Nurses Week and 10 Miles

I am WAY late on this, but to all you Nurses out there, Happy Nurses Week!! :0)



Our Hospital celebrated everything a little backwards this year - usually, Nurses Week is celebrated the same week as Florence Nightingale's birthday. This year however, Hospital Week fell on her birthday week, so we celebrated Nurses Week a week early. My department always does a little party for me, so this year, instead of following the hospital, they celebrated with me ON Florence Nightingale's birthday!! :0) Fun times!



They ordered out from McAlister's for me (HUGE WIN!)!!!!



AND they made me Chocolate Covered Strawberries! I felt so loved! :0) I also received a gift card to McAlisters from them! Aww...they know me too well!

It just so happened that my husband had a few days off last week so I sent him grocery shopping. He told me that he found something that made him think of me....awww so sweet! I was so excited all afternoon to see what he found.....when I arrived home, he presented me with this.....



Mickey Mouse Band-Aids! How funny! I just had to laugh! I'm glad that Mickey Mouse and Band-Aids make him think of me! :0)



I hope all of you Nurses out there had a fantastic week!! :0)

On the running front, we woke up to a GORGEOUS morning!! The skies were blue, the humidity was low, the weather was COOL - I'd say it was a perfect day for running!!!



The sunrise was pretty this morning, too!



My running group is starting up something that I am SO excited about! Group runs on Thursday nights followed by a social! I can't wait!

The run was awesome! My super hero friends and I ran most of the time at a 9:20 ish pace. We had a great time!!



Here we are after our 10 miles were complete!



My goofball friend with the 10 mile cone on her head! Hah!

Hope everyone has also had a great Saturday! After the run, I had my car washed, then I went home and relaxed for a while. My parents helped my brother move today, so after relaxing for a while, I rode over to Texas to finish helping them out. We also played on the XBox Kinect where my brother completely whipped my booty in Track and Field. What ashame. Other than that, it's been a great day!!! :0) Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

2011 Contraband Days 5 Miler!

This past Saturday, I ran the Contraband Days 5 Miler race.  I’ve run this race the past three years. 

2009 – 54:55 (goal - under an hour)
2010 – 48:08 (goal - under 50 minutes)
2011 – goal - I want a dang pirate trophy!

A few friends of mine and I decided to dress up for this race.  You see, every year, a 2 week long festival is held in SWLA called “Contraband Days”.  It celebrates the days of Jean Lafitte who supposedly buried treasure somewhere along our lake.  Usually, a few pirates run this race – so instead of dressing up as pirates, we decided to go for Super heroes! :0)  Make sense?  Pirates…Super Heroes….no it didn’t make sense to us either.  We went with it anyway.

I found a few logos, ironed them onto our shirts, and voila…super heroes.  Ok ok maybe it’s not that easy to be a super hero but it sure was fun pretending!

 
Mrs. Incredible (you know I had to throw Disney in there somewhere!), Super Woman, and Wonder Woman!

We took a few serious pictures….

…then we decided to take some funny ones!

I wish I could honestly tell you that I have ripped arms.  Sadly, I do not. I think it’s the way the sun was shining on them! Hah!

Here’s the pirates that started off our race!  They didn’t run – but they sure scared me half to death!  At the start of the race, they fired a bunch of pop guns – it definitely made me jump!

My awesome running group!! :0) After our group picture, we had a prayer, then coach gave us the whole “Run as hard as you can and puke your guts out at the finish line” spill….Haha!  She was joking, of course….

Waiting for the race to begin….

Off we go!

We ran this race hard.  I wanted to PR and I knew I could do it.  Thankfully, all three of us are the same pace which definitely helps!  We were able to push through the tough spots together.  A lot of the time, we were running an 8:30 pace – we tried to keep it right at 9:00 which is really good for us!  The weather was nice too which helped a LOT!

 

Here we come!  We kicked up the speed at the curb (where the white SUV is in the picture below)…

We SPRINTED our hearts out across the finish line.  When we finished, I definitely felt like puking.  My coach was proud! :0)

Our official finish time was 46:15 – a PR for all of us!!!!  Average pace - 9:15!  Not too shabby!

Relaxing after the race!

Enjoying some pizza after the race.

         

The Super  Heroes with our coach!

 

Me with my time!  I was so excited!  Unfortunately, I placed 5th in my age division.  I was a little upset that I didn’t place but I didn’t let it get me down – I PR’d and that’s all that matters!  There’s always next year! :0)  I cheered up greatly after the awards ceremony when I realized that they weren’t even handing out Pirate Trophies this year!  Instead, they gave out $$ discounts to our local running store.  Still nice, but not a Pirate trophy!

After the race, I ran home (I actually drove home…), showered, and changed super fast.  Then I met up with my mom/mother in law/grandmother in law for a Mother/Daughter tea luncheon sponsored by my church!  We had a fabulous time!

 

After I brought my mom home, I stopped for a stuffed snow cone!  A slice of pizza AND a stuffed snow cone all in the same day….I felt very guilty!  Oh well – I worked hard for it! :0)

Thanks for all the encouragement in the last post! I think my favorite comment was by Tasha at Never Slow Down!  Her comment was so funny, it deserves a re-posting!

“Good luck on your run! I hope you get a pirate! Just say "Arrrgggggghhhh" to yourself just like a pirate while you're running and you'll be super speedy!”

Tasha, I thought about your comment quite a few times while running and I even said Arrrrggggghhh to myself a few times!  Hahaha!!!!  Thanks for the support! 

I also reminded myself a few times of something Jillian Michaels says on her Ripped in 30 DVD….. “You can do ANYTHING for _____ amount of time.”  She’s so right.  At the end of the race, when it was time to pick up the speed, I kept thinking – the finish line is right there – just a minute more!  I can do ANYTHING for a minute!

So, thank you Tasha and thank you Jillian!!! :0)

Hope everyone had a lovely Mothers Day weekend!!!