runDisney as a Family

Can I just brag on these two a moment? These two brothers are my cousins, John and Stephen.

When I registered to run 48.6mi as a St Jude Hero last year,  John immediately registered for all 48.6 too. I told him I registered for four races over the span of four days and for him to pick a race, well he sure did! If I remember correctly, John had never run an official race before registering for The Dopey Challenge.

Stephen joined our madness choosing to "only" run the final race, 26.2mi. Stephen has run a couple runDisney 5Ks with me but this was quite the upgrade in mileage for him too.

I was thrilled knowing not only did I have their support in my crazy endeavor but I would have them by my side, especially when I would be 18wks pregnant! Unfortunately, I got sick the week of the races and had to bail before the fourth and final race. I'm still a bit bitter about not getting to run, with John and Stephen for the marathon nor was I able to complete the challenge. I knew running while pregnant was going to be a feat in itself, but running while sick would not have been smart. I made the right decision for me.

John and Stephen trekked out for their 26.2mi without me. I was anxious for them, remembering my own feelings going into my first marathon only a year before. I was undertrained then, just as they were (I guess it runs in the family?). Somehow Matt and I missed them as we looked for friends in front of Cinderella's Castle. I followed their splits throughout the race and occasionally received a "we are still alive" text. We were there at the finish line when they crossed and I could not have been more proud!

I have decided to run again as a St Jude Hero for the 2015 WDW Marathon races. Because the event is only 6mo after Bean is set to arrive, I've chosen to be "conservative" with my mileage and will be running The Goofy Challenge. This challenge is over two days and will total 39.3mi (in comparison to the 48.6mi of The Dopey Challenge).

Today Stephen registered for the 2015 WDW Marathon! John is hoping his work schedule will allow him to register for The Goofy Challenge. These guys continue to amaze me. I look forward to running through the most magical place on earth with them in 2015!

Training Recap: August Week 1

I wasn't sure how successful my training would be while in Florida for the week, visiting family. It's a struggle to get my runs accomplished because time with family and friends always takes priority. We TRY to visit Florida family (an 8hr drive away) every other month, so we have to make the most of each visit. Our last trip was for Memorial weekend (2mo ago) and our next visit isn't planned until Christmas (yikes!). We will be in Florida for runDisney's Wine and Dine Half Marathon in early November, but currently we're not sure if we'll be able to tack on a couple days before or after the race weekend. As always the week flew by way too fast and I didn't get to see everyone I had hoped, which makes my long drive home full of guilt.

Monday

Abigail and I started our morning with a little FaceTime chat with Matt, since he stayed home in GA. Abigail ends up being silly (not looking) at the iPad, while her daddy continues the silly giving us an extra close view of his eye ball. My mom picked up my nephew, William, and we got to play with him for most the day.

We took a trip to Target and Abigail was thrilled to have someone ride in the big cart with her. Unfortunately, she did not like it when he continuously pinched her or kept dropping a shirt and wanting her to pick it up. My mom and I found it a bit amusing though, especially when she scolded him "If you drop it one more time, I'm going to leave it down there!". Yes, #AbsMakesMeLaugh.

After my Sunday evening run turned into a walk (I ate too much dinner and it was horribly humid), I decided my training miles would have to be done at the gym this week. Luckily I'm able to visit other gym locations in the franchise when we travel, free of charge. I wanted to run 8 miles, but wore the wrong sports bra and downsized my miles to 3 for the day.

Tuesday
I headed straight to the gym in the morning for an 8 miler while my mom and grandmother let Abigail tag-a-long to their nail appointments. My grandmother, I call her Abuela, is 88! Abigail loved having pancakes with Wellie, what she calls her great-grandmother; she was super sweet wanting to sit next to her and hold her hand to "help her walk".

Abigail and I headed to St Petersburg to visit with my "old" high school friend, Janet. Was it December when we last saw each other? Yikes! Janet's little boy just turned two and we got to meet the newest family addition, a beautiful daughter who is already 3mo old. And like almost every rare visit, I never remember to get a picture when we're together! We need to remember this!

Odessa Sunset

Wednesday
After breakfast with my grandparents, Abigail and I visited another "old" friend to get our hair cut. Abigail's bangs and partial self-made layers are still growing out from her own doing back in February. While Abigail's bangs look better, there are a couple still short spots that still will need months of regrowth. ::sigh::

We ended up spending the entire day away from the house, a huge communication fail between my mother and me. When I found Brewer, he had managed to scoot his crate, 8' across the room. I wish that could have been the end of that...but no. Brewer managed to pull my INKnBURN shorts off a closet doorknob (where they had been drying after being washed). There's a small 3" rip in the panty liner of the shorts, but no material is missing. My mother has said she should be able to repair this mishap. I'm sad my Leaf'em shorts will be MIA (missing in action) for a while, but at least they weren't completely ruined! Also because of the communication fail, I didn't get any training in...not even a walk. When we got home the skies were a bit stormy and didn't clear until it was too dark to take Brewer for a walk.

Thursday
First thing in the morning, I took Brewer out for a nice walk through the orange groves. The weather was way too humid for us to attempt a good pace for a run, I'm just not used to Florida summer heat. I took my miles to the treadmill again, getting 5 miles done in 52 minutes. It's surprising how difficult it is now to run on the treadmill. Last year, almost all my runs were on the treadmill (minus the couple races I did in the fall). I did most of my winter miles on the treadmill (no winter running clothes) and spring miles (pollen allergies), but since I've been running more with Brewer (gaining more confidence and a better pace) I seem to enjoy the outdoor miles so much more now.

We had another fun afternoon with my nephew William and my grandparents stopped by to visit too. In the evening we met up with family to celebrate my youngest cousin's birthday a day early since Abs and I would be heading back to Georgia on his real birthday. I cannot believe Stephen is 25! Wasn't he adorable as  baby? My mom was going through some old photos and found this shot and I couldn't resist taking a photo of it myself. I'm super excited that Stephen will also be joining me for Wine and Dine AND WDW Marathon! -- I left dinner a bit early to meet up with Meghan and Genna for dessert; they are two Tampa Bay bloggers I started following earlier as I started running and it's been fun to get to know them over the last year. Meghan is training for a Half Ironman (I am so excited for her!) and Genna is training for the New York City Marathon (this is a lottery race, and she got in!), so I enjoy reading their training and race recap...and learn a lot from these ladies! It was nice to sit and chat and eat some frozen yogurt, yum.

Friday

I took Brewer for a 30min walk to wear him out a bit before I spent the rest of the morning packing up. Abigail started her "are we there yet?" style questioning before we even made it to the interstate. Brewer was such a better passenger on the way back to Atlanta (in comparison to our trip out of town), and this made everything seem better. Instead of heading home we drove to my in-laws, to meet up with my mother-in-law's side of the family for a mini-family reunion of sorts.

Saturday
In the morning we returned to The Pittman House for breakfast. It was nice seeing this side of our extended family as it's unfortunately once a year, or less, that we see them. Some family lives further away than others, so it was a smaller crowd than Friday night and it wasn't long until most started heading back out of town. Abigail really had lots of fun playing with the cousins of her generation.

Since Matt didn't get to join us in Tampa for the week, we decided to let Abigail have some Nana & Papa time while we went on a date. It wasn't anything extravagant but it was nice having dinner together and then we popped into a few local stores before splurging on some frozen yogurt for dessert.


Sunday

We headed back home first thing in the morning, dropped Brewer off at the house before heading to Abigail's friend's birthday party. It was nice getting to socialize with friends as the summer is coming to a close and especially after being gone for a week! In the midst of unpacking and getting back to a normal home life, I was able to take Brewer out for a walk through the neighborhood and we managed 1.41mi in 30 minutes.

QUESTION:
-How do you handle your training when out of town?

The Color Run St. Pete

Every other year we rotate Thanksgiving & Christmas between our two families. Since we spent Thanksgiving with my family in Tampa, we'd be spending Christmas in Atlanta with Matt's family. So we returned to Tampa to celebrate Abigail's 4th birthday and drop Christmas presents with my family.

As I had been researching different race sites, I discovered The Color Run was to be held the same weekend! Bonus! I quickly emailed my cousins and some friends to see if anyone else would be interested. My cousin Stephen registered and then Christina & her husband, Eric also joined.

Race morning, I pulled up the course map to check out the color stations and realized a lot of this course was similar to The Women's Half Marathon I ran a month before.

I highly underestimated the crowd for The Color Run! I'm not sure if it was because the staging area was at Vinoy Park and the start line was much more narrow in comparison to my previous race or if it was truly because there were many more people running. The start line was a mad house! There was not much organization & lots of "line cutting" so be patient because runners were sent out in waves every 5-10mins so it seemed to take forever for it to be our turn.

Finally we were off! Meanwhile, Matt (the best personal photographer ever!) was waiting for us at the first color station. He ended up wrapping a plastic bag around his camera body to protect it!

 

  

The course was very crowded! I still cannot believe we managed to stay together the entire 5K. There were lots of participants walking and others pushing strollers, which we though was crazy (how do you clean the strollers?). 

Matt proceeded on to meet us at the Yellow station. I am really surprised that we weren't more covered in color. As we ran through each station, it was like we were running through a huge cloud of colored dust...with extra burst flying right at you. It's a good thing I had sunglasses to protect my eyes. Chevrolet representatives were passing out handkerchiefs before the race too so you didn't have to breath any of it in.

 

 

All participants were given packets of color to save for after you finished running the 5K course. The DJ was gathering the crowd around every 15mins to countdown to throw your color packet into the air. We decided this was why people were walking to their cars completely covered GREY. To get better pictures, we staged our own countdown!

         

      

What I did not expect... I did not realize how much I might NEED the sunglasses to protect my eyes running through the color stations. The handkerchiefs were so helpful too! If/When I run this event again, I will make sure to wear old shoes; I did not expect my shoes getting so dirty! A dry towel & huge pack of wipes would come in handy if you do not expect to have an on site restroom (and even if you do, you might want to bring some because our closest restroom ran out of paper towels). Overall, I color came off my skin much easier than I expected!

The was such a Fun "race" even though nothing is chip timed. We finished our run/walk 5K in 46:33 (a FIRST PR for Christina might I add!). I hope I'm able to participate in this event again!

The Color Run will be on April 6th at The Atlanta Motor Speedway...and there's also a fall date set for September 28th! Although the The Atlanta Motor Speedway is actually an hour south of Atlanta, it is actually a GREAT venue for dirty events! I ran The Mud Crusade at this location and there are a ton of restrooms & showers so you do not have to drive home dirty. Bring a change of clothes, a bag for your dirty items & shoes and don't forget a wash cloth, soap, shampoo or towel...you'll thank me later. :)

Written: March 21, 2012

QUESTIONS:
-There are more color runs than just The Color Run, have you ever participated in this type of Fun Run?
-What event has been your favorite Fun Run or what Fun Run would you most like to participate?