Saturday, January 29, 2011

Princess Marathon Update!

When I last updated you on the Disney Princess Half Marathon we were only 4 weeks into our 16 week training schedule. Now we have only 3 weeks of serious running left and we leave in 24 days! Clearly it's time for an update...
Jeff went on a business trip in November and brought me back some cold-weather running skirts. They are super comfortable and WARM! They also look fabulous and have these great pockets on either side for ipods, snacks, ect. I do have to say though that with all this cold weather I am really looking forward to wearing my summer running skirt and doing some runs where it doesn't feel like my ears are about to snap off.
 Zoe took on the task of getting our t-shirts made. She is our official fashionista and came up with our entire outfit. She wanted to do our t-shirts in black and I was a bit skeptical until I saw the actual t-shirts. They are AMAZING!! Plus I think tons of people will be wearing pink on the day so our black t-shirts will really stand out. Can't wait to see the rest of our outfit!
 Zoe also worked with a trainer while she was back in Australia and he thought that our 13.1 mile run was a bit too close to the actual event so we moved it up 2 weeks. We did it on a Saturday so we could all run together and then we decided to open it up to anyone in the community that wanted to run with us:
 So on Saturday I donned my new shirt (which never actually saw the light of day during the run because it was so darn cold out...) and got my tiara hair thingys out and went to meet the girls. I knew I could do it but I had butterflies in my stomach anyway as we drove toward the river trail!

 Mr Baker, Mr O, and our friend Jen joined us for at least part of the run. Having other people join made it really feel like a special run. Here we all are starting from the Old Downtown footbridge.
 L to R: Me, Mr. O, Mr. Baker, Kellee, Zoe (with her hands up) Karen, and Ivana. It was FREEZING!!
 Once we got off the bridge and around the bend in the river it was much warmer and the wind calmed down. We all got settled in to a nice group pace.
 A few of our guests left us after the first loop, but we had one more loop to run! Mr Baker did the whole thing with us and he was able to take these shots of the 5 of us:
 Here we are finishing our last bamboo forest area loop and heading toward the big foot bridge:
 Crossing the bridge. 1.5 miles left to go!
 And heading up the stairs for the final bridge back to the starting point! Everyone is still smiling after 13 miles!
Of course the first thing I did when I got home was to put my sticker on my sticker chart. I put round ones on if it's the first time I've completed that distance. WooHoo!!!
Now as promised, I did video interviews with my 4 teammates so you can really meet them. Check out the video HERE!!
So that's it. The next update will be a trip report!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Mom and Dad on a Kid-Free trip!

I swear, I WILL finish blogging about summer 2010 before summer 2011 happens! So while Jeff was in RI Mema and Papa watched the kids for us and we took off to Block Island for 3 blissful kid-free nights. Now don't get me wrong.... our kids are awesome and fun and fabulous, but they do tend to tag team us in wonderful and creative ways. Like if you go to help the one that's puking on the airplane the other one will dump your glass of coke into your open carry-on. So it's nice to get away without them once in a while. I think my face says it all in this picture:
Doesn't Jeff look relaxed?
We decided to ignore the crescent beach on the main side of the island and headed to the south bluffs. Found this amazing beach with NO ONE on it and a nice pocket of sand just offshore for easy swimming. Heaven!
Our digs: We stayed at the Spring House which is the oldest victorian hotel still standing on BI. It's gorgeous and sooo mellow.
We had dinner on the deck our second night there.
Lobster with a view. Can't beat it!
Later that night we hiked to the tip of the island. This is where the Atlantic and Long Island Sound come together. Love how the waves come in from both sides and then zip toward the shore.
Those are some relaxed, chilled out parents!
On our way back out Jeff snapped this picture just as the North Light came on. It's been out of order for YEARS and I've never seen it lit up. It came on for 15 seconds and and we got a picture of it!
As if the evening wasn't awesome enough we then went to the Manissee Hotel and had Flaming Coffee's. In-Credible!

Yumm!

So that's it. We returned to the mainland (or "America" as the Islanders call it) ready to embrace our progeny with renewed patience and vision. Thanks Mema and Papa!!