about my completion of the Disney Princess Half-Marathon in February!), I'm back folks!  I am now signed up for not one, but TWO new half-marathons!  I know, I'm crazy, right?!?  Yep, that's true!  But, the first half marathon really made me feel accomplished, despite the fact that I hadn't even been training for the month (ahem, or two...) prior to the race...thanks a lot holiday season, followed by my husband's and my birthdays!!

My first half marathon is going to be the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon on November 10 of this year.  I'm REALLY excited for this one for a few reasons...not the least of which is the fact that, right after we finish the race, we get to go to this party in Epcot Center that takes place until 4am!!  Some of the attractions will be open as will the Food and Wine Festival for race competitors and their friends and family and there will be live music playing all over the park.  Sounds pretty awesome, eh?!?  Add to that the fact that the race doesn't start until 10 pm, making it a night run AND a sweet ass medal and I'm psyched!

Who wouldn't want this medal?!

I started training a little later than I had planned, but hey, it happens!  At least this time, I'll be training straight up until the race occurs, which should put me in MUCH better positioning for a good finish time.  My Princess Half Marathon time was somewhere around 3:30 because I hadn't really been training.  This time, I'm hoping to be able to make it around 2:30.  I've certainly got a good incentive to finish early: the earlier I finish, the more of the after party I get to enjoy!  This time, however, I just need to make sure that I take a good amount of time to stretch and really take care of my body after the race.  At the Princess, I didn't really get a chance to and the next day was definitely touch and go (to put it mildly)!  I was walking like a geriatric cowboy around the office, which certainly got me lots of funny looks.  I was wearing my race shirt and my medal though and would just hold it up as I shuffle/waddled on by.

My second half marathon is going to be on January 12, 2013 as part of the 20th anniversary of the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend.  This time, I'll be running as a member of Team ASPCA with my friend Steff.  I've never run as part of a charity team before so I wasn't quite sure about this undertaking.  As a kid, fundraising wasn't exactly what you'd call 'my thing.'  Whether it was candy, wrapping paper, greeting cards or Girl Scout Cookies, I would usually end up with like the few elderly people that lived in my neighborhood and felt bad for me buying some of the overpriced wares and that was it.  I'm hoping that this time, things will go better since it's for a great cause that I really believe in!  I'm also really motivated by the fact that, if I don't raise the funds for the race ($950), I won't be able to participate in the half marathon and I won't be able to feel that AWESOME spinning medal around my neck (new design for the 20th anniversary)!

It spins to reveal old school Mickey and present day Mickey!

I'll post some training reports in the coming days (things are a little crazy for me now since I'm trying to finalize and submit my graduate school applications this week), as soon as I get the opportunity.  And I'm sure some of them will include my gripes about my Nike+ sportwatch.  It's perhaps user error in this case, but I can't get it to sync up with my Nike+ profile, so I don't get that instant gratification of being able to see my GPS map online and my training stats.  I still have to call Nike again (first call didn't solve anything), but I'm hopeful I can get this worked out with them and get it up and running.  Then you, dear readers, will hopefully be able to follow along with me on my running journey!

CORRECTION: As my suspicions confirmed....THIS is the medal for the half marathon finishers in 2013:

Not sure how I feel about the Donald medal...I REALLY had my heart set on the spinny medal!

(The awesome, spectacular, EXCITING spinning medal is only for the Walt Disney World Marathon finishers...aaaand now I'm thinking....could I pull off a full marathon???  (My brain says, 'Noooooo way.' My heart says, 'Pleeeeeaseeeee!!! You can totally do it!  It's JUST 26 measly miles!') Someone please pinch me to get me back to reality!

Okay, so that's it though.  Now I'm just going to have to run the 5th Annual Disney Princess Half Marathon in February to get THAT kick ass medal!! Ha ha ha!  See?  I can play that game too, Disney!!  

And here's the link to our Team ASPCA donation website.  I could use all of the help I can get, however big or small!!  Thanks so much everybody!

Team Steph/Steff ASPCA Donation Page