Family, Food & Fun

Turkey, Indian, Chef

Pilgrims

Thanksgiving week was filled with family food and fun.  All of my children were home from college for the holiday. Thanksgiving morning started with a 5K Turkey Trot in downtown Orlando.  We decided to run in costume this year and ended up with two pilgrims, a turkey, an Indian and a chef.  The Trot was fun, although crowded. We planned on finishing all at the same time for a good photo finish, until my daughter, Caroline, decided she would bolt ahead at the very end to beat us all.  She has done this to me once before and she fooled me again!  Of course, she thought she was very clever. 

This is an event that has become a family tradition and on a day of feasting, it makes you feel good to get some exercise in.  We spent the rest of day, cooking then eating a delicious meal.  Thanksgiving food is some of my favorite - I love stuffing the most.  Our menu included: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, spinach-broccoli casserole, homemade yeast rolls and pumpkin dump cake. There was a lot of food!

It's hard to believe that I woke up hungry the next morning, but I am glad I did.  We headed to keke's, a local cafe, for breakfast. 

This time of year they serve pumpkin pancakes with cinnamon butter.  Mmmm!  Everything we ate was excellent! They have the best home-fries too.

Pumpkin Pancake

Florida Pancakes

Greek Omelet

Scrambler

We headed to the bowling lanes next.  I can't remember the last time I hit the lanes and you could tell.  It took all I had to earn a score of 99.  My forearm was tired and I was a little sore the next day.

We spent the remainder of the weekend playing board games, Guitar Hero and hanging out.

I was sad to see it all end. I am so thankful for my family!

Callie, Daisy and Marbles

Even our cats got into the holiday spirit !

On a side note...the Running Chic's hoodie I won from Run, Fat Girl, Run arrived in the mail today!!
I cannot tell you how cute it is and how much I love it.  I got this great little tote too.  It made my day!

Marathon Training Week 14

Thirteen weeks down and seven to go!  My 16 mile run this weekend kicked my butt!

I got started around 6:30am. The path I chose dead ended at 7.5 miles so to go out and back I needed to add a little more to the front end.  I started the run with an extra loop around the neighborhood, so I wouldn't have to run right up to my front door step on the return, but would finish farther out with a nice walk to cool down.  I estimated it would take me about 3 hours to finish.  I am working on staying in a specific heart rate zone and I need to run about 11 minute miles to stay in that zone.

On mile three, I encountered some sprinklers watering the sidewalk, so I had to detour or get wet.  I did not want wet feet this early and decided to run on the grass in between the curb and the sidewalk.  This section runs alongside a pretty busy road, so I did not want to run in the road.  I wish I had, the grass was very uneven and I ended up tripping and started to fall.  I caught myself with my hands, just in the knick of time, but scraped up the palms of my hand.  It shook me up a little but I was lucky it wasn't worse.

 At mile six I really wanted to walk, I felt like I had been running a long time and was not as far as I wanted to be.  I passed 4  runners who were on their way back from the turnaround and  felt like the whole world of runners was going to be done before me.  I was having quite a pity party.  I pushed through it and kept running. I was getting into a very good part in my book The Confession  I was listening to on my ipod.  I found myself getting a little teary in a few parts which was weird and good as  it helped to keep my mind off of how many miles I still had to run.

I wore my fuel belt and had three bottles filled with orange G2, one with water and some cherry Honey Stingers in the pouch. I have found that drinking G2 during longer runs prevents me from getting headaches after running.  It has been a life saver!  I drank some G2 at miles 4 and 6 and then ate 5 honey stingers and some water at mile 9.  I wanted to stay fueled, but I don't seem to be able to drink too much on runs, unless it is very hot. I ended up drinking three 8 oz bottles in total.

I was finally on my way back after the turnaround and hit another wall at mile 12.  I so wanted to walk again, but how did I expect to run 26.2 if I couldn't even run 16?  I had a few conversations with myself about how this challenge is as much mental as physical.  I knew I would regret it later if I stopped, so I didn't.  I though about my expectations for myself and I don't want to just do it, I want to do it well.  I questioned my ability to  do that.  Am I setting myself up for disappointment?  Should I be happy with just finishing it?  I haven't made up my mind about that yet.

I was so sore and tired at the end of this run. The last mile felt like three miles.  My thighs were screaming at me to stop, especially my left one. I was relieved when it was over.  It was hard to walk normally when I was done.  I did manage to walk out some of the stiffness, but I wasn't sure what would happen when I stopped moving.

I took an epsom salt bath once I got home and realized my fuel belt had rubbed my skin raw on my stomach.  That was lovely...at least it didn't feel bad during, just when the water hit it.
Afterwards, wishing I had a compression body suit, I put on my compression socks, they felt sooo good!

My thighs have never hurt so much, but I have never run 16 miles before either. The pain I feel is my legs getting stronger, because I have to work up to 10 more miles byJanuary 9th.
I am thankful that this weekend's run is only 8 miles.  I need the rest to be ready for 18 miles the week after.   So the score after this weekend is Brain 1 - Body 0.

Here are the stats:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	02:57:21	16.01	11:04
1	00:11:35	1.00	11:35
2	00:10:54	1.00	10:54
3	00:10:50	1.00	10:50
4	00:10:40	1.00	10:40
5	00:10:32	1.00	10:32
6	00:10:38	1.00	10:38
7	00:10:29	1.00	10:29
8	00:11:12	1.00	11:12
9	00:11:15	1.00	11:15
10	00:11:18	1.00	11:18
11	00:11:25	1.00	11:25
12	00:11:28	1.00	11:28
13	00:10:51	1.00	10:51
14	00:11:02	1.00	11:02
15	00:11:20	1.00	11:20
16	00:11:32	1.00	11:32
17	00:00:11	0.01	17:36

Florida Hospital Celebration Health Founders' Day Race Recap

Parking lot shot before the race

This past weekend I ran the Florida Hospital Celebration Health Founders' Day 10K in Celebration Florida. Unlike most races this one was on Sunday, it couldn't have been a better day for a run with temps in the low 60s and sunny skies. I ran this race with my daughter and husband. This event offered  a distance dare by running the 10K at 7:30am and then running the 5K at 9:15am.  Since this was my low mileage week (only needed to run 8 miles), I passed on the dare and ran only the 10K  and then two additional miles after the race to get  in my 8.

The race course took us through the beautiful town of Celebration, Florida.  Right next to Disney World, it is a picturesque community with front porches and manicured lawns.  We ran by the hospital, golf course, school, movie theatre and waterfront.  A few of the residents were on their porches cheering us on.

My goal for the race was to finish in under one hour.  To do this I knew I had to keep a sub 9:30 pace. All this was easy to calculate because the day before I splurged and bought myself a Garmin Forerunner 410!!  This thing is amazing!  

It told me my current pace, elapsed time, mile splits as well as my heart rate.  Once I got home and downloaded the information to my computer it gave me even more details about my run. It makes me want to run more -  I absolutely love it!

So thanks to my Garmin here are the details on my race:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	00:56:43	6.18	09:10
1	00:09:23	1.00	09:23
2	00:09:18	1.00	09:18
3	00:09:15	1.00	09:15
4	00:09:26	1.00	09:26
5	00:08:56	1.00	08:56
6	00:08:54	1.00	08:54
7	00:01:28	0.18	08:01

I had a great run and I was happy with my time.  I am looking forward to my marathon training with my new running accessory!