2013 November

Weekly Workout Recap: November 4th – November 17th

November 17, 2013 · By Kristin Smith · 3 Comments

It’s taper time! I’m kind of in denial that in less than two weeks I’ll be running a marathon. That seems insane. It is insane, actually. I’ll be honest, training has been hard. Work is still so busy and there’s not much I can do about it. I’m doing the best I can though. I’m starting to get really nervous about the race. I know I’ve done the training, I know in my head I can do it, but it still seems SO crazy. My next weekly workout recap will have the marathon results — AHHH!

Marathon Training – Week 17:

Monday – Easy 5 – Ran an easy 5 miles with the Moms Run This Town girls, I love having them to chat with along the way, makes the miles fly by!
Tuesday – Cross Train – Does a marathon house cleaning/packing session count as cross training??
Wednesday – Cross Train – I went to the Good Form Running Clinic at 1st Place Sports. We did a quick jog around the parking lot, nothing big. Planned to go to Power Yoga afterward at the gym, but the instructor was a no-show. It worked out since I had a mile long to-do list waiting for me when I got home.
Thursday - 7 Tempo (1 WU, 5T, 1 CD) – Didn’t happen. Had to work, then drove to Orlando for the runDisney Meet-Up. We did an easy 2ish miles (not sure on the exact distance or pace, didn’t wear my watch) around Epcot.
Friday – Rest – I ate and drank my way around the world! We had fun at the Expo and Food & Wine festival. Probably should have rested more, oh well!
Saturday – Wine & Dine Half – Ran 13.34 miles @ 10:01 pace. The race was great, I was not. I’ll get my race recap up soon, but it was definitely not a good night for me.
Sunday – Rest – We had the ZOOMA Training Kick-Off run this morning. I covered 3 a little over miles but I have no clue how fast, I ran 3/4 of the way then went back to try to find part of the group that got separated from us, but they went the wrong way and beat me back to the store. Still a fun time! More details on it soon!

Marathon Training – Week 18:

Monday – Easy 5 – Took a rest day since I was supposed to rest yesterday and I didn’t.
Tuesday – Easy 3 – Ran an easy 3 miles with my running buddy around the neighborhood – 3.33 miles at 10:31.
Wednesday – Cross Train – Power Yoga! Our normal teacher is still out so we had a sub and it was interesting. I enjoyed it, but it was a huge change from the normal, relaxing class. She had us doing hand stands and some crazy moves I’ve never done before. It was a nice change, but I miss our normal teacher!
Thursday - 4 Negative Splits 2/2 – I don’t think I did this and I don’t remember why.
Friday – Cross Train – I think I should just change this to a rest day on my calendar since I almost always bail. There’s a yoga class I really want to try on Friday’s, but it’s at 5:30, which is dinner time. I actually planned to go this week, but we went a picked up my wedding ring from the jeweler instead (I had to have it sized down).
Saturday – Long 12 – I totally bailed and spent the weekend with my family and I’m not at all guilty about it. Two of my friends had babies last week, so I baked cookies for both of them, took dinner to one, and got lots of baby snuggle time. Totally worth it and my legs will be even more rested for Space Coast.
Sunday – Rest

Previous marathon training workout recaps:

Filed Under: Weekly Workout Recap · Tagged: fitness, kristin, marathon training, run zooma, running

Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon Meet-Up

November 14, 2013 · By Kristin Smith · 14 Comments

I apologize in advance, because this post is pretty picture heavy. I tried to cut some out, but the folks at runDisney took SO many amazing pictures, so it was HARD!

I can’t tell you how excited I was when I received the email letting me know I was in for the Wine & Dine Meet Up. I attended the one in February before the Princess Half weekend and had such a great time. runDisney threw everyone for a loop this time around — usually they send out a few teaser tweets before the posting the info about the meet-up, but this time there was only one teaser followed pretty closely by the blog post going up! Funny thing is, I was thinking about it earlier in the day and went to their twitter page and saw the initial tweet. I thought it was odd that it was so early, but went on about my day. A few hours later, a friend of mine called in the middle of the afternoon, which was odd, so I answered and she basically squealed that I needed to hurry and get to the Disney Parks blog for the info and to send my email in right away. After a bit of fumbling, I managed to fire off emails for myself and my husband, then waited.. later that night, we found out that we were both in - YAY!

We had to do a last minute scramble to book an extra night at our hotel and to find someone to help out with the kids (thanks Jenn!) but Thursday afternoon rolled around, and we were on our way to Orlando. We checked into our hotel, got changed, and headed over to EPCOT to check-in for the meet-up. We were given wine colored runDisney shirts to wear for the night, and a fast pass for Test Track! I’ve never been on Test Track and we usually stay away from the more thrilling rides since we have little ones, so I was excited to try it out.

It was fun and I think Braden would really like it — especially designing his own car. We may be spending more time in EPCOT for our next visit to Disney Before heading over to Test Track, we met up with an old friend of mine and her running buddy, Andrea and Cori. The Food & Wine Festival was going on, so they checked out some of the food/drink kiosks and got some snacks, while I tagged along. Unfortunately, my stomach wasn’t playing nice most of the weekend so I didn’t get to enjoy a lot of the delicious food EPCOT had to offer. Boo to my belly!

We made our way over to Mexico, where a special area was roped off for our group to watch Illuminations. I’d never seen it before so it was fun to get the opportunity. I was surprised at how many faces I recognized from blogs that I read — but since I’m pretty shy around new people and I wasn’t feeling well, I hung back and kept pretty quiet. Blah!

Once Illuminations was over, we headed over towards America. We got to sample some yummy vegan wine and Trick’n Chick’n — a vegan chicken curry dish with a side of rice. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, but my belly revolted. I stuck to the hummus, pita bread, and fresh fruit. It was delicious!

We also had some time to visit with a few of the local celebrities! No trip to the Food & Wine festival is complete without a hug from Chef Mickey, am I right?

We all settled down and Farron Kelly and Darrell Fry took the stage to welcome us all to the first night time runDisney meet-up and to give away some nice goodies! Cori was lucky and scored a free entry into a future runDisney event — I may be just a bit jealous! They gave us an overview of runDisney in general, some information about the race weekend, and said that their big goal is to create races that make you feel good about yourself — they really do want every mile to be magic!

Next up, Tara Gidus and Jeff Galloway took the stage. They reminded us a few times how important hydrating before a race is and Tara offered some advice on how to fuel properly for a night race. I should have paid more attention to her, as my race-day fueling left a LOT to be desired. She said to eat light, eat often, and hydrate well. Jeff reminded us to start slow so that we could be the passer instead of the passee in the later miles. Definitely should have listened to his advice too.

Tara finished up by telling us about some of the health benefits of wine. She said it makes you run faster — that’s good news to my ears! We also learned that wine preserves memory and can help lower body mass and reduce belly fat — even more good news! Apparently moderation is key when drinking wine though and 5 oz is considered a serving of wine? And no more than one per day is recommended for the ladies? Boo!!

Next we heard from some of the chefs and a sommelier responsible for the food and wine offerings at the festival this year. I was really hoping that my tummy issues would be short lived so I could try some of the delicious stuff they were talking about.

We got confirmation that there WILL be a new runDisney/New Balance shoe for 2014 and they gave us a few details about it. The 2014 shoes will have race specific inserts and lace decorations to customize your shoes for each race weekend. Fun! New Balance gave away a few pair of the 2013 model, and I hope you got your hands on them at the expo if you wanted them, because it was your last chance!

Last on stage was Jenny Simpson. She ran the fastest mile this year in 4:19 in her New Balance shoes. That’s crazy fast!! The fastest I’ve ever run a mile was just under 7 minutes and I wanted to lay down and die when I was done! Since the race fell on Veteran’s Day weekend, runDisney invited a service member from each branch of the military to run. After they were all up on stage, they received (a very well-earned) standing ovation. I may have teared up, just a bit.

Finally, it was time to run! This is the highlight of the event for me — I absolutely love running through the parks after they’re closed with such a small group. We split into two groups – the first ran 20/20 intervals with Jeff Galloway and the second did a straight run at a relaxed pace (I’d guess somewhere around 10-10:30? I wasn’t wearing my watch so I’m not sure.)

It was really nice having my husband along for the ride this time too. The last meet-up I was on my own. Even though we don’t run races together, it’s fun to do these types of events together. He kept giving me a hard time because I wasn’t really running with him — I think he’s full of it, almost every picture of us running has us together

We made our way up to the front of EPCOT and took a group picture in front of Spaceship Earth. I have to tell you, I was impressed that they fit all of us in! There were 125 participants this year, the biggest meet-up runDisney has hosted yet! I really hope they keep the group size on the bigger end so I have a chance of getting in for the next race weekend too! Can you find me??

After the big group picture, we split into our run and run/walk groups for a smaller photo. Adam and I decided to do the straight run, here’s the rest of the group. The girls in the coral colored jackets are a group of bloggers that were there with New Balance — I had total jacket envy every time I saw them over the weekend. I kept telling Adam he needed to stop by the New Balance booth to pick one up for me, but the $175 price tag and the shopping spree at the lululemon outlets over the weekend made him tell me no. Maybe next time

We did a quick jog up to the front of the parks, where Farron Kelly did a quick toast to the weekend and thanked us all for participating. His toast was really cute, I wish I could remember it.. but I have the worst memory.

This picture makes me laugh — I held the champagne flute for the picture but couldn’t drink it. Thankfully I had Adam there to help me out, he’s always ready to take one for the team

Thanks for a great time runDisney — here’s to a great weekend!

Filed Under: Running · Tagged: adam, disney, friends, kristin, runDisney, running

Happy Halloween!

November 13, 2013 · By Kristin Smith · Leave a Comment

I know, I know.. we’re almost halfway through November and I am just now posting Halloween pictures. Mommy blogger FAIL.

Forgive me, work has been kicking my butt and I’m struggling to keep the four (five counting Buddy) of us alive, fed, clean, and living in a somewhat tidy house. Plus that whole marathon training nonsense. I promise the cuteness in these pictures makes up for the delay (or maybe I’m biased, but either way, I hope they make you smile)!

Last year, I ended up all stressed out over Halloween. There was a costume parade, neighborhood party, pizza delivery that never got delivered.. it was fun but way too much stress. This year, we decided to keep it simple. I made a big pot of chili in the crockpot (and we pretended it was a nice, cool night to enjoy chili, it wasn’t) and we had my parents, my brother, and his girlfriend over for dinner and to help pass out candy while we took Braden and Mackenzie out.

Have you ever seen a cuter Spidey and Minnie? I haven’t! We inhaled our food and quickly got out the door so I could take some pictures before we headed out. It was driving the kids crazy, they could see their buddies already trick or treating and I was making them wait for pictures.. geezzz what kind of mom am I? You two will thank me when you’re older!

We’ve been practicing saying “Trick or Treat” with Mackenzie. She’s not at all shy so I figured she’d run right up to the houses and belt it out while Braden, who tends to be the shy one, hung back and followed her lead. I was wrong. Braden remembered all of the delicious candy that he acquired last year with a simple “trick or treat” followed by a sweet “thank you” and he took the lead while Mackenzie hung back and stayed quiet. Like usual, I was wrong.

Braden was having a blast, even saying “trick or treat” for Mackenzie when she was too scared to say it and asking for candy for her when people were slow to hand it to her. I love how he looks out for his baby.

We took both kids around the block, as we made our way back toward our house, Mackenzie had enough. She and I stayed behind at our house to help pass out candy while Adam and Braden took off down the street the other way.

We didn’t see them for a long time.. like long after the crowds of trick-or-treaters were gone. I started to get worried and called Adam, he said they were fine, B was just having a blast and didn’t want to quit. They finally made their way home with an overflowing pumpkin full of candy.

This year was so much more fun for all of us and a lot less stressful. I’m slowly learning that I need to stop over-scheduling and trying to cram so many things into a day. The world won’t end because we miss out on one event and sometimes, we have more fun on our own. It’s hard, I want our kids to have it all.. but sometimes it’s better to just scale things back and enjoy the little things.

How was your Halloween? What did you do?

What was your favorite costume?

Filed Under: Us · Tagged: adam, braden, family, halloween, holiday, kristin, mackenzie

Twenty Mile Weekend!

November 13, 2013 · By Kristin Smith · 7 Comments

I’ve been scared of this weekend ever since I added “Long 20″ to my training calendar this summer. The idea of running 20 miles seemed beyond crazy and completely outside of my comfort zone. I started stressing as it got closer because it looked like I was going to have to do it on my own too, and we all know how that goes. Blah!

I posted on my personal facebook page kind of joking asking who wanted to run it with me. I figured if nothing else, I may be able to get a few of my runner buddies to run a few of the miles with me and if I planned it well, I’d only have to cover a handful of the miles completely solo. I got lucky and one of my friends (the one whose group I’ve been running with) needed to run 14 miles this weekend and was looking for company too! SCORE!

She was planning to run a bit faster than I was, but agreed to slow down just a bit so we decided to meet at Starbucks at 6AM on Saturday and I was actually kind of excited. Honestly, I just really wanted to be able to post a picture of my Garmin showing I ran 20 miles with a bit “I DID IT!!” Yeah, I’m a nerd like that.

Since I had to run an extra 6 without my friend, I decided I’d get up at 4:30AM so I could get a few of them in before I met up with her. I woke up and heard water running.. I figured there was a leak or something. It never crossed my mind that it may be raining. I rolled over, grabbed my phone to check twitter, instagram, facebook, and the weather.. I was not so pleasantly surprised when I saw that we were in the middle of a pretty heavy downpour and it wasn’t letting up anytime soon.

I considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but I knew my friend would be there waiting for me so I got up, got dressed, and headed downstairs for breakfast and coffee. I texted her to make sure we were still on and checked the weather again. The storms were supposed to clear out by 7AM so we figured if it was bad, we could just hang out at Starbucks ’til they cleared.

Note to self – weathermen don’t know it all. When they say the storms will clear out by 7AM, the storms probably won’t clear out by 7AM.

It poured on me the entire way to Starbucks. Not a nice, refreshing rain.. a down pour. We figured we’d be waiting around for a long while if we tried to wait out the storms, so in true BAMR fashion, we headed out for our long run in the rain. Thankfully my friend knew the area well because thanks to the cloud cover, we were running in the dark for much longer than normal. Running in the dark also meant that we couldn’t see the puddles ahead of us until after we ran through them. Yeah, 20-miles in soggy clothes and soggy shoes.. are we having fun yet?

The run itself was actually really fun. We had a lot to catch up on and eventually we were so soggy and waterlogged that the rain really didn’t bother us anymore and was kind of funny. We did learn that when your running clothes are soaking wet, it’s better not to try to pull them up and mess with them, because if you do, then you’ll spend the rest of your run trying to hold them up. And also, we should get cross training points since we basically swam part of the way and were pretty much running with an extra 10 pounds on us from our wet clothes and shoes.

We made our way back to Starbucks and I was on my own for the last six miles. I changed into dry socks since the rain had let up some and stretched out for a bit, then took off again. I’m so glad that I had body glide with me or I would have been beyond miserable. My wet shoes and wet foot plus dry sock was a chafing nightmare. I stopped after about half a mile to coat my foot in body glide, the finished up the rest of my run.

Then, I got to post this lovely photo, because we all know it didn’t happen if you don’t post a picture of your Garmin, right?

Meeting at Starbucks was a really great idea (for me, maybe not for the other Starbucks customers) because when I finished running, I was freezing and wet and hot coffee sounded amazing. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a drive-thru so I went in to get my drink (venti non-fat no whip salted caramel mocha-YUM!) and had to stand in line. I was so wet that there was a puddle under where I was standing. Oops!

I was surprised at how great I felt afterward. Nothing hurt, I wasn’t really sore, and I really felt like I could keep going for a while longer. My pace was pretty decent too. I think what really helped with that was that we were running intervals. My friend typically sticks to 4:1 (4 minute run, 1 minute walk) intervals and picks the pace up quite a bit when she’s running. I’ve done the intervals with her for my last few long runs and I’m always surprised at how little I hurt when we’re done. I’m trying to decide if I should plan to do intervals at Space Coast — I’m thinking maybe 5:1 or 6:1. Typically I walk through the water stops at races, so that’s kind of an interval, just a much longer one. I need to think about how I want to do this.

So now, it’s taper time. I’m really looking forward to 12 miles being my long run for the next few weekends — crazy that 12 miles isn’t really a long run for me now. Yikes.

I’d planned to spend the rest of the day relaxing at home with my babies. It’s Florida/Georgia weekend in Jax (huge football weekend, for the non-fans) and I wanted to watch the game and spend a lot of time in my compression capri’s with these two snuggle bugs.. (please pardon the lack of makeup!)

Sadly though, since work is so busy right now, this is how I spent the rest of my day.. at Panera in a not-so-comfy chair staring at the lovely website that we’re currently in the process of taking over (it’s a government site and I can promise you, it will be a million times better than the crazy Obamacare one!) and documenting every error message I could possibly come up with, then matching it up to a spreadsheet they sent us. It was quite possibly the most boring way ever to spend a Saturday afternoon.

I called it a day around 8PM and headed home to watch the Florida State/Miami game (GO NOLES!!) and fell asleep a little after half time. Mackenzie usually wakes up at some point during the night and Adam gets her and puts her in bed with us. I woke up to her throwing up in our bed around 1AM. I grabbed her and ran to the bathroom with her while Adam got the bed cleaned up. I spent the rest of the night alternating between rocking her in the chair in her room and attempting to sleep on the floor next to her bed so I could be close if she got sick again.

Thankfully the vomiting didn’t last, but the poor little thing was miserable all day Sunday. Our usually crazy-happy little girl spent the day either cuddling on the couch with one of us or sleeping and fighting a fever. There’s nothing worse than having a sick little one when there’s really not much that you can do for them. She perked up that evening and seemed to feel better. By bedtime, she was back to normal and thankfully was kind and didn’t share her sick germs with the rest of us!

Have you ever alternated between straight runs and interval running? Which works best for you? How do you decide which to do?

Is this evil stomach bug going around near you too? I think half of Braden’s school has been out with it!