Birthday Weekend Celebration! (Part One)

Even though it’s not quite my birthday yet, I’ve had an awesome weekend celebrating with friends and family! It’s times like this that make me realize just how blessed I am! :0)

I chose O’Charleys for dinner Friday night!

My brother happened to be in to town and we all went to eat. It felt strange that it was just me, my brother, my mom, and my dad. Don’t get me wrong…we love Jason and Kayla, but it was nice being just us four again for the first time in a LONG time. The waiter even tried to give Brian “our” ticket! He put his head in his hands and said, “She’s my sister, man!” Hah! Ah well! We still had fun!

I had a Greek Pita with sweet potato fries! Yum!

After dinner, we went to my parents house to cut my cake!  I LOVE this cake – it’s been my birthday cake for the past three years….chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. It’s to die for!!

The cake was even better because it had Mickey on the front!! I didn’t want to cut it! ;)

 

Ah well…bye bye Mickey! See you REAL soon!! :0)

My brother brought me back home and as we drove up in the driveway, we saw balloons everywhere!! Hah! What a FUN surprise! (The balloons even matched my cake – red and black!) My friends are the best….they really made me feel so special all weekend!!

They were on the mailbox, too!  :0)

I have more to share but don’t want to overload one post with a million birthday pictures. Besides, I have more celebrating to do! It’s the last day of my twenties! I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts!! :0)

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Contest ends TOMORROW - 
Monday, August 27th! Click the link above to find out how to enter!

Beach Workout

I.S.T.B.

I Survived The Beach – workout that is!

Whew! What an interesting experience! On the average Fall Marathon training schedule, my coach sets aside Tuesday nights as “Hill Workouts”. I’ve attended hills in the past and I know what a huge difference they’ve made in my Half Marathon performance time. I know a lot of people say that hill workouts aren’t necessary, but I believe in them!

For instance, my first “real” Half Marathon time rang in around 2 hours and 28 minutes. At that time, I didn’t think I could ever run any faster…really. I felt as if I gave that race my all. (That race was in February.)

December of the same year, (after training all Fall on hills once per week), I ran a Half Marathon time of 2 hours and 12 minutes.

The following December (again after training all Fall on hills once per week – and ramping up my mileage to train for a Full Marathon), I ran my current Half Marathon PR time of 2 hours and 1 minute.

I’m not saying that running hills alone helped me reach my goal times – I’m just saying that it definitely contributed. So for all of the “hill haters”, I am a believer!! :0)

Ok onto my real reason for this blog. I live in Southwest Louisiana. Our elevation is completely flat. If you want to find a hill, you have to run a parking garage or a bridge. For a group of 20-ish people, that’s not the safest idea (neither is running a parking garage or a bridge by yourself but you know what I mean)….

At one time (ie: my entire life up until a few months ago), my town HAD an outdoor man-made hill that was used for concert purposes. Unfortunately, that hill no longer exists.

Like a good running coach, ours found another solution.

The Beach.

Yep, the good old lovely beach.

I’ve run this workout the past two weeks and let me tell you, this workout is like hills on STEROIDS.

 

Our coach sets cones out along the beach and as a group, we run four timed runs in and out of the cones – with breaks in between. I almost died. Seriously.

 

Never in my life have I worked SO hard for just 2 measly miles! I’m not going to lie, this run was tough and it hurt…but I felt amazing after it was all said and done!

After the run was over, we ran a cool-down….on the sand, of course!

This running in sand business is not to be played around with, especially when the sand is not packed down.

Apparently the beach does have a slight elevation. Great. A hill workout combined with sand. My idea of fun!

 

My peeps after the run!

So there you have it. I’ve completed this workout twice and I’m still alive! This was a TOUGH workout and I’m crossing my fingers that my “new hill” a.k.a. The Beach will help me towards reaching this year’s goal! :0) Can’t say I didn’t try at least!

Have you ever tried running in sand? What did you think?

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Don’t forget about my Sweat Pink Giveaway!
Contest ends Monday, August 27th!