Disney World’s 2013 Princess Half Marathon recap

I should have just saved this until tomorrow then it would have been a 7 day anniversary of completing the race.  I didn’t get a PR…didn’t even stay close to my existing PR.  I even gained a minute from my pooty performance at the Tinkerbell Half this January.  BLEAH!  Guess I need some motivation –

You gotta love the creativity behind those eCards.  Not sure if I totally need to have the bloody knife – the clown alone would freak me enough to make my legs keep moving while my brain kept telling them to slow down.  I did get my Coast to Coast medal at the end, pretty dang cool.

I promised you all a photo montage of the race and our family trip to Florida – so here it is.  Enjoy – we sure did.  🙂

This was the first trip to Disneyworld for 13yo and 11yo.  Sometimes it was hard to figure out if they were having a good time or not.  Teen & Pre-teen boys are on their own communication wave length.  HunBun gets more out of 13yo than I can…11yo likes to talk about randomness all the time so I have the patience to figure my way through and out of conversations with him.  😀

13yo’s favorite park was Epcot.  He loved the countries and Living with the Land.  He wants to be a scientist of some sort when he grows up.  I keep reminding him that Disney has really cool intern opportunities, so maybe when he’s old enough he’ll get into Disney (so I can reap all the benefits of 13yo being a future employee – WHEEE!)

11yo’s favorite park was Animal Kingdom and Epcot too.  They both loved visiting all the countries – although we didn’t get to all of them even with being at the parks for 5 days.  Weird.

We spent a day and a half at the Magic Kingdom.  There is a lot of similarity between Disneyland in California and the MK in Florida.  We do like the Haunted Mansion better in MK – the entrance is super cool and we totally loved the Escher-esque stairwells.  We took the boys to the Hall of Presidents – HunBun and I think that’s a great “ride” that has a great place to wait when you’re trying to escape the parade crowds.

Yes.  That’s me and the 13yo at MK.  Sometimes I can’t even believe how tall he is.  I have to remind myself he’s still my baby.  🙂

It was a great mini-vacation for us.  If you go to Disney World be sure to download the Disney My Experience app for your phone or iPad (although I think lugging an iPad around would be annoying after a while).  It’s like a lot of apps where you can see ride wait times and places to eat – the bonus is that if you sign in you can make dining reservations.  It was really helpful since the first time we tried to eat in France (Epcot) we were told we needed a reservation – DOH!  So I used the app and got us a reservation for the next night, much to 13yo’s great satisfaction.

Anyhoo…that’s about it for our trip and my race.

See ya later…

Cathy

 

Life makes living hard. .

So the last few weeks at work have been especially tiring… mentally and emotionally draining.  So much that at the end of the day I was grateful if I could get to yoga for a class. 

I was getting more & more anxious about the two Disney races I had coming up.  I hadn’t done the level of training I planned and didn’t eat as well as I normally do. So needless to say I was starting to doubt my ability to run the races.

So HunBun and I drove down to Disney early Friday morning.  The ride was pretty smooth. just a few F bombs from HunBun as fellow drivers weren’t following the rules if the road.  We switch seats at the Grapevine.. so I get to deal with the LA traffic.  🙂

We got to the park at 11and got something to eat.  I love the chicken salad sandwich on brioche that they have there.  They also offer a pretty good gluten free bun option for HunBun and his turkey sandwich.  Saw this….but didn’t eat it.

The 5k was Saturday morning at 545am.  I felt awesome and finished in 28:47!!!  I was super stoked and my legs felt great walking back to the hotel where HunBun was sleeping.  Hahahahaha.  Love the support!

We spent Saturday in California Adventure park and then headed back to Disneyland for the afternoon.  We were tired..from the drive..from the work week.  I grabbed a sandwich for dinner – chicken salad again and (here’s where I make a foolish decision) a seasonal cupcake.  This cupcake had chocolate mousse frosting on a chocolate cake with raspberry cream filling.  So decadent…but absolutely the worst thing for me to eat before a 13.1 mile run.

My Verizon service wasn’t working well so I have no pictures from the morning of the race. 

I started off good…then felt myself getting slower.  So I would speed up, then slow down.  When I heard Kanye singing Power at mile 10 I knew I wasn’t going to hit my goal time since he’s supposed to be singing that to me at mile 11.  Gah!

Well I finished strong.  Didn’t make my goal which was to cut 11 minutes from last September… instead I added 11 minutes.  Doh!

Finish time was 2:22.  But hey I finished right?  I had fun.  My HunBun was there for me at the finish.  What more can a girl ask for?!?

Plus I get one more chance to PR next month at the DisneyWorld Princess half marathon.  So as I stare at my medal I’ll take pride in my accomplishments. 

See ya later

Cathy

Weekend Update

What up Ladies!

Saturday was “race” day…remember the air quotes around “running” on the last post?  Well they were extremely appropriate.  I would say I averaged 10 minutes of total run/jogging time on this trail.  The rest would be better labeled as a power hike through the rolling hills of Danville, California.

We parked far away from the park and caught the shuttle the lovely folks at Brazen Racing provided for us.  (No photo – fail)  It took about 10 minutes to ride up the windy road to the race location.  I sat next to a gal that was running the half-marathon; hope she did really well.  It was super misty and chilly up at the top and it wasn’t your typical crush of people, which was nice.

 

Waiting for race start

This little one was so cute!  He did the 5K and was like a jack rabbit…running then walking then running then walking.  The funniest was when he would pass people he’d smile at them and say “Boo!”.  I can say, with confidence since this was my second race with Brazen, you have the nicest people setting these races up and the sweetest people running these races.  Everyone’s super chill and you can just start talking to random folks and potentially find your new race pal (Hi Belinda and hubby!).

We were the last group, as the 5K’ers so we said we were going to run until the first set of hills…well that was probably 4 of the 10 run time minutes.  So you know what we were facing here’s a little photo montage (pardon the blurries, I was actually trying to race here 🙂  ).

On the trail…single file now

I’m running here!

Winding, winding, winding up up up

Like climbing Everest

New friend Belinda!

It’s all downhill from here!

The one thing we wanted was to not finish last…not to be jerks – but you know…we’re jerks.  HA!  Another thing was that we didn’t want the half-marathoners to finish before us either.  So as we are heading down the hill for the last 0.5 miles of our 5K who do we see huffing it up the hill????  Dang HF’ers!   Wholly Guacamole!!!!  We were like, whu?!?  These dudes were like zoned in – breathe was loud and their eyes were just blazing forward.  We were in awe…like these 2 guys

We made sure to run around the last corner before crossing the finish line and picked up this Flavor Flav ready race bling!

Bling Bling

Flames and everything, right?!?  So now that’s hanging up next to my tough Trail Hog medal from last month.  It’s like a zoo in here!  🙂

Then we erased all the calories we just burned by pigging out at the post-race buffet.  (Why did I not photo that again, Argh!)  Smeared PB on half a bagel, grabbed some pineapple slices, a little cup of pretzel M&Ms AND the awesome cappucino It’s It ice cream sandwich!   EEEEEEEEE!!!!  That thing is so good!

If you’re in the Bay Area totally do the Brazen Racing series of local races.  They are the best folks, both putting it on and participating in them.  I’ve got a couple more through the end of the year…next one’s a 10K.  Whee!

After the race LiLo and I headed to Downtown Danville for a street fair type of deal – food and crafter booths.  (Of course no photos…although it’s more because my phone was ready to die on me but also because I forgot, DER).  We stopped and ate a grilled chicken caesar wrap – so YUM.  It also must have looked so Yum because we had 2 folks stop and ask us where we bought ours from.

Oh, I did get one photo.  The kids were doing safe trick’or’treating at the fair and I saw this coolio kid…

I’m a Minecrafter

10yo totally wants to make a Minecraft costume this year so we’ve been saving boxes like mad fools (you don’t realize how hard these are to come by until you need them).  So when I saw this kiddo walking by I had to ask his parents if I could snap a photo (and make sure they knew I wasn’t some perv skeeving out on their boy) so 10yo and I could use as a template.  The mom said she bought both of the things on Amazon!  Man, the things we spend money on now a days!

So that’s my weekend…and now it’s the week – so we’ll see how today goes.  It’s starting off cold and rainy – so howdy do Fall!

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Race Bib Pickup – Brazen Rocky Ridge

LiLo and I are “running” the Brazen Rocky Ridge 5K this Saturday.  I say “running” because this is the hilliest place we have ever seen!  (We didn’t know what we were signing up for, that’s for sure.)

Being the two supersmart gals that we are, this morning we met at the race spot to get a ‘lay of the land’ only to find that they closed the trail we’ll actually be on to set up for Saturday.  To feel like we didn’t waste our time we hit the Elderberry trail instead.  OM-stinken-G!!!!  If this isn’t the most vertical race route ever created! (Apparently it’s not, I ‘oogled “most vertical race route” and it spat back at me Badwater Ultramarathon, which starts at 280′ and ends at 8500′; so I guess I should stop acting like a baby.)

Las Trampas Regional Wilderness Park

We were huffing & puffing AND trying to carry on a conversation – like all good gal pals should.  We did look around (to make sure we weren’t ambushed by a cougar or a crazy person (I did watch The Hills Have Eyes you know) and the views are absolutely GORGEOUS!  I’ll be sure to take photos while we are “running”.  Ha!

Here’s a video of 2010’s race so you can have an eyeball into what I’ll be doing on Saturday morning.

After our morning “hike”, we drove to downtown Danville’s Forward Motion Sports to pick up our race bibs and so I could check out a pair of Mizuno’s for my upcoming Half’s.  With our race entry we got 15% off any purchase at FM when we picked up our stuff so I figured I would try to take advantage of saving a little dough.  In addition to my sweet new kicks I also joined the cult of water belts.

MIzuno Wave Rider

Yes I drank the water…while I carry my own water… HA!

I know, I know…why’d I pick the most obnoxious looking one?  Well the others looked weirder AND didn’t sit right on my waistline.  But really, the real reason for buying into the water belt idea is an article I read recently (Runners World or Active.com or some other super smartsy place) where a tip to reduce your run time was NOT to stop at water stations.  DER!

I always have to slow down to drink my water/’ade otherwise I will literally drown myself while standing up right on dry ground. (I think that was a CSI episode).  I mean have you ever tried to guzzle a dixie cup full of liquid while jog/running?  Your nose holes will be clean as a whistle if you try.  So I can totally agree with the article’s opine that if you don’t stop your race time will decrease.  (insert head smack here).

I won’t be using the belt for this weekend, but I will be using it for the Tinkerbell Half in January and the Princess Half in February…in addition to practice runs with my meet up group.

Anyhoo…super cool swag again and really neat-o t-shirt.  Enjoy the pics…beam your “fast” thoughts my way around 830am pacific time.

That’s me!

There’s the Swag’ger baby!

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

Trail Hog recap and this morning’s Eats & Sweats

Brazen Trail Hog 5K

Yesterday morning I completed my first trail run…even though I said I wasn’t doing it for time you know deep down I didn’t want to be a total schlub on my first race out.

I was 45th out of 156 with a pace of 10:52/min for a finish of 36:50.  That doesn’t sound too bad for my first one out until you look at the rankings and see that some 9yo kid finished 7th with a  7:40/min pace.  GAH!

I promised you some awesome running fashion and without further fanfare – feast your eyes on this slick combo!

No, I’m not color-blind.

Just to let you know how awesome these threads were…while I was on the run one of the camera dudes said “hey, nice socks”.  Woot Woot!  Oh, yeah!

Thanks to HunBun for getting up early with me and hanging out while I was on the trail.  He was a pretty good photo-logger.

It’s like you were there with us

My favorite is the one in the lower right corner…that’s my super white self – shining in the summer sunshine – it looks like I’m naked.  🙂

I’ll kick your patootie

At the end we got these wicked cool medals…this hog’s been working on his bicep curls!  Then we piled through the feed trough – I mean the buffet of a refuelers dream.  They were even handing out It’s It ice cream sandwiches!  EEEE!  I grabbed a cappucino flavor – unfortunately it’s a cookie sandwich so no ice cream for HunBun (insert sad face here).  I should have taken a picture of the food line – if that doesn’t motivate you to run I don’t know what would!  So after grabbing half a bagel (the MOST DELICIOUS bagel I have ever eaten – it tasted like warm garlic bread, SLURP), a little dixie cup of Skittles for HunBun, some Raw Energy bars that I’ve never tasted and some more water I moved over to the side to eat my ice cream sandwich and watch the rest of the 5K/10K participants come in.  While I was eating HunBun asked “do you have makeup all over your face?”..I said “no, it’s probably all the dust gathered in my tears”.   Hahahaha.  One take away – wear sunglasses on a trail run ESPECIALLY if you wear contacts!  My right eye kept tearing up and I was afraid my contact was gonna fall right out.  **10yo calls tears eye sweats – so for all you men out there it’s not crying it’s your eyeball sweating. 🙂

The Brazen racing team is THE BEST!  Made you feel completely comfortable and when the announcer asked who was doing their first trail run and a ton of hands shot up he got super stoked!  There were a couple of big hills I had to walk up – I’m not ashamed to admit it – but for the most part I kept my pace up and had a really great time.  I encourage anyone to try anything once…you might find your newest addiction that way!

Sunday Morning Eats & Sweats

This morning I had some instant cinnamon oatmeal (cleaning out the pantry last week unearthed some food that needs to be eaten), ungloopified by some unsweetened coconut milk, fattened up with some sunflower butter then flavored up with some cinnnamon and blueberries.  On the side I finished up the other half of the papaya.  Can’t go wrong with instant oatmeal (I stick to the high fiber version or the low sugar version – I don’t know why they don’t combine those two features..Come On Quaker!).  Well I should say you can’t go wrong IF you like oatmeal (unlike my Ann girl who can’t stand the stuff).

Our finicky little Keurig has been working for the past week (HOORAH!) so I added a cup of coffee whitened with unsweetened coconut milk then spinkled with this lovely find from Trader Joe’s  – a Chocolate, Coffee Bean and Sugar grinder!  Gives your morning joe a little extra howdy-do.  I enjoyed that in my Disney World cup that I got from our trip this past June.  Cheery!

Sweats

Today I did my Functional Workout from Tina Reale – who I have helping me out as a virtual personal trainer.  I was supposed to do this workout yesterday – but the 5K threw our day off schedule and I didn’t get to it like I wanted to.  So this morning I did 4 supersets at 45/sec each exercise after a 10 min stationary bike ride while I set up my interval clock.  Then I finished up with a 15 min speed workout on the treadmill.  My darn iFit is not connecting on my treadmill so I need to figure that out.  Bugger.

So that’s my weekend so far as Sunday’s still got some hours left in her.

See ya later!

Cathy

Trail Hog Bib pick up

Race Bib Pick Up

Sometimes GPS makes me feel dumber than ever.  I drove out to Road Runner Sports in Campbell to pick up my race bib for the Brazen Trail Hog 5K happening this Saturday.  First some nutter next to me decided he wanted to go straight EVEN THOUGH he was obviously in a turn only lane and I was also turning!  So after slamming my brakes and watching the nutter wiggle-waggle his steering wheel as he attempted to overcorrect his major fail THEN get back into his turn only lane (DONKEY) I blindly followed my GPS (giving him the stink eye as I drove past the goober) as it made me drive in a complete circle.  I finally just drove into the shopping complex with Whole Foods and pulled up Road Runner Sports on my phone – then after making another U-Turn found my way to their parking lot.  Criminey!

Swag Bag

I was surprised I got one and it was filled with some pretty useful stuff…and something I hope I don’t ever have to use.

I’m digging the Swag

 

Hoping I never have to use this though

I love the shirt and bib design for this race…it’s what really caught my attention and why I signed up.  Pretty slick, huh!

Get outta my way, I’m a Trail Hog

As this is my first trail run I’m being cautious and signed up for the 5K.  Brazen’s cool about letting you switch which race you want to compete in when you pick up your bib.  So I let the friendly gal know that I was sticking to the 5K (in my head I was saying “so I don’t faceplant or break something important the first time out”).  I’m super jazzed for Saturday to get here.  I’m going to convince HunBun to come with…to give me some cheerleading support and also so we could maybe hit some Eatery on the way back.  🙂

While at Road Runner Sports I also grabbed some super bright compression socks.  These’ll go great with my fancy new shoes I just got.  I’ll be sure to post a photo of my race day outfit…if it’s the stuff I think I’m going to wear it’ll be pretty darn colorful I tell you.

Aren’t you prettier in pink!

See ya later!

Cathy

What’s the coolest competitive event you’ve entered?

 

 

Disneyland Half Marathon – September 2, 2012

End of race photo!

Race Time Splits – Recap

5K     0:33:12     Pace: 10:41     Est Finish: 2:20:03     ETA: 8:17:56am

10K   1:03:49     Pace: 10:16     Est Finish: 2:14:35      ETA: 8:09:36am

15K   1:33:41      Pace: 10:03     Est Finish: 2:11:45      ETA: 8:09:36am

Finish   2:11:45    Pace: 10:01   Finish: 8:09:16am

Disney Half Marathon recap

Starting out early..

We left the house super early Friday morning…I think we closed the garage door at 4:45am.  The boys snuggled up in their blankets and tucked in for the ride down to Disneyland.  The moon saw us off…it’s amazing how bright it is when it’s pitch black outside.

Good morning sunshine

I-5 wasn’t too crowded when the sun finally joined us for the trip.  It was absolutely gorgeous to watch the sky brighten up and color with the morning rays.

We got to into Disneyland around 10:45am…the trip seems to take longer and longer every time.  I mean it’s not like they added any roads or anything so not really sure why the car GPS told us it was a little over 6 hrs to get there when we were pretty sure it was a little over 5 hrs a couple months ago.  We spent the entire first day in Disneyland – hitting up all the rides.  Seems everyone was over in California Adventure waiting 2 hours + for the new Carsland rides.  Good grief!  We all headed to bed early as 12yo and 10yo were joining me for the Carsland 5K in the morning.

AM to PM in 4 pictures

Saturday was California Adventure day…starting the morning with the Carsland 5K.  10yo took off running right after the start while 12yo and I took a jog/walk approach.  12yo’s not as into fitness as I’d like him to be but I was so proud of him for sticking to the j/w plan.  We crossed the finish at 41 minutes  – which is not too shabby for his first foray into racing.

We got fast passes for Carsland – can you believe HunBun and 12yo waiting 20 minutes for the fast passes?  10yo and I rode Tower of Terror twice while they were waiting AND got pictures with the Incredibles and Minnie!

Minnie’s adorable!

Check out those guns!

Sunday was Disneyland day…and RACE DAY!  I will admit I was a little worried about my run.  After 3 early mornings and 2 full days in the park my ankles and legs were feeling a little woogly.  I woke up at 3:45am and got dressed in the bathroom – while trying not to wake everyone up.  SMART TIP: Always set up your running doo-dads in a pile where you can just grab & go.  I had my clothes all set up on the dresser and my Garmin, Nano and Mickey Mouse visor right next to it.  That way I didn’t have to fumble around trying to find everything I needed.  I also put my Smucker’s PB&J pre-made sammy and bottle of water next to my pile of stuff.  I always eat a Smucker’s Uncrustable PB&J frozen sandwich before my Half’s – it works for me.

I headed over to the start at around 4:15am…we stayed off-resort this year so my walk was a little longer than usual.  This may have worked to my favor – got to warm up the legs a little with my trek across the way.  I did a lot of stretching and a lot of port-o-potty visits.  I’m always worried about having to stop and stand in long lines while on the route…so I visit the port-o’s a TON!  They changed the corral set up…I think it lost some of the excitement because instead of a long line of corrals they had a U shape…so A,B,C were in line with the start while D to the end were around the corner.  There was less screaming and cheering this year.

They had a lot of car clubs on the route this year…old cars, corvettes, mustang cobras – maybe to fit into the Carsland theme.  It was really awesome to see all the locals supporting folks they don’t even know.  The bands, cheer groups and dancers are always big energy boosters.  It was really hot this year so I stopped for water at every station…did my swish and swallow with the Power-ade and water to cut the sweetness.  I don’t know why they always choose blue Power-Ade…weird.

My Beans, Power-Ade and Water got me through the race and I finished at 2:11!  I was super happy with myself as I only walked during water stops (I tried running with water the first time and almost drowned myself with the water sloshing up my nostrils – definitely not attractive).

I’m a Winner!

I love the Disney races.  They are a ton of fun and I’m always ready to go to the parks.  I can’t wait to do the Disneyland Tinkerbell in January then jet off to Disney World for the Princess in February.  Hope you enjoyed this quick jaunt through our long weekend.

See ya later

Cathy

What did you do over the long weekend? 

 

Why so quiet around here?

So it’s been dead quiet on this bloggedy blog because the whole family was in Disneyland for their Half-Marathon weekend! Wahoo-ey!!!!

I’ve got a bunch of photos to load up for sharing. I haven’t entirely got the hang of mobile posting so I may need to read a primer of some sort. I also don’t fully understand all the fizzy whiz-bangedyness of the iPad (I am using for this post now) so if I want this bloggedy blog to be what I know it can be I gotta get up on it.

Enough moaning and groaning right?!? Think of this as a wet-your-whistle kinda post until I get on the old home PC tomorrow.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I improved my time with a new PR. Da-da-da-dah…..2:11:25 (according to Xact event alerts in my in-bin). Some room for improvement to get to my goal of 2:00, but overall totally stoked I did that well after 3 very early mornings and 2 full days in the parks.

So today is a REST day…it was yet another early wake up for the 6 hour drive home (with a stop at Anderson’s Pea Soup in Santa Nella – best apricot pancake syrup – for brekkie with HunBun, 12yo and 10yo). Catching up on emails, DVR tv and vacation laundry.

See ya tomorrow!

Cathy

Good Morning