2 on Tuesday

It is no secret that I love sweets and doughnuts are pretty high on the list of sweets I love.  Tasting Table recently did a post on the "10 Best Doughnuts in New York".  With the Whole Life Challenge going on right now, these (obviously) aren't allowed.  But, when it ends at the end of June, I plan on making it my mission to try each one.  I think it's a solid plan for summer.  1 per week sounds responsible right?

Here's a little known fact about me.  I love nail polish.  Like seriously, seriously love it.  I always have.  My nail polish collection in high school tended to be Wet 'n' Wild or Cover Girl, but now it's mostly Essie and OPI.  Or my new favorite line - Julep.  It is really great stuff.  The polish is a high quality, goes on smoothly and last for a while.  They have a monthly subscription program as well called Julep Mavens.  For $19.99/mo, you get either A). 2 polishes and a beauty product (has been eye shadows, blushes, lip glosses); B). 3 polishes; or C). 2 beauty products.  They have different style profiles and each month the boxes for each profile are different.  When you join, you do a quiz that recommends a profile for you, but each month you can change to a different style (if you don't like the colors in your box) or skip a month if you don't like any colors (or need more polish).  It's made my polish collection grow quite significantly, but I love it!  If you are interested in joining yourself, you can click here.

Full disclosure, the above link is a referral link and if you join using it, I earn Jules (which are Julep reward points).  I was not compensated by Julep in anyway for this post, I just really love their product and I hope you do too!  And thanks in advance if you do join via the link!

Training recap week of 4/28 (Grandma's Week 11)

Another week of training has come and gone.  Only 7 weeks to go!  I gave myself a down week (like seriously down) this week as coming out of Nike DC, I was feeling incredibly sore.  Things hurt that shouldn't have and there were some significant soreness.  I know taking a week so low is not ideal in the middle of a training cycle, but I really want to make it to the start line healthy (i.e. uninjured).

This week also included Expedition Everest Challenge which was a first!  It was fun and I'll have a full recap soon.

Monday

Scheduled: Rest

Actual: Rest

Tuesday

Scheduled: 3 miles easy

Actual: 3.14 mi, 35:13, 11:19 pace

Wednesday

Scheduled: Rest

Actual: Rest

Thursday

Scheduled: 3 miles easy

Actual: 3.08 mi, 31:20, 10:10 pace

Friday

Scheduled: Rest

Actual: Rest

Saturday

Scheduled: Expedition Everest Challenge

Actual: 2.9 mi, 27:53, 9:41 + 1.09 mi in scavenger hunt

Sunday

Scheduled: Rest

Actual: Rest

Feeling so much better after this week and ready to get back into it for the remainder of training!

Total miles: 10.21

Total April miles: 124.27

Total May miles: 7.07

Miles until goal (1,250): 823.12

Whole Life Challenge

I have not been so good this winter.  I don't know what it was, but I just decided it was okay to eat crappy all winter.  But now that it's getting warmer (I think... hopefully) and with marathon training in full swing, I've decided to get serious.

To that end, I've joined the Whole Life Challenge with some friends.  The main portion of it is around the diet.  There are 3 levels you can commit too.  I am doing the beginner, which has the least amount of restrictions.  You start with 5 points every day and then lose a point every time you eat a 'No' food.  Once you get to zero, it stops (you can't get negative).  I think having to be accountable and having my friends to see how I am doing will help me be better about my eating habits.

You can also earn points for doing other items - working out, stretching, taking vitamins and participating in the lifestyle challenges.  Obviously, the working out portion isn't an issue, but I think working towards the stretching points will be helpful.  I definitely slack on stretching, so this will be good.

I know it'll be a challenge, but one I am excited about as summer inches closer.

Anyone else participating in the Whole Life Challenge?

Race Recap: Lager Jogger 5K

A race that involves Yuengling?  Count me in!

Lager Jogger 5K
April 12, 2014

The race was on Saturday AM, so I headed to Philly to spend the weekend with Kasey on Friday night.  Even though the race started at 9am, we still needed to pick up our numbers (which ended at 8:30) - and oh did I mention it was 2 hours away?  So, a 5:30 wake up was needed.  It was hard to tell what the temp would be so Kasey and I basically brought like 3 outfits.

The drive was pretty easy, but did involve some pretty backroads.  Whoa rural PA.  They had provided plenty of information prior to the race, so we knew exactly where parking was.  All parking was free downtown so that made it easy.  We were able to park in the garage right next to the start.

After parking, we went and picked up our numbers and swag bag.  We got some nice shirts (although men's sizing, so even the small was big on us) and awesome pint glasses.  One side with the logo and one side with "Will run for beer".  My kind of pint glass.

After picking up our stuff, we dropped it in the car and headed to the start.  One last trip to the bathroom and off to the start.  They had the whole street blocked off for the race and it was pretty crowded.  There was a good turn out!

After the National Anthem, the race was started by the current president of Yuengling.  It was pretty great that he came out!

Since it was a 5K, I was hoping to race it to get an idea of where my fitness was at.  But, there was no elevation map online and I naively assumed it was flat.  Soooo not flat.

Almost the entire first mile was uphill.  It wasn't crazy steep, but still up hill.  After a brief (like 30 seconds) downhill, we went back up hill.  And then it turned and went up hill some more.  I was still trying to push it but didn't want to go to all out and hurt myself.

The last mile was downhill, but it was crazy steep and I took it easy because I was worried about tripping over my feet on the downhill.

In the end, I was pleased with my time.  Given how hilly it was (even though I didn't know it), I was happy with it.  It was hard, but I earned it.

The after party was also pretty fun!  We got two free beers with our entry and they had all sorts of food booths out.  We got a delicious philly pretzels (warmed on a grill) with yellow mustard (only yellow mustard, trust me on this one) and some Yuengling ice cream.  I got the 'Black and Tan' which was Salted Caramel and Chocolate.  Holy cow was that amazing!

very excited about that pretzel

The good stuff.  Seriously. 

We hung out at the after party for a bit, but had to head back to Philly around 10:30.  If you are in the area and are looking for a fun 5K (and like beer), I would definitely check out the Lager Jogger!

Results
Official: 3.1 mi, 25:36, 8:15 pace
Garmin: 3.18 mi, 25:38, 8:03 pace

Of course we had to take a photo in front of the giant blow up beer.run

Race Recap: Hot Chocolate 15K

I am going to ignore the insane weather going on.  It has literally been pouring all day.  I am so over the rain.  I am starting to forget what it felt like to be warm.  So frustrating.  Anyway, let's (finally) get to the Hot Chocolate 15K recap!

Hot Chocolate 15K
April 6, 2014

I had been looking forward to this race for a while.  I had heard good things about it and was looking forward to spending some time with the girls visiting Megan in Philly.

We ended down to Philly on Saturday afternoon and went straight to pick up our numbers.  It looks like other Hot Chocolate races have a real expo, but this one was basically a number pickup.  It was held at Philly Runner in University City.

We picked up our numbers and swag bags.  This race has a pretty sweet race hoodie.  It's nice and soft and very comfortable.  I also used a promo code when I registered so I got a nice travel coffee mug.  It's a good size and really cute!

Sweet travel mug

After picking up our gear, we headed to the hotel to check in quickly and then spent the rest of the afternoon with Megan and her adorable daughter Chloe.  After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

We got up early and headed back to Megan's.  Her place is really close to the start, so it made for perfect parking!  We weren't sure how traffic would be, so we left extra early.  It was fine for us.  Since I had to 12 on the schedule, I headed out a little early and got an extra 3 miles in.  It worked out perfectly since I could feel the weather.  It was warmer then we had thought, so I dropped an extra layer off when I went back to pick up Megan and Abby.

We headed to the race start and it was so well organized!  Dropping baggage off was super easy and there were tons of port-a-pottys with little to no wait.  It was really refreshing!

The race started pretty promptly at 9 and off we went!  The course wasn't anything special - an out and back on Ben Franklin Parkway.  Not the most scenic course, but it was on the water so that was nice.  Plus since it was an out and back, I got to see Megan and Abby on the course.  Always nice to see a friendly face out there!

I did the first 6 miles at goal race pace and the rest was supposed to be easy, but it was hard to pull back to mug.  I felt strong the whole time, so I am taking that as the positive.

After finishing, they had the chute set up well.  Water and gatorade easily accessible.  I was able to pick up my bag quickly and went to meet Pam (who was spectating with Chloe).

But the best part of the race is definitely the post race chocolate!  It included a cup of hot chocolate (which was some seriously good hot chocolate), melted chocolate for dipping, a marshmallow, pretzels,  graham crackers and a banana.  It was all delicious, but I would suggest using pretzel rods moving forward.  The tiny little pretzels were too hard to dip.

It was all really good.  I just wish there were more things to dip into it!  I am going to play a game of how many uses can I find for my hot chocolate finishers mug.

While eating all my chocolate we hung out at the finish line and waited for Abby and Megan to finish.  Everyone had great races!

We stopped for some cheesy photo's with Marshall the Marshmallow before heading home to Megan's to shower and head to breakfast.

All wearing our race hoodies

All in all, I would definitely recommend this race!  It was well organized, not too crowded and the race swag was definitely worth the entry fee.

Results
Official: 9.3 mi, 1:20:36, 8:40 pace
Garmin: 9.4 mi, 1:20:38, 8:35 pace

A bowl of yum.

2 on Tuesday: Expedition Everest Edition

How is it already Expedition Everest time?  It has seriously snuck up on me (we *may* have only just made dining reso's and fast pass plans).  I think it might have something to do with this being weekend number 7 of travel in a row.  That's a lot of travel in a row.

Even though it snuck up on me, I am really looking forward to going.  We'll be staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge which will be a first for me and having dinner Friday night at Boma (another first) which I've heard good things about.  I thought I'd use this week's 2 for Tuesday to talk about some Everest things.  It might be more then 2, but oh well!

First up, lots of information was posted for the event.  Here's what you can find on runDisney.com:

• Final Race Instructions
• Waivers

There are no corrals posted online, so I am assuming we'll find those out at number pickup.

Next up is the course.  I am really excited it is all in Animal Kingdom (okay, and the parking lot)!

Lastly, costumes.  Since the race is only a 5K, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do anything for this one.  And my recent schedule has not really allowed for any craft time.  I am just going to reuse a costume and I am pretty sure it is going to be my Incredible outfit from the 5K.  That one was really good and it'll be nice and comfortable for the after party.

Oh, and let's not forget about the after party!  Animal Kingdom will be open late and we'll be able to ride Everest (at night!), Kali River Rapids (which is always closed when we are in Disney, so I am super excited about this one) and others.

 Anyone ever done Everest before?  What can I expect?  

Race Recap: Run the Bluegrass Half Marathon

Don't miss my recap of our visit to the Run the Bluegrass expo! Now onto the race recap.

Run The Bluegrass Half Marathon
March 29, 2014

State: Kentucky (#15)
Lifetime: #44

One of the best parts of this race was the start time - 9am.  Since it wasn't crazy early and we didn't have to go far for the start, we got to "sleep in".  It was so nice!

After getting in some breakfast, it turned to a lengthy debate about what to wear.  The weather was calling for rain and it was only going to be in the low 40's.  I think all of us brought multiple outfits to the start to see how it would turn out.  Plus dry clothing to put on afterwards.

I ended up running in capri's, a long sleeve shirt and running vest.  With gloves and a headband to cover my ears.

We got to the start about 8:15.  They recommended everyone get there early since they had to close some of the roads.  We could see the start from the car, so we waited in the car as long as possible.  About 15 minutes before the start, we made our way over to it.

Even though we were so close to the car, I still checked a bag.  I wanted my dry clothing easily accessible and since I would be done first in the group, I checked the car key in my bag (since it was a rental, the keys and chain were huge and not feasible to run with).

After that, we quickly lined up for the start.  It hadn't started raining yet at this point, but there was heavy mist in the air and you could tell it would soon.  The race started promptly at 9am (which was great because I didn't want to stand around any longer then necessary!) and off we went.

The entire course was on the Bluegrass Scenic driving trail and went past lots of horse farms.  The course was hilly, but also incredibly beautiful.  The sites kept my mind distracted.  I was to run the first 7 easy and then pick it up for the last 6 if I was feeling up to it.  I won't lie, those first 7 miles were HILLY and I wasn't sure if I would be able to pick it up.  It was just continuous rolling hills.  Up and down, up and down.

The water stations were well spaced out and I thought the volunteers working them were really great.  Especially when it started to really rain around mile 8.  Tough to run out there in the rain, but even tougher to stand around.  Thank you volunteers!

The mile 7 marker was literally at the bottom of a big hill.  I decided to push it slightly up the hill and hopefully make up the time on the downhill.  I was going to just take each mile 1 at a time and focus on my pace for that mile.  No need to go crazy thinking about all 6 miles at once.  It was hard to hold the pace on the uphills, but the downhills balanced it out so the paces were all under where they should have been, so that was good!

It started lightly raining around mile 5, but really started to come down around mile 8.  It was also incredibly windy, so the rain was almost going sideways.  I was very happy to only be 5 miles from the finish.  The last 5 miles are kind of a blur.  I was so focused on not freezing to death and trying to take in the sites (keep my mind off the cold), I don't remember much.  I do remember picking up the pace for the last mile because I really wanted to be done.

Crossing the finishing line felt great - until I stopped moving and realized how cold I was.  I collected my medal, a water and gatorade as well as some post race food.  They had a great selection and were handing out bags to put all the food in.  So smart!

The medal is honestly one of the best ones I've gotten.  It was a nice heavy weight and the design was so detailed and really beautiful.  The race honors a different champion thoroughbred each year and they use their race colors for the shirt and ribbon.  The horse is featured on the medal as well.  This years horse was Zenyatta, so the colors were Tiffany blue and pink.

The race had organized a post race festival - band playing, lots of food vendors and beer (we got one included with our registration).  Obviously the rain forced everything inside.  It seemed like a lot of people hung out, but after getting my free beer and gear bag (and promptly changing into as much dry clothing as possible), I headed back to the car.  Back at the car, I put the heat on full, finally warmed up and waited for the other girls to finish.

Weather not included, I thought this was a great race.  It's unfortunately the weather was bad, but that is out of the organizers control.  I thought they did a great job - we got a really nice shirt and medal, the branding was cute, the expo was well organized and getting to and from the start was easy.  The race had worked out a great deal with the local Marriott (which was really nice hotel) and it was super affordable, which was appreciated by these out of towners.  They communicated well throughout the months leading up to the race and dealt with the rain well.  If you are looking for a Kentucky race, I highly recommend this one!

Results
Official: 13.1 mi, 2:00:52, 9:14 pace
Garmin: 13.09 mi, 2:00:57, 9:15 pace

Seriously beautiful medal!

Training recap week of 4/21 (Grandma's Week 10)

This week was a little better in terms of aches and pains.  I ended up taking Tuesday off to help with recovery.

It was good I did, because this week included state #16 - Nike Women's DC.  And for some even bigger news, I accomplished one of my goals this weekend, I set a new PR during the race, a 1:50:01.  I'll have a full recap soon, but it felt great.  It was hard, but makes me feel pretty solid for Grandma's (in just 8 weeks).

Monday

Scheduled: Rest

Actual: Rest

Tuesday

Scheduled: 5 miles easy

Actual: Rest

Wednesday

Scheduled: 3 miles at Half Marathon Pace (8:20), plus 2 mi WU and 1 mi CD

Actual: 6.03 mi total, 54:40

Paces: 8:14, 8:23, 8:14

Thursday

Scheduled: 4 miles easy

Actual: 4.00 mi, 39:44, 9:56 pace

Friday

Scheduled: Rest

Actual: Rest

Saturday

Scheduled: 2M shake out run

Actual: Rest

Between heading to DC and the expo, ran out of time.  Did do a good amount of walking to and from the expo though!

Sunday

Scheduled: Nike Women's Half Marathon (race effort)

Actual: 13.31 mi, 1:50:02, 8:16 pace

Total miles: 23.35

Total April miles: 121.13

Miles until goal (1,250): 833.53

Book Club Friday: Case Histories

I've been getting a lot of reading done lately, with all my travel lately, I've gotten some more time to read!

Time for another Book Club Friday!  This week I'm sharing Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night.

Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack.

Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.

Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge . . .

My Thoughts:

This book got some good ratings on Goodreads, but I (personally) didn't love it. I can't exactly put my foot on what it was about the book.  I liked it, but definitely didn't love it and it took me a long time to get into it.  This was the first in the series, but I don't think I'll be reading any more from the series.  It wasn't bad by any means, just not for me!

Run the Bluegrass Expo

Well, this recap is super late.  Remind me not to do races 4 out of 5 weekends in a row.  Anyway, let's dive right in.

The expo for Run the Bluegrass was held at Keeneland Race track.  This is where the start/finish also was held on Saturday, so we got to know it quite well.  It was a relatively small expo, but still had lots of stuff to check out!

We picked up our numbers first and then headed in to visit the vendors.  Stop number 1 was official race merchandise.  For a small race, they had a pretty good selection including special bottles of bourbon and horse themed items.  I picked up the official coffee mug for only $7 bucks.  It's huge and so cute, so great deal!

After official merchandise, we continued along our way.  Megan and I made a stop at Sweaty Bands and I picked up 2 new ones.  It was buy 1 get 1 free... so I could't resist.

They also had Heather Abbot at the expo while we were there.  After Boston last year, the race wanted to do something to give back.  The One Fund put them in touch with Heather who was injured while spectating.  The race made a donation to her recovery and all the participants had the option to donate as well.  She was the grand marshall for the weekend and was signing copies of her cover of Tops in Lexington Magazine.  She was super nice and I thought it was great that the race gave back.  Between the race and participants, they were able to donate $10,000 to her recovery fund.

After checking out the remaining booths (mostly local races and running stores) and getting our fill of samples (lots of local foods to try out!), we made our way to the t-shirt pickup.  When you registered, you had the option of a tank or short sleeve dri-fit.  I went with the tank.  I really loved the design... but the sizes were running really small!  Fortunately, they did let you exchange, but they only had a limited amount of sizes left.  I was able to get one a size larger, but the other girls were not.  They had more of a selection in t-shirts then tanks for swapping.

While we were at the swap table, we noticed they were selling some shirts for $5.  The woman informed us these were shirts from last year that were left over.  After looking at it, I realized it did not have a date on it!  I really liked it, so I grabbed one.  Nice race shirt for only $5!

It might have been a small expo, but I really enjoyed it!  They had a great selection of race merchandise at an affordable price and the expo was manageable.  Keeneland (where it was held) is also extremely pretty so it was nice to be there as well.

Up next - race recap!