Happy New Year

Welcome to 2017!

Remember me, Mama Kolb?  I feel as though I have been away for far too long.  Lots of changes in my life since 2014. Remember back then????  Life was simple and I was running and ... then I fell and broke my wrist!

God sure has a crazy way of changing the direction of your life.  After I ran the Wine and Dine Half Marathon, my neighbor/friend called me up looking for help at her office job.  I have known Mrs. P for at least 8 years now.  We met either on the massage table or at church.  She lives maybe 3 blocks from me.  She and Mr. J introduced us to dog fostering!  Well, anyway, when she called me way back in 2014, all I knew was she worked in an office.  I did not know where or what she did. She called me because she needed help for a week during Insurance Open Enrollment and maybe for a few other odd jobs. I took the job, thinking it might lead to something more, but oh well if it didn't.  

It did lead to more.  And thank goodness because maybe two weeks after I started I fell and broke my wrist.  I had to have surgery and couldn't do my massage job so this was great.  

Fast forward to October/November of 2016.  Something in me had had enough.  I heard blips of stories saying sitting at your desk was as bad as smoking!  What?!?!  Over the past two years, I put on at least 30 pounds.  A year ago, I signed up for a running challenge: to run 2016 miles in 2016. One of my massage clients and I made a team: Running Yogis.  (I was running and doing yoga a year ago.  That has since stopped, too.)  We were excited.  (Side note:  I ran the Lakefront Marathon in October 2015. It was painful.  Training was hard both mentally and physically.  I didn't lose any weight!  It was frustrating.  I needed a goal.)

I slowly got into a running grove again, but everything hurt.  I developed a leg issue.  I believe it is an IT band thing and saw a doctor about it. Starting Physical Therapy next week!  So by August of 2016, I stopped running.  Not sure how many miles the Running Yogi team really completed of the 2016, I only contributed about 500.  ☹️

Sometime in September or October, my Ironwoman neighbor found out about a new gym opening in our area.  Has anyone heard of Burn Bootcamp?  She won a free month trial and I signed up for their 30 days for $30! Man has that been tough. But amazing!!!!  I didn't lose weight but did lose inches.

This class/gym got me to thinking about my family, my lifestyle and my real dreams and goals. I decided that I need to focus on my health and my family again.  So, I gave my notice at my office job.  Starting next week, I will be working more at the Wisconsin Athletic Club. 

Today, January 1, 2017, I am working on my plan to become a better me. I am going to start with my diet.  I had success years ago with Marilu Henner's Total Health Makeover. So, I dusted off the books I have and started reading them this last week.  The 30 Day Makeover started on Wednesday.  Now to get my menus together and get some groceries to be successful.

Off n Running,

AnnMarie

PS.  I wrote this early today.  It is now 5pm, and the kids and I wrote up our 2017 Goals.  I will post about them tomorrow!  One of my goals is to get back to blogging.  Wish me luck!

November trip continued...

We had a busy day in front of us.  The race start time for the Jingle Jungle 5K at Animal Kingdom was set for 7am.  They asked that all of the runners be there an hour before the start.  What a fun morning this was.

The moon greeting us in the early morning!

 
We all got to see the sun rise.  We found the Port-O-Lets and then the sun was up enough to take some pre-race photos.  Dancing Princess was Minnie Mouse for Halloween.  I had gone searching for a dress for her costume and found one for me!  I have never worn a costume in a race in my life!  This definitely was a first.  And I have never worn a dress in a race either.  I did buy the polka dot leg warmers for the race, but made the ears for Dancing Princess and all the Mickey Hands for everyone.

They had "Snow Machines" going.  In the photo here you can sort of see the snow falling.  I am sorry I didn't get more of the costumes in this shot.  They were really awesome.

A bad shot of the starting line.  Sorry, I am still perfecting my smartphone shots.  

Mickey was there too!

  What I loved about being in Corral A was that there were NO LINES to take photos with characters!  I came over a little knoll in the course and there was someone waiting to take my camera and capture this AWESOME shot!  Goofy as Santa, perfect.  You can see my costume a lot better here!  (Side note:  A client of mine borrowed me this belt.  I saw the company at the expo and they showed me how to use the bib number ties!  No more pins for this lady, I have to get my client her belt back after I get one for my self, of course.) ;)

  You can see the yellow cones on the right side of this photo.  We took our picture and turned around to head back toward the park.  As we did, I saw all of these hot air balloons.  What an amazing site that was.  Along with the beautiful sunrise and sky, what a great morning for a run. 

I think there might be some mist coming off this little patch of water.  There was a man dressed as a Safari guy holding off crocodiles along this stretch of road too.  

I know I used the Strava app to log this mileage, today was day 99 in my challenge to myself!  What a fun way to mark this special day.  This was not a timed race.  The medal is really a rubber and I think it would be cool if it were really a magnet for my fridge.  LOL!  

I know after we all finished our events, (one of Deanna's kids ran their first mile race and had so much fun!  Way to go everyone.) we headed back for lunch and naps.  The half marathon start time was at 10:00pm.  We knew we would have to wait awhile before the gun went off, so most of us took naps.

  We are ready and at the bus stop.  The forecast called for rain.  We were hoping it would hold off until midnight or so, that way neither one of us would have to run in it for too long.  No such luck.  It was a sprinkly, spitty kind of rain.  I was getting wet and Deanna had to wait longer to start.  I prayed she would keep her feet dry before the race and I avoided as many puddles as I could during.  

A bad picture of the starting line.

My medal, bib and t-shirt.

Tink medal, Wine & Dine medal and Coast to Coast medal.

The rewards from the weekend!

Here are the finished run shots.  Because of the rain, I couldn't get my smartphone to take pictures with my cold wet fingers.  The Epcot photo was taken by SwimChick.  

If I could, I would definitely do this race again on a non-rainy night.  My official time for this half even in the rain was 1:59.01.  I can't believe I came in just under 2 hours.  I was soaked.  I was given a special wrist band to collect my Coast to Coast medal from a special tent.  Even in that tent, I didn't feel warm.  I collected my gear and contemplated going to change into dry clothes and wait for Deanna.  I waited for her at our designated location.

I am so thankful for the lady who gave me her foil blanket, it helped some.  And even more thankful that Deanna finished un-injured and said she just wanted to go home and get warm.  Part of me is sad we didn't take in the party.  Honestly more of me was happy we could get on a warm bus and go home to a hot shower.  In hindsight, I would go change next time and find a dry place to wait.  And I should have taken a HOT bath when I got home.  

This race ended after midnight for me, so I counted it as my 100th day of running in a row, too!  What a fun way to do that.

During this race, I did not see many characters out.  Deanna said there were long lines and lots of characters.  I did see places where I thought there might be characters, but they were not there as I trotted by.  I am thinking they brought them earlier and took them in to warm up and get dry costumes!  LOL!

The next morning, most of us went to Downtown Disney and played at Disney Quest.  My kids LOVED it.  On Monday, we went to Animal Kingdom Resort for a delicious breakfast.  Yummy food was had by all.  That night was the Very, Merry Christmas Party.  My family was so excited.  I highly recommend going and hope to do it again another time.  We saw fireworks, light shows, and an amazing parade.  I have never seen a Parade that smelled of Christmas!  Really as floats went by you could smell cookies and Christmas trees!  We got to eat all kinds of Snickerdoodle cookies.  Dancing Princess loved them so much she asked if we could make those cinnamon cookies when we did some cookie baking for Christmas.

What I am excited to share most is that Deanna completed an amazing goal of running 4 half marathons in one year!  Considering she had not done one ever until we went to California for Tinkerbell, that is an amazing thing!  

My next most exciting thing to share is that 2 of my 3 kids want to run a Disney Half marathon and 1 wants to do a shorter race!  So we are now starting to save up for 2017 or 2018!  

Off N Running,

AnnMarie

My training partner...

My beautiful bike, a birthday/mother's day gift one year.

                                   

We got the bike trainer back!  

So, my DH, I love him but…  A couple of years back, he had this contraption called a bike trainer.  OK, for those who know me, I am a farm girl.  I didn't have a good place to learn to ride a bike except for the grass and gravel roads!  I didn't know the difference in bikes until I graduated from college and some of my track and cross country team mates started something called cross training and triathlons.  What the heck is all that about?  I just ran.  

Fast forward back to this contraption my DH bought/inherited from someone, I can't even remember the story correctly.  Anyway, he got this thing, set it up one winter in the basement and used it maybe two times.  (Honestly, he had good intentions.)   He complained that it was crooked and clicked and was too loud and…  You get the point, I hope.  It collected dust in the corner.  Then two winters ago, he insisted that he would use a trainer all winter, if it worked correctly, to be prepared for riding into work all summer.  (In my head I thought YEAH RIGHT!!!)  So off to the bike store he went and came home with my new training buddy!  

Last winter, after I finished the Tyranena Half Barrel race.  I rested a few weeks, then my body started to morph back to flabby.  He had set up the trainer and used it a couple of days/weeks.  I asked him if I could use it and one morning before he went off to work he hooked my bike up to it.  Isn't she pretty!!!!  I used it quite a bit in February and March of last year to get back into sweating again.  Then the snow melted and I met with D to encourage her to start running and the next thing I knew the trainer was back in storage.  I completed 3 half marathons last summer and it was AWESOME!!!!

Here we are in this weird fridged winter in WI and I do not have the right winter gear to be out in the elements.  Summer clothes are sooooo much easier to come by, anyway, I am getting off topic.  And my DH lends the trainer out!  YOU DID WHAT?  I thought!  That is my training buddy, how dare you do that without talking to me and getting approval!!!!  OK calm down AnnMarie, I can go to the club and use their bikes and elliptical trainers for rehab.  That was ok for awhile, but the 10 minutes to the club and 10 minutes back cuts into my training and sleeping time.  SO, we had to ask for our trainer back.  

I set her up on Tuesday.  Today, Friday is my 3rd day of using her!  She is going to get a few good 45 minute rides in this next month as I get this leg/butt thing figured out.  Welcome back training buddy.  See you again tomorrow.

Off n Running,

AnnMarie

45-minute challenge starts today!

Yesterday was a fun filled 45th birthday.  I decided I have to beat the winter blues and get my body healed.  Staying inside is not fun!  So I set a goal, I small about those, and I do not want to disappoint my kids or myself.  

The challenge:  Do at least 45 minutes of exercise a day for the next 45 days, plus.  I picked 45 because it is my new sassy age.   Last summer, during a run, I did something to one of my butt muscles and it is still bothersome.  During this 45 day health kick in the pants, I WILL be searching out doctors and other healthcare providers to figure out what I did and how to fix the problem.

The challenge:  Clean up my diet!  I truly believe I have a Candida overgrowth in my system.  I currently have toe fungus  (eeewwww), and crave sugar ALL THE TIME.  The past two or three

 days, I have woken up with a yeasty smell on my hands.  Gross!!!!!  

So here we go....  I chose the bike today because it does not agrivate my butt too much! And I can blog and read while on the stationary bike too.  Almost at 40 minutes in and read my devotion, worked up a good sweat and finished this posting.  Not a bad start to my day.

Off N Running,

AnnMarie