November Disney Trip...

So sorry I didn't blog about our time in Florida.  I took several photos, as did SwimChick.  I will try my best to tell you all about it here.  WARNING:  This is a photo heavy post.  And I will break it up into several "days", because of that.  This post is about getting to Florida and the expo.  Enjoy.

Thought this was cute, they are watching the airport crew load/unload a plane as we waited in MKE Airport the morning we left.

And we played a little at the shop in the home airport.  Hehehe!!!!  Gotta love the cheese store.

Dancing Princess was a bit nervous for the plane ride.  She was almost 3 the last time we were on an airplane and does not remember that trip, except for the photos in an album.  We sat next to each other on both legs of the journey, and I could not convince her that the turbulence was like being on a roller coaster.  Her older siblings thought she was crazy for not being more relaxed and enjoying the flights, but we worked through it and made it in one piece.  Overall, she gave the rides a thumbs up!

  On the Magic bus to the resort!!!

We got in at dinner time.  Deanna and I had to do the shopping and took a cab to Wal Mart.  We bought our weeks worth of snacks and meals.  (I don't like going to a new store, I never know where anything is!  It took us a couple of hours and the families were "starving" when we got home with the food!)

This is the walk to our Tree House that night.  It looks a bit enchanting and fairy tale like.

So our first full day we spent a lot of time at the Wide World of Sports Complex.  I headed for the bathroom and lost Deanna and family the minute we got there.  I knew she wanted to buy runDisney New Balance shoes but didn't realize how badly until that point.  As I took my crew to the loo, she headed for the line to get into the shoe store!  I am sorry to say that I did not get a photo of the line or her new kicks.  They are pretty cool looking.  AND you can only purchase them at a runDisney expo!   

Here are some of the photos from the expo that I did capture:  

       Deanna and I by the Official Wine and Dine Poster thingy!  Doesn't she look fabulous!  So proud of her and all she has done to get to this day.  

I stood in a short line to meet Jeff Galloway.  He is the Official runDisney Training Plan designer and an Olympic Athlete!  Cool.

One More Mile is a fun company.  I have ordered some magnets from them and they offer all sorts for funny shirts.  Deanna is always talking about Dole Whip.  Please don't hate me or anything, but i have never had one!  I saw this shirt and thought of her.  I took this photo to text to her when we were lost at the expo together?!?!  (We went back to the expo after eating lunch and left the families at the Tree House!)  I think she bought one, too.  LOL!

I love the expo.  I love that you can try on some of the products you can only get online.  I think I talked a bit about this when I posted about our Tinkerbell run.  I did not plan to spend much money at this event, because I bought a lot in California AND I was taking the kids to Disney Quest and Magic Kingdom.

I had an interesting turn of events at this expo.  As I said earlier, I got there and headed to the loo!  I thought that everyone was heading to packet pick up so when we finished up that is were we headed.  I had signed myself up for the Jingle Jungle 5k AND the Wine and Dine Half Marathon.  So I had to hit two lines!  Many large races these days are putting you into Corrals based on a time you submitted when you signed up to run.  A lot of the time you must prove your time from a previous race.  You have some time before the official race day to update your proof of time too.  In August, I had done a half marathon that was faster than the one I submitted for my proof of time entry.  Somewhere along the line, I hit a computer glitch and could not get the runDisney site to up date my time.  "Oh well, my submitted time is still under 2 hours, it will be ok."  I thought.

When I get my bib numbers, I was in Corral A for the 5K and Corral L for the Half.  I dug out the map of corrals and see that L is the last available Corral.  WHAT THE???  "OK, no worries, I can still run this event.  I am only here for the medal anyway."  I told myself.  But I needed to see why I got placed in the last corral.  So I got into another line and waited.

The girl that helped me looked me up in the computer.  I could see the screen she was looking at and right there it said my proof of time and she says, "Huh?"  Then went to take to the guy in charge.  He came over and looked at the screen and says, "Oh, your one of those!"  Um, what?  He explained that there were a handful of entrants that the computer had a proof of time but the predicted finish time said 7 hours and we all got put into the last corral.  He got out a sticker and put me in Corral D.

In hindsite, I am so Thankful that I contested the placement.  I will write about race day in another post!

Off n Running,
AnnMarie

Labor Day?!?! WHAT?!?! NNNOOOOO…..

From Wikipedia…

Thirty days hath September is a traditional English mnemonic rhyme, of which many variants are commonly used in English-speaking countries to remember the lengths of the months in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Here is one version of the rhyme attributed to Mother Goose:

Thirty days have September,

April, June, and November.

All the rest have 31,

Except February alone,

And that has 28 days clear,

And 29 in a leap year.

Thirty days have September,

April, June, and November

All the rest have 31,

Except for February.

Other sources list the Mother Goose version differently:

Thirty days have September,

April, June, and November;

February has 28 alone,

All the rest have 31;

Except leap year, that's the time,

When February's days are 29.^[1]

Where did the summer go?  I cannot believe today is the first day of September.  There were so many things we were going to do and now school starts tomorrow.  With that means a new swim season, a new soccer season and Dancing Princess would like to try Gymnastics.  (I may have to change her name here.  LOL!)

Last month, I quietly decided that I need to stop pretending to be training for a run and just get out the door already.  I put myself up to the challenge of running one or more miles every day for the month.  And I DID IT!!!!!  WOO HOO!!!!  31 days in a row I logged at least one mile, usually a little bit more.    I also did a few races in that month too.  Yesterday, I ran a 5k for a church festival.  It was a small field and I placed 3rd over all!  What the?????  It was my 10th race for 2014.

So, today is our last day of summer vacation.  My oldest two are not very excited to start a new school year.  My youngest, cannot wait to get back into it.  We got to meet their teachers last week.  My oldest, will be an 8th grader and is in a couple of High School classes.  I am officially worried about that!  One is Spanish, they started 7th grade in the freshman book.  That's cool.  So this year they will finish that book and she can take Sophomore Spanish as a freshman next year.  When she got her schedule we both saw Algebra 1 on it.  We still are not sure if that is a mistake, but the teacher seemed pretty nice.  He is a HUGE Brewer Baseball fan.  The floor in his classroom is laid out as the field.  That's kind of comforting too!  LOL!  We will see in October where she is and how it is going.

The other two kids will be fine.  My son, is starting in a new self driven program.  I pray that he gets his work done and we don't have too many fights about it this year.  I know it will be good for him and he will do well.

OK, getting back on topic...

As for me, tomorrow they all get on the bus and then what?  I hope to get into a running routine.  I really want to get back into the gym and meet up with a trainer a couple of times a week.  Maybe I will get back into that treadmill class I loved last summer?!?!  I really need to get into a yoga studio about 3 times a week to get these tight hips loosened up.

September Goals:  Last month was run at least 1 mile a day.  I am going to continue that streak.  I have been complaining about my diet for forever, so I am going to cut out dairy this month.  Dairy makes my mucus membranes go bonkers!  In 2001, I read a book written by Marilu Henner called TOTAL HEALTH MAKEOVER.  I had seen her on the Today show promoting a different book.  I got this one from the library and read it cover to cover.  When I got to the chapter about Dairy I had an AH HA! moment.  She talked about the "dairy sludge".  And how as humans cows milk is not properly digested.  It is also produced to bulk up baby cows.  I had a couple of flashbacks reading this chapter.

FLASHBACK #1:  I was in kindergarden when I had to have my tonsils taken out and tubes put in my ears.  This book said that kids drinking cow milk tend to get more ear infections!  AH!

FLASHBACK #2:  Drinking cows milk tends to get the mucus in your body to build up and go crazy! As a kid, we moved to a new town, new school.  My classmates used to sing song "AnnMarie Frances Ihm, oh great ball of Slime!"  I always felt like my nose was running.  I have a very nasally voice, that I notice when I am not on dairy, isn't as nasally!  FLASHBACK #2.0: As a senior in High School, we did a class night where they jokingly predicted where we would be in 10 years.  They predicted that I would be the new Wendy Whiner on Saturday Night Live!

FLASHBACK #3:  In college, I ran on the track and Cross Country teams.  I used to spit for distance.  You know the big loogies you really got to work up to get out of your throat.  I had team mates ask me to teach them how to spit!  Seriously, I really did!  How embarrassing.  I was also always doing a Farmer's blow on a run, year round, I always had a runny nose.  This I know now is from the dairy.

So, I stopped eating Dairy back in 2001.  Replaced it with some nasty alternatives or just didn't eat it at all.  Then of course over time, it crept back into my diet.  I have been pretty flemmy on runs this year.  I can't take it anymore.  So, bye bye dairy.  Was at the Co-Op last night stocking up with some yummier alternatives.  So here we go, Welcome September!

Off N Running,
AnnMarie

Strider Half

This is the starting line, about 5 minutes before the air horn started the race!  Race time was 8:00am.  You can sort of see the fog in the trees in the distance.  And everyone looks sweaty before the race!

I started to hydrate on Thursday afternoon and continued until race time.  Our summer has been pretty cool as far as Wisconsin summers go.  So to complain about the humidity on race day?!?!  I think it was allowed.  (Then again I am going to enjoy the heat as much as I can after the freezing cold winter we have had.)

I have not been following any training plans this summer.  This is my 4th HALF marathon of the year.  As you may recall, I started the year with an injury.  (I thought it was my piriformis, turns out it was/is a hamstring thing!)  Any way, with all my crazy challenges this year, I have not followed a plan.  I have not seen much of a trainer or taken classes at the club I work at.  So, I go into these races with the goal of only crossing the finish line.  And so far this year, that is what I have done.

This is how I started my Saturday race!  I just need to finish.   As the air horn blasted, I pushed start on my Strava app and tucked it into my race belt.  And we were off.  Just me and about 1000 other men and women.  I put on my headphones and FUN. was running along with me.  After about mile 5, I decided that was enough music and tucked the headphones away.  Then I took in the race down the path, it was nice.  I wished for a breeze and a dry shirt!   

We hit the turn around and it occurred to me that I had not heard my app update me on my race time.  I have been enjoying the app, I like to listen for my splits.  I am not very good at even splits and tend to just run.  She keeps me charging forward!  

I crossed the finish line and took my phone out, only to see that it didn't record my run!  AAAAHHHH!!!!!  Seriously, I don't know what happened but it didn't record.  I had been using the app to track my month and now it will look like I missed a day of running.  

Thankfully there is a results tent and I could get my official time and stuff:  1:56.15, 6th in my age group.  Not to bad for not following a plan!

Sweaty selfie at the end of the race.

This was my 9th race for the year.  So I have 5 more to complete my 14 in 2014.  This was my 4th race in the Badgerland Strider Challenge too.  

I saw my friend, Sara there and met the dude who wears pink ALL THE TIME!!!!  I have seen him in many of my Challenge races and wondered what his deal was.  Sara asked him about it and he told us he just likes the color pink.  He also said he gets asked a lot about that and that he really likes girls too!  Poor guy.  He is funny and friendly, so if you are in the Milwaukee area and at a race, you will find him, I promise!  

It was a great day for a run with my friends, I hope to see them all again soon.  Until my next post...

Off n Running,

AnnMarie

Race 7 for the year!

I was once again asked by neighbor to run in their company race - ROOTS & WINGS.  She asked me two weeks ago about it and which race would we like to do.  I said the 10k!  She said, "Really, that's 6 miles."  Yup it is.  She signed us up for the 5k.

Today was the race.  What a beautiful morning.  Because of construction the race course changed from last year, I thought this year was much flatter.  And was just as fun as last year.

Not sure of my official time but my Strava recorded 24:40.  I am pleased.

Now I need to figure out what other races I can add to my calendar to hit my goal of 14 in 2014!

Off n running,

AnnMarie

Another one in the books

Note: original draft date was 6/16/14!

So, it has been AGES since I made time to blog...

If you recall, I took a couple challenges on this year.  One with the local running club, where I signed up for 8 races.  I completed race number 2 over the weekend.

I did get to watch my friends run the Summerfest Rock N Sole races.  These signs were placed all over the course last year.  I took a few photos as a spectator!

So true!  Proud of all those who finished what they started. 

Thankful I didn't need to do this!

On Saturday June 14, 2014 was the inaugural Hartfest Half Marathon.  It was at 1:00pm!  It got hot and I got to work on my runners tan!  

I have been trying to fix my hamstring injury.  Found an awesome Physical Therapy place and have been trying to do my exercises daily.  (I forgot how to do some of them!). Because of the injury, I did not train for this half as I would/should have!  All in all I survived another half, and will do another one.

Results: 2:06, not bad, if I do say so myself!

Race Calendar for 2014

I know it is already April, and I should have put this up a couple of months ago, but here it is as of today!

I have been slowly getting my act together here and will be adding some races yet.  I did officailly sign up for the Badgerland Strider Challenge AND 14 in 2014 challenge over at Jill's site.  I will mark my races and let you know how I am doing here as well.  SO here it is…

January 19, Tinkerbell Half in California^

April 5, South Shore Half* in Milwaukee, WI

May 10, Cupcake Run 5K in Bayside, WI

June 11, Super Run 5K* in Milwaukee, WI
June 14, Hartfest Half* in Wauwautosa, WI

July 4, Firecracker 4* in Hales Corners
July 5, Run 4 the Paws in Crandon, WI  Sign up here!

July 27, Cudahy Classic 10 Mile* 

August 16 ?Madison Mini?  Thinking about joining two friends here.  Not sure yet if I will run this or not.

August 23, Strider Half Marathon* in Milwaukee, WI

September 6, Tosa-fest 5K* in Wauwautosa, WI

October 25, Lakefront Discovery Run 15K* on Milwaukee, WI

November 9, Jingle Jungle 5k with RunDisney in Florida
November 9, Wine & Dine Half wiht RunDisney in Florida^


*  These are the races in the Badgerland Strider Challenge
^  These are the races in the runDisney Coast to Coast Challenge

New motivation found...

Seems my posts from my iphone have not made it to the actual site.  Hhhhmmmm… I will have to look into that!

I have been a busy beaver here in my little corner of the world.  The weekend of March 5, I was at the AMTA-WI Chapter Spring Conference.  I was elected as the chapter secretary for another 2 years.  Kind of exciting really.  I will blog about that another time.  Today I want to tell you of some awesome blogs I have found in the past few weeks!

First, I am not sure if I have linked up with Another Mother Runner here.  So I am going to plug them again.  I know I mentioned that I got to meet Sarah and Dimity in January at the Tinkerbell Half.  These two are awesome.  They are moms just like me trying to stay healthy and fit for their families.  Every Wednesday they offer a giveaway.  They have been following a mother runner on her marathon training every Friday.  Once a week they offer a Follow that Mother post and highlight a mother runner blogger.  I think this is how I found Jill.  Maybe I found her on Instagram or Pinterest…  At any rate, I am now getting her emails in my inbox.

Yesterday, I was reading over a challenge Jill at Fitness, Health and Happiness put forth.  March 20 is the first official day of Spring on the calendar.  Jill is hosting a virtual race to welcome Spring.  As I was reading about this challenge, I saw she is also hosting a 14 races in 2014 challenge.  If you know me at all I am up for a good challenge!  I have not taken the time to read through all of her race plans, but started to think about mine.  I think this is TOTALLY do-able for me.  I already have one race in this year and signed up for 8 more with Badgerland Striders.  Plus my friend, D and I signed up for the Disney Wine & Dine Half in November.  I am also going to do the Jungle Jingle 5K that weekend.  (It's all about the awesome medals!!!!!)  SO if I am counting right, that is 11 races right there.  Lets not forget the Run 4 the Paws in July, the my sister is the race director for and that I hope to make this year!  If I sign up for Jill's virtual race that would make 13!

That's it, I am signing up for both the 14 in 2014 and Jill's virtual race this weekend.  I will keep you posted.

Off N Running to yoga this morning,
AnnMarie