Tuesday, May 31, 2011

100 Miles in May!

We did it!

Today, my running buddy and partner in crime (Heather) and I completed our last run for the month of May.

Total Mileage: 100 miles!

I began tracking my mileage last year when I was Marathon training and NEVER did I get up to 100 miles – therefore, this is a personal best for me! (I got close but never actually got to 100 miles!)

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Appropriately, this was the temperature in my car this afternoon when we began our run!  It was actually 94 degrees with 70% humidity and “felt like” 97 degrees.  Fabulous. Yuck.

The run went great!  We were both worn out from our excursions all month. We did walk some but it wasn’t bad at all.

Best part of all:

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WE DID IT! 

We are going to lay low the rest of the week and let our bodies recuperate! 

However, we can’t take tomorrow complete off!  Know why?

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It’s National Running Day!  Get out there and move that body!

I think we are going to meet for a short 2 mile run just to say we did something! :0)

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For dinner, my wonderful husband stopped at Wendy’s and picked up the new blueberry/strawberry yummy goodness salad for me!  SO good!!! :0)

Hope everyone has a great evening!  Happy National Running Day!

Monday, May 30, 2011

Winner winner chicken dinner! :0)

Apparently, I’ve had good luck recently! 

For beginners, I won a giveaway that Harmony was hosting for Peek-A-Boutique! I requested a personalized picture frame for my WDW Marathon!  I can’t wait to see it!!! :0)

A few months ago, I entered a raffle that Stephanie was hosting for the Race to Home Base 10K in Boston! 

I was chosen in one of her drawings and I received a free Road ID!  Awesome!!!!!

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I decided to go with the Elite Road ID cause I loved the way it looked online!

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It did not disappoint!  Super cute!

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My wrists are so small….I had to cut a ton of it off to make it fit!

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Got it!

Also, along with the Road ID, I was supposed to receive a hat and a pair of socks!  The company who hosted the giveaway emailed me and told me that they ran out of socks, so he was going to mail me a tech shirt instead.  Well, the package came, and instead of a tech shirt was a cotton T and another Road ID gift card for the inconvenience!  I was so excited!!  Felt like it was my lucky day!!!! Thanks, Jeff!!!! :0)

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Also, if you remember a few blog posts ago, my running group friend and I attended a Health/Fitness Expo in our area!

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I received a phone call this past week that my name was pulled for the Whey Pro Complete protein powder!!!!  This stuff isn’t cheap – I was definitely excited to receive that phone call!!!
Yay!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial Day!

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Mine started out with a 5 mile run with a friend!  We are on our way to 100 miles for the month – the most that either of us have run EVER!  Tomorrow is the last day of the month, so we’ve planned another 5 miler and that should do it!  So excited!

Also, don’t forget about National Running Day on June 1st!  Get out there and get moving!!! :0)

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Why do you run?

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Memorial Day Weekend

I just realized that the previous post (Inferior) was my 200th post!  Yay!! :0)

This weekend has been filled with so many fun and exciting things!  I love love love long weekends!!

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On Friday night, we drove to Texas to hang out with my brother and sister in law.  We ate dinner at Carrabba’s and even got free dessert!  I had 12 miles on the plan for the following day so I decided to carb load!  :0)

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After eating, we made our way to a FunZone area with all kinds of exciting things to do!  I saw Batting Cages and I was sold!  :0)

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My brother and I in the cages.  I have played slow pitch in the recent years for adult league and it totally threw off my timing.
:0(  I was rather upset with myself!  A friend that runs with me in my running group agreed to go to the batting cages here in town a couple times a month to cross train (she played College Softball for our local college – she’ll probably kick my butt!)!  Hah!

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We also hopped on the GoKarts and we played Phazerzone where we were given air pumped “paintball” guns to shoot at each other – the balls weren’t as hard as paint balls and didn’t burst.  It was a lot of fun!!!!

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We look tough!  Haha! 

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The following morning came early – I met my friends at 6 a.m. to begin our run!  We ran down my favorite route and were able to enjoy another gorgeous sunrise! :0)

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Despite the cool in the air, it was HOT. HOT.  It was very humid and we were pushing our pace.  We tried to keep a 9:15 the whole time.  I was tired from the late night I had and I didn’t handle the run so well.  This heat is a killer.  Ugh.

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We ran through practically every water sprinkler we saw!!!!!

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We ended our run at the giant water fountain!!!  Yes, we I ran through the fountain like a bunch of screaming children!

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So much fun and totally refreshing after our run!!

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That’s me to the right – I ran through the giant spurt in the middle and got soaked!!!

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Us with our wet feet! :0)

After the run, I came home, ate breakfast, showered, then took a nap! I needed it!!!

My dad and my husband were here working on installing flood lights on the corners of our house so I left and brought back lunch from Subway.  We also watched a lot of the ESPN Women’s College Softball Regional's games. 

After recuperating a while, I cleaned the house and bathed the dogs!  Jason’s family is coming over on Monday night so I had to get things in order!

So far, it’s been a fabulous weekend and I still have two days to go!  Yay!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Inferior

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You see this girl? I’m sure you all know who she is.

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…and this girl, too.

That was me.

Ok no not really actually me, but her story was very much like mine (minus the princess part, unfortunately).

When first I saw the Princess Diaries, I knew that the writers somehow had a glimpse into my life and thought “Hey! We need to write a book and a movie about this girl!” :0)

Her story is one of big hair, not fitting in with her peers, glasses, school uniforms, etc. She was ridiculed by her fellow classmates, the outcast….yep, that was me.

Let me start at the beginning.

In 6th grade, my family moved from our nice little community to another about an hour away. Everything was new – people were relatively nice (or so I thought). I was no longer in my sheltered little private school, I was in a very large public middle school where kids said words I had never heard before and I had to grow up faster than I ever thought possible. I was the new kid, trying to fit in. The harder I tried, the more and more I stuck out like a sore thumb. I finally made a friend. One I could trust. We hung out after lunch, we stayed over at each other’s houses, she really was a great friend to me. January of that year, she got news that her dad’s business was sending him and his family away….to Arizona! Yikes. With her gone, I was all alone again.

My mind literally blocked out most of that school year because it was so traumatic. If I think really really hard, I can remember the time a kid left gum on my seat in science class on purpose – then when I changed jeans later on in the day, she asked “Hey Karen what happened to your pants?!” and snickered about it. I remember being tripped many times on purpose. I also remember wearing the same shirt as another girl one day (not on purpose) and I remember watching her trying to hide ALL day every time I was around so no one would see her wearing the same shirt that I was wearing.

After everything that I went through, my self esteem was ZERO. I had none left. Every time I messed up in softball, I yelled inwardly at myself and told myself how stupid I was. Every time I spoke to someone new, (which wasn’t often) they looked at me funny and I beat myself up for even opening my mouth.

The zero self esteem followed me all the way through high school. After such a traumatic 6th grade year, my parents pulled me out of that school and before long, my dad’s job was relocated back home. The girl that left the private school that I grew up in until 5th grade and the girl that returned in 8th grade was not the same kid. I had a hard time re-making friends (even though a lot of the same people were still there). I really did not speak to anyone unless spoken to, and when I did speak, I got mad at myself for the way I answered them.

I have no clue if those kids in my high school ridiculed or tormented me behind my back. I’m sure there were some who did but they never acted on it as the kids at the middle school did. This vicious cycle continued until my senior year.

Two girls in my class decided to befriend me. I found out later that it was their mission to “get me out of my shell”. Their mission worked. You see, my school was a very small, private school – 19 in my graduating class. Our senior year, everyone in our class was very close. They were wonderful friends to me and finally I felt ok to speak again. I was still very cautious about who I spoke to, but I didn’t feel so bad about making friends – those who I knew would be true friends.

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Enter contacts, a flat iron, and eye waxing strips and voila! There’s me! (Still in a school uniform and all!) Haha!

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I don’t want you to think that it’s been all sunshine and rainbows since.  No, it definitely hasn’t.  I was asked to attend a class/seminar at my church followed by a conference called “Cleansing Stream” while I was still in college.  One of the focuses of the conference was on Rejection – huge huge huge for me.  I was forced to deal with the very thing I had been hiding for so long.  When I tell you that I cried for an hour and a half at that conference, I’m not exaggerating.   I left that conference a CHANGED person.  I could literally feel a difference inside of myself. No longer did I hesitate before I responded to a person – no longer did I beat myself up if I made a mistake in life.  I was different – and it felt fantastic.

Kids can be SO cruel. This is part of the reason that I’ve made it my mission in life to work with girls – especially at the middle school age level - to help them realize that they are worth something, no matter what their peers say or do to them.

You don’t have to be the best at something or wear the latest fashions. Just be YOU. If there’s someone out there who can’t accept you for who you are, then that’s THEIR problem, not yours.

So am I perfect now? No of course not! Do these feelings and thoughts ever pop back up into my head at random times? Yes, they do. It happened Saturday which is what brought on this blog post. I ran across a few people from my past – people who weren’t always nice to me – who snubbed me in high school because I wasn’t one worthy enough of their time. Apparently they still feel as if they can sit across the room and whisper and giggle about me. You know what I told myself? WHATEVER. If that’s all they have time to do, then apparently they are not “better” than I am – and they know NOTHING about me. We are grown women for crying out loud.  I’m satisfied with my life. I’m happy where I’m at. If they are so miserable that all they have to do is make fun of others, then it sounds like they have an issue they need to deal with and it has nothing to do with me. My retaliation? I deleted them off Facebook! Hah! Ok well it made me feel good at least! :0)  I’m almost grateful for the circumstances I went through – it helped form me as the (somewhat more) confident person I am today.  I guess those kids in that middle school have  no idea the service they did for me! :0)

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I’ve repeated this phrase in my mind over and over and over again throughout the years. How true it is.

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I also remind myself of this verse – Psalm 139:13-14:

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

Thanks for listening to my story. :0)

:0(

Coming soon…

Blogger is having issues! I can’t sign into my dashboard!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Sunrise-Expo-Party! :0)

Aaah I can’t believe it’s already Sunday!  This weekend has FLOWN by so fast….thank goodness we have an three day weekend next week!  I have Monday off for Memorial Day!! :0)

So Saturday, our running group was meeting at 6 a.m. for an 8 mile run. I was super excited about the route because I knew if we hit the lake at the right time, we could watch the sunrise!

We definitely were not disappointed!!!

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Isn’t it just gorgeous?!  This is why I love waking up early for runs.  It always seems so much more exhilarating in the morning! 

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We were a little goofy by this point (lack of sleep and running hard for 6 miles…) – so when we saw this bird cross the road, we chased it down for a picture!  We are so silly!

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I do love this picture, though.  It’s almost as if the bird was enjoying the sunrise, too! :0)

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Us after the run.  We kept a VERY steady pace the entire time – between a 9:15 / 9:30 pace – which is good for us!!

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After the run, we walked over to our civic center to check out our area’s first ever Health and Fitness Expo!!  The expo was held indoors on our Indoor Football team’s field.  They hosted a 5K and the finish line was right in the middle of the field which I thought was pretty cool!

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They had various booths set up – nothing too fancy.  Most of the booths belonged to the workout centers in the area (I didn’t realize we had SO much!)  We even have TRX!!!  How crazy!  I had no clue! 

A few of the tables focused more on the “whole” nutrition side which I loved, of course. 

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The lady at this table had a plate of McDonalds food.  The french fries and the hamburger were FOUR YEARS OLD.  No molding, no rotting – everything was just really hard.  It’s crazy that fast food places put THAT much preservatives in their food, we put this in our body, and it’s OK?!  Something’s wrong with that picture!!!

Moving on to the next event!  Haha!

Saturday night was our end of the year GoRun party!!  We have 2 seasons in our running group – 1st is 5K/10K training starting in January – May; 2nd is Half/Full Marathon training from July – until.  This (obviously) was our end of the year party for 5K/10K!

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Amanda and I having a good ol time! :0)  We are so silly  - we cut up most of the time!!

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Isn’t this Live Oak gorgeous?!  This is one thing I love about the south!!! 

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Fun ending to a fabulous day!! Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend as well!!! :0)

Monday, May 16, 2011

Relay for Life

Each year, The American Cancer Society hosts Relay for Life events all over the country - ours just so happened to occur on Friday night! :0)

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I love their theme – Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back.

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Our team!! :0)

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It was a GORGEOUS night for Relay!  We worried about rain but as the day went on, the skies cleared up and gave us a beautiful night!

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I thought it was rather silly that they had to post these signs all over the place. Hello people.

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Our Mayor opening up the ceremonies.

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Survivor Lap!!!  We joined in for the Caregiver 2nd lap.

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This absolutely and completely broke my heart.  Poor baby.

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The theme this year was “Night at the Movies”.  This group used the UP theme!  TOO cute! :0)

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I love this, too!

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The “Mr. Relay” contest.  After being introduced on stage, the guys had to walk around the grounds with a “murse” and ask for donations.  The “Mr.” with the most money in his “murse” by the end of the night won the title of “Mr. Relay 2011”.  It was rather funny!

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Yet another thing that I loved!!

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My parents!

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Hehehe….I was given FIRE to play with!  I was asked to help light  the Tiki Torches and the Luminary bags. Yikes.

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My Grandfather’s Luminary. It looks bad, I know…I only had 5 minutes to make it so I was in a rush!

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SO many Luminarys….

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Lining the entire circle track….

As always, the luminary ceremony was a tear jerker.  I love what I do, but honoring those who have lost their fight is hard. 

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After the ceremony (where I usually shed a few tears), I had a cake ball to cheer myself up! :0)

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Festivities continued ALL night long until 6 a.m. I left around 11 p.m. because I had to be back in the same area for a run with my friends at 6 a.m. the following morning!  Crazy!

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Anyway, I stayed to see my boss in the Dunking Booth.  You could either pay $2 to push the button, or $1 for 2 balls.  Sherry (above) decided to push the button!  It was funny!  I paid $1 but I missed both times. I can throw really hard I just don’t have good aim – at all.

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!  Back to the real world today!!  :0)

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