Wordy Wednesday - surprise party

Hi All,

Summer has hit full blast here. The kids are off school, pool parties are going on, tequila has been drunk, and Disney days loom ahead.

Memorial Day my daughter’s friends threw her a Surprise 12th Birthday Party. She was totally surprised and the party was a BASH!! The birthday girl below has an orange arrow over her head.

sagesparklers-sm

Today is National Running Day. I actually went walking. A mom from my daughter’s class went through chemo last year and we’ve started walking most Tues/Thurs mornings together. She’s not at a running stage yet. I still go to the gym Mon-Wed-Fri and karate Tues/Thurs night.

It’s also Juneathon - the month where you try to be physical every day.

June 1 and June 2: I walked about 45 mins in the AM and did karate in the PM. Thanks to RunDMT for reminding me!

We’ve decided that our summer family week away will take us to the mountains of TN. We have a cabin reserved in Gatlinburg (sp?). So if you have any advice for that area, Pigeon Forge, Dollywood, or the Great Smokey Mountains - please let me know.

Alice had her first 7 mile run with Brian. She made it through without walking, but they did stop at 2 drinking fountains and one beach shower during that time. They were near Clearwater beach and I’m sure it was toasty and humid (88 degrees? Feels like 98?? It was only 9am…)

I’m going to try a day from this summer shape up week tomorrow, but I’m not sure if I will do speed or strength:

http://fitnessista.com/2010/05/summer-shape-up-2010-week-2/

and I plan to finally make an oatmeal breakfast cookies this month. And a cheesecake in TN.

My birthday is Saturday :)

Sat, Sun, Mon

Saturday we fixed some plumbing. The project is now complete! We had to reroute the hot water to the kids shower, the kids sink and the dishwasher. Done!

Then I played Mom a bit and carpooled kids to parties, went to Target, etc. If you have an aqua kitchen, look for cute clearance items at Target like canisters and paper towel holder, etc. But don’t look there for a headband with a large funky black flower, because you won’t find it.

Sat night we went to a party for a Ragnar Relay friend. It was billed as a “beer pong” party. I’ve never played beer pong and neither has Brian, and I don’t drink beer - but we went and we learned. I’d prefer a germ-free margarita version.

Sunday I started the day hungry and with a bit of time to kill, so I made Speedy Banana Bread Pudding for me and Alice. No one in my family eats the end pieces of the loaf of bread (but me) so we usually have a bunch saved up in the freezer. I defrosted a bunch of slices (8?) and a mushy banana I had stored there that Alice left in her locker. I mashed the banana, tore up the bread, added a few eggs, a bit of milk, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger. Then I cooked it up in a buttered pan and served with maple syrup and almond slices on top. YUM!!

Brian and I have been wanting to repaint our front shutters. They were forest green and faded in 10 years of Florida sun to light green. We found a spray paint at Ace Hardware for outdoor vinyl in a violet color and sprayed those down. Bright and cute! I’ve already overheard the neighbors complement them.

That night I was a kitchen beast. I had Indian food cooking to store up for work lucnhes, Mexican food for dinner that night, and choc chip cookies for the kids’ lunch boxes in the oven. We followed the Nestle Toll House recipe, but instead of 2 sticks of butter we used 1/4 stick butter, 1/4 cup oil and 1 banana. They kept a great consistency and the added banana flavor was light and subtle. We also added cinnamon.

Today - Monday - I started the day with 2.2 miles around the park with Brian. For me it was a hard push, for him it was “slower than after I got a cramp in my calf at the end of the marathon.” :P

I came home, stretched, did 60 bicycle crunches, showered and went to work.

wendy-lanternI’m lucky running didn’t bother my feet because Friday I was at IKEA for a couple hours with a client/friend in 2.5″ heels and got a couple blisters. But she gave Wendy a polka dot hanging paper lantern for her room, and the smile on her face was worth it. Plus, I let her climb on her desk and use the drill herself to hang it.

Tonight Brian is grilling turkey burgers, and I have an alum foil packet with asparagus and garlic in the toaster oven for me (drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with chili powder and pepper) and edamame steaming up for the girls.

Work has been busy! Working on a couple new web sites. Learning a bit about MX Servers. Life is busy, but good!

Big Winner

Tuesday I did 20 mins on the Stairmaster and a full body weight workout. I skipped karate that night because work was nuts and I was needed. I’m glad I did because they did the opening stretching exercises for the whole hour since the little kids were being poor listeners.

Wed I woke up to 58 degrees and decided to run. Since Brian is still coming off his marathon high, he sunk down to my level and ran 3 miles with me at 12-13 mile pace. I told him I was going for ease, not speed, and that I was! No music, little talking, just paying attention to body signals.

The last time I ran with Brian we spoke a lot about hands/arms/shoulders and now I can relax my upper body while running to the point that my hands are floppy and never feel tension in my shoulders anymore. Sometimes I come away with a gem.

I was a big winner of the best prize ever - CHOCOLATE. Well, maybe not the BEST because it wasn’t Endangered Species chocolate, but it was my 2nd favorite - Hersheys! Thanks AppleCrumbles!

Alice had a good track meet and took another few seconds off her mile. 6:23!

... and she learned how to fly!

... and she learned how to fly!

My friend Maria - after much insistence from me- just finished reading “Born to Run”. Then she ordered Vibram 5-fingers. They came in the mail today and she immediately went for a 1.5 mile run. She said normally when she runs it’s uncomfortable and she hurts the whole time. She has major knee pain. But today she felt great the whole 1.5 miles. She wanted to go further but figured she better ease into it. Gotta love that!

2010 goal update: 2568 crunches, 61 minutes of plank remaining.

Has anything in 2010 changed your workouts for life or longer?

Sunday/Monday

I managed to sneak in a 3.33 mile run Sunday in the 68* weather, and finished with a 1 minute plank.

Monday I did not work out in the AM and I will go to Alice’s track meet in the PM. I’ll keep you posted!

Posted in running. 1 Comment »

End of week + WDW 2010 Half Marathon

Thurs night was karate. It was a pretty boring class of working on stances. Necessary, though.
Friday morning was ab class. The whole time I was thinking of the 2010 goals I had discussed with Lindsay. We did at least 6 sets of planks for 60 seconds each, but I know I didn’t make it through all 6 without shifting my weight or moving my feet out of a slippery spot, so I’ll say 4 mins. And I can’t even imagine how many crunches we did. On the mat, on the ball, diagonally on the ball… I think 100 is a safe low guess.

I planned to do yoga after ab class but I saw an old friend and stopped to talk for way too long. I’m glad that is not a habit of mine.

Friday after the kids were out of school we left for the Disney Marathon weekend. The expo was pretty boring this year. Luckily Heather warned me of that over Twitter. But Brian was glad to see a 1:30 HM pace group. And my daughter was so glad Clif had Zbars and the Clif kids twisted fruit thingys. There were real Spi belts and at least 2 wanna-be spi belts, and everyone has invented a new stretchy headband with polka dots.

lowdsc00920That night we had dinner in the hotel as usual, reviewed the timing and driving situation as usual, and got to bed early.

lowdsc00921Brian kicked HM butt with a 1:29:11, but the kids and I never saw him finish. I made it to the EPCOT parking lot 3 times and kept getting told to drive over here or there to park. And I kept saying, “No, I’ve done this for 3 years, I know where I need to go.”
I finally found someone who agreed but said unfortunately by that time he couldn’t allow vehicles in and had to send me back to the hotel. That’s when I blew up. I was so pissed. And he’s like, “Ma’am I’m standing out here in the sleet and cold.” and I shouted back, “I want to be in the sleet, I came here this weekend to sit in the sleet and watch my husband run. I’m asking you to let me into the sleet.”
Didn’t work.
My daughters had never seen me so angry! But we got treated very nicely by our Guest Services Manager back at the hotel when I told her our story.

(Note on that photo. Brian likes to race sleeveless, but we knew it was going to be cold. So he found old socks from high school and asked me to make running sleeves out of them. I managed to find a mini sewing machine I once won at a scrapbooking day - meant for paper - and used it to sew up the ends of the socks at “sleeve” length. Voila!)

BUT — What a shame to plan for that moment for months and to have missed it. The important thing is Brian had a good run, a PR in fact, and in the end we had a fun night.

lowsushiAfter a cozy nap, we went to EPCOT in the 35 degrees that night because of our dinner reservation. We did some of the new stuff at Innoventions, rode Test Track and Spaceship Earth, and then had dinner at Tokyo Dining. Brian had grilled chicken, Wendy had a tempura mix, and Alice and I shared sushi. We all ended up sharing with each other which is my favorite way to eat.

We went back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge and enjoyed chocolatey drinks and brownies around the indoor fire pit. Bedtime was early again because of our sunrise safari Sunday AM, thanks to manager Emily.

lowdsc00926We met at 6:30 to check in for our sunrise safari. It was 27 degrees and 40 people had cancelled so it was a very private tour. There were hot and cold drinks to start, we all got name tags and blankets to share, and then we bused to Animal Kingdom. There the group normally boards a Kilaminjaro Safari vehicle at that point, but the doors were frozen on the vehicles so we stalled on the bus learning about the animals for about 15 minutes. Then we walked to the ride queue and stalled for another 2o mins in the cold. It was pretty miserable. 2 vehicles went past us trying to warm up enough to get the doors to open and close. We did finally board the safari and saw about 8 different types of animals. I’m sure it is a great tour in March with tons of species, but there were many, many empty acres of grass that we saw. The tour ended with an awesome breakfast buffet with most breakfast you can imagine, plus. I loved the passionfruit juice and plantains. ahh, sugary fruit.

We went back to the hotel, packed up, checked out, hopped over to the Hollywood Studios, cheered on some marathoners, and crossed the course to get to the Toy Story Mania ride. I joked with Alice that she had just done part of the marathon, so now she can go back to school tomorrow and tell people she did “part of the Disney Marathon on Sunday.” She got a kick out of that.

We got our Toy Story fix and then headed home. It’s back to the gym tomorrow!

epcot-family
(I did not gain 20 lbs, I have 2 shirts, a running jacket, and a huge hoodie on. And Alice is not pooping in the flower bed. We think.)