It's the Little Things

After researching half marathon recovery I worked a recovery week into my training schedule so last week was full of a lot of Pilates, Yoga, and other stretching and strengthening exercises. Unfortunately they were also accompanied by too many cheat meals. Basically the "recovery" week reminded me that having a semi-short term goal is EXTREMELY important for me.

So, I registered for the AFLAC Iron Iron Girl Clearwater 15k, which will be held on April 10th! I was worried that I would have to scratch this race and do a shorter local one, since I still don't have a frigging job, but several people that I know are also running it and we are going to split the travel and lodging costs. The race course starts near Pier 60 on Clearwater Beach and runs over a causeway and back. The Clearwater area has some beautiful beaches, so this race should have some amazing views.

*Off topic: I cannot wait to see the Life series on Discovery!!!**

I only have 7 pounds left to reach my goal of losing 30 pounds by my 30th birthday and I want them gone so I have to follow my plan. For me, it's the little things that make me get out the door for a run. For instance, I plan my training runs for in an Excel spreadsheet and it drives me nuts when I can't go in and highlight the little cell to indicate that I've completed that days workout.

Another thing that's incredibly motivating for me is keeping track of my training runs on my bathroom mirror where I can't avoid it. This picture was taken back in January, while I was still training for the Princess Half:


Maybe I'm a bit of a nutjob, but I really didn't want to see the same number more than 2 days in a row, so I always made it out the door for a run, even if I ended up cutting it short. Since it worked so well for me, I decided to do the same thing for the 15k. Here's to Day 1 of training for the new race.



What tricks do you use to get yourself off of the couch on rough days?

The Aftermath

After running my half marathon, I was a bit worried about Monday. My friends who'd an their first half last year told me horror stories about barely being able to walk. Add on the fact that when I went to bed I was still experiencing a lot of hip pain and I just knew it was going to be a recipe for disaster.

But I woke up with a minuscule amount of pain in my hip and slight pain in my quads. The quad pain was nothing that a little Biofreeze couldn't help and the hip pain wasn't enough to impair my mobility... if you don't count getting in and out of my SUV on my way to Track Shack to pick up my 13.1 sticker.

I was still feeling good later that afternoon so, in typical me fashion I decided that I needed to do something and went for a 2 mile walk with my furbabies... I still can't decide whether it was a good idea or not because within a couple of hours of getting home it hurt to move my thighs at all. I rested all day Tuesday. And yesterday I could still feel some soreness and tightness in my thighs so I did some Pilates which really helped. I've decided that the only exercise I should do for most the rest of the week is light stretching. Which kind of sucks because I want to do the Zimmerman Distance Dare event on Saturday. Boo!!!

This week is flying by! On my SparkPeople and Twitter pages I usually post three things that I'm thankful for each Thursday so here goes:

1. Faith: Even though things are not perfect in my life I have this strong sense that I am on the verge of something great, so I'm not stressed and am still able to appreciate the joys in my life. And I jump out of bed excited to see what each day will bring.

2. Being able to surprise my mom for her birthday: She thought that we had planned a family dinner with her, my siblings, and I, but I invited some of our extended family and some old friends and coworkers of hers. She was surprised and really felt special. Oh, and my sister made her wear a tiara.


3. My first half marathon: I met a lot of wonderful people both online and IRL while training for my race. Plus, I can't think of anything else that would have been as much of a confidence booster or given me as much of a sense of accomplishment as training for and running my first half. Ever since Sunday, one of my first thoughts in the morning is "I ran a half marathon!" and I get out of bed with a huge grin on my face. And I want to tell random people all about it. Like the guy at Michaels who was directing me to the shadowboxes. I bet he was like "umm... yeah, so I don't care" lol.

Btw, I don't know when I'm going to put my shadowbox together because I'm not ready to part with my medal or tiara. I like to put them on in the morning and walk around the house for a while. It makes me happy!

Race Day Recap: Disney Princess Half Marathon

Warning: This post is super long!!!

Race Eve: On Saturday I met Robin, along with some other DailyMile members who were running the Disney Princess Half for dinner. I still tend to draw back into my shell when I'm in a group of people that I don't know well, but they were all very friendly and encouraging... just like they are online.

Then I headed home and began getting ready for bed. After triple checking both the alarm clock and the alarm on my cell phone later that night, I finally went to bed around 8:45, only to wake up at 11pm. I stayed in bed desperately praying for sleep and then I began having random thoughts of going to Waffle House. It's been so long that I couldn't even tell you when I last ate there so really?

It was around that time that I concluded that getting a good nights sleep was a big fat #FAIL. So I got up, made breakfast, got dressed, and put on my tiara. It was still really early so I had to wait around a bit. I sat on the couch with my furbabies and watched Mean Girls and part of Legally Blonde. Then 3am hit and it was finally time to head out to Disney!

Pre-Race: For some reason, whenever I get off at 192 I always fail to take the ramp onto Disney property. Per usual, I realized I was headed out to Kissimmee before making a u-turn and getting back on track.

After waiting around in the athlete holding area the gate was opened, and we headed towards our corrals. I was the fifth person to go into Corral C so I got right up front.

Did I mention that it was cold? Well it was, but it wasn't cold enough to damper my excitement! I actually participated in the Cha Cha Slide, and even worse, the Macarena during the 45 minute wait. What seemed like a short time later, the fairy godmother announced that it was time for the race to begin and after counting down the runners in Corral A were off! The corrals were released 7 minutes apart so 14 minutes later it was my turn!!!

Start - Mile 3: I normally struggle with the first three miles of my run, but not today! My first three miles flew by... but not before I passed a bunch of walkers who I'm assuming started out to fast, a high school band, Flik from A Bugs Life, and Captain Jack Sparrow and his ship. A lot of people stopped for pictures but I was on a mission!

Mile 1: 10:10
Mile 2: 10:31
Mile 3: 10:41
Official 5k pace: 10:31

Miles 4-6: This was without a doubt, the best part of the race for me! My cheer squad was somewhere around mile 4.5. I should mention that my cousin was so excited that she had some random (but fun) lady screaming my name too lol. After taking a few pics and giving my camera to my sister, I ran on feeling like a rockstar.

Before I knew it we were entering Magic Kingdom. When we turned the corner onto Main Street USA I could feel the biggest grin come across my face. It was awesome because spectators were lined up along the street! Then I saw the castle. Now, I don't normally get excited about stuff like that but it was seriously amazing to run through the castle (still wearing a huge grin, of course). I stopped long enough to take a picture, which I'm pretty sure is going to look really dorky because I vaguely remember throwing my hands up into something that probably resembled peace signs. Then I headed on.

Mile 4: 11:14
Mile 5: 10:31
Mile 6: 10:55
Official 10k pace: 10:55

Miles 7-9: I don't remember anything exciting about Mile 7. But Mile 8 is another story *sigh* About halfway through Mile 8 I realized that my hamstrings had been tight for a while and it wasn't going away, so I stopped to do a couple of stretches. When I started running again Oh Em Gee!!! My hip was hurting! But I kept running, albeit it slower. After all, this was my first half marathon and I didn't go there to walk. But by mile 9 I was doing just that, which did not make me happy Ugh!

Side note: I wish there were more spectators between Miles 9 and 10 of the course because that part runs along another service road and is very boring. My cheer squad clearly isn't any good at following directions because they'd all gone back to the finish line at Epcot instead of spreading out along the course as instructed.

Mile 7: 11:20
Mile 8: 11:26
Mile 9: 14:21
Official 15k pace: 11:30

Miles 10-12: By mile 10 I decided that I was going to run the last 5k come hell or high water. Unfortunately the version of hell that I envisioned didn't have the effing onramp that I came to around 10.44 miles. I would have been okay with the incline because it wasn't that steep, but the stupid thing also had a wicked slope to the right. The slope increased the pain in my hip and it was just too much!

I still didn't feel physically fatigued and I had been strong mentally up until that point. But having to walk that ramp was sooo frustrating that I began tearing up. And it was a slow walk at that. I looked down at Gabbie (my Garmin) and realized that there was no way that I was going to hit my 11:00 min/mile pace goal and started getting even more bummed about the whole situation. I'm sure I looked like a princess who'd kissed one too many frogs at that point.

Once I got to the top of the ramp I looked over the overpass at the sea of people who were behind me and in such good spirits. That actually cheered me up a bit. I ran on and realized that I was coming up on Jack Sparrow again, then Flik, and the highschool band! That must mean that I was almost finished!

Once we got back into Epcot there were spectators and volunteers cheering us on and telling us that we only had one mile to go. I really did not want to walk any of that last mile so I prayed that there would be no more sloped ramps and kept going. When I rounded the corner and could spot the finish line I started grinning like an idiot. I didn't have it in me to sprint to the finish line but I did finish it running!

Mile 10: 13:18
Mile 11: 14:32
Mile 12: 12:55
Mile 13: 11:43
Last .25 before I stopped the timer: 2:37

Official time: 2:37:37
Garmin time: 2:36:24 for 13.25 miles (Not sure why, but most DailyMilers said their Garmin also charted the course at 13.25 miles instead of 13.1)

Post-Race: I picked up my finisher's medal and walked towards the food before realizing that my hip felt like it was gonna fall off lol. My only thought beyond getting a banana and something to drink was to get to my car so that I could stretch and sit down. After finding my family, we took a couple of pictures...

then I headed off in the direction of my car. Only I couldn't find it! I seriously wandered around the parking lot for at least 10 minutes before realizing that it was on the row that I had initially started on, but farther down the row FML. I dragged my left leg into my SUV and headed back home. Somewhere on the trip back, I realized that I was rubbing my medal, grinning, and planning my next half marathon!

Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend Ramblings

The 2010 Disney Princess Half Marathon is the first race that I've participated in that has an expo so I was pretty excited about it. I headed out to Disney's Wide World of Sports on Friday to check it out. When I first got to there, I bee-lined it to the race packet pickup area. Where I got my race bib, which is super fab!


And my goodie bag.

And um... I don't know if my expectations were too high, but I kind of expected to have a few more goodies in my bag lol. But I do like the bag itself and I love my bright pink socks.

After that I wandered through the expo while trying to not make eye contact with the vendors since I had promised myself that I wouldn't buy anything. But then I saw this:

And I just had to have it! And then I came across the Spi-Belt booth and since I had been planning on buying one anyways, it-only-made-sense-for-me-to-get-it-today-so-that-I-wouldn't-have-to-pay-shipping-and-handling-later!

I am quite proud to say that those were my only two purchases. The Spi-Belt was a necessity and the tiara... Well, although I haven't figured out where I'm going to wear it, I'm sure I'll get a lot of wear out of my tiara because I love it! My sister was even kind enough to post a really hideous picture of me wearing it while I was taking a nap to Facebook *Payback is a mutha*

After my nap I headed over to Downtown Disney to meet with the Shredheads. It was awesome to "meet" them after talking to them online for months. They are all just as nice and fun as they are on Twitter! One of their sponsors, Omron, provided tech tees and really cool pedometers for everyone. I am in love with that tech tee, it feels really soft.

I'm such a nerd that I already pinned my race bib on the shirt that I'll be wearing on Sunday and put my D Tag on my shoe.

Oh and for the record, it is 1:30 in the morning and I don't think I'll be falling asleep any time soon. I'm not nervous about Sunday, I'm just REALLY excited! The same thing happened last night and tomorrow (well tonight) will probably be worse FML!

I Must Be Slightly Crazy

I am so amped that I'll be running my first ever half marathon this Sunday! Who gets this excited about running 13.1 miles? Although I didn't do all of my planned training runs and my longest distance was a 10 and a half miler a couple of weeks ago, I feel like I'm ready.

I am also really excited that that I will have my very own Royal Cheer Squad there.

Yes, I gave them a name and even send out newsletters (in pink and purple fonts) that say From the Chambers of Princess Rekeesha. And yes, I know that I'm a dork lol

I thought about going it alone, but then I decided that I really wanted someone there to cheer me on. So I volunteered my sister to come, as in I told (not asked) her that I would be picking her up that morning so she would need to take the day off. She, in turn, volunteered her boyfriend lol. Then I found out that I have two friends who will be volunteering at the event. And within the last week my cousin and two other friends have called me saying they want to come spectate. Who knew that people would be so willing to volunteer to get up REALLY early in the morning to come cheer me on? I'm glad they are though, because I have a feeling that seeing their smiling faces along the course will give me bursts of energy and make me want to keep going if it gets rough.

Also, although I said only really crazy people run full marathons, the thought has been running through my mind that I should train to run a full in 2011. Training for this half has been such a positive experience for me that I want more.