unexpected 10 miles

After a long yet crazy, awesomely fun weekend of wedding excitement (more coming soon), I was ready to sit back, relax and watch movie after movie yesterday afternoon.  I heard a little something about winter weather heading our way, but hey! it's St. Louis, there's always some kind of new weather heading our way.  I didn't really pay that much attention until my friends on twitter started twittering about snowpocalypse 2.0.  Once home from work I got online and witnessed for myself the mess making a bee line through St. Louis. 

Because I'm less than 30 days away from the Disney Princess Half Marathon, my mind imediately went to my training schedule.  Sure enough, there it was... 10 miles!  Quickly navigating between my training schedule and the forecast it was clear, yesterday was the only possible day to get a 10 miler in.

Soon enough I changed cloths, ate a light lunch, took a 20 minute nap, loaded up the fuel belt and I was out the door. Amazingly enough I felt great just about the whole time!  A few times I started talking down about hills and how far it was, but just as quickly as those thoughts came they left.  Today I'm feeling great! 

Small reminders...

I'm a sucker for a good theme.  I love having stuff around me reminding me of the goal I've set for myself.  And, the Disney Princess Half Marathon has done just that.  My room may look like the room of  a three year old girl, but man do I feel motivated to train for this race.

I'm heading to Disney with a group of about 10 (3 or which are seriously training for the half).  To keep us all motivated I bought us each little tiara Christmas tree ornaments and had my mom embroider towels with a little tiara and the words "Go run your Princ-ass off" She made me another one for Christmas that says "You are running your Princ-ass off"




For Christmas my mom also got me this tiara to wear at the race.  As you know, I'm not positive about wearing it in fear that I'll get angry and throw it to the ground around mile 6.  Funny enough a few days after I opened this present I was babysitting for a friend and her little 3 year old daughter came bouncing down the stairs holding a box.  I opened it and it was the exact same tiara!  Her parents just mocked me as I explained I got the same thing for Christmas.

My roommate got me this little block decoration.  I love it cause it is still appropriate to have in my room long after the race (as apposed to the pink fluffy tiara above).






Other items which remind me and push me to keep running include a tiara charm I wear as a necklace and the recent purchase of a mickey mouse glass that will land in my office.

What are you using to motivate you to keep training?

Disney Princess Half Marathon

Exactly one month from today I'll be waking up in Disney World; heading out to pick up my race packet for the Disney Princess Half Marathon!!

I'm so excited!  The two biggest questions (other than will I finish before the golf cart picks me up) is where will I eat and what will I wear.  After spending a little too long looking up restaurants, all reservations are made.  Most exciting of which is our post race celebration dinner here...  

Second question: What to wear?!  We've got big shoes to fill as a princess!  I'm thinking I'll be somewhere between full fledged costume and regular boring running cloths.  I just ordered a pink short sleeved and long sleeved running shirt (ps... on sale at Target for $5)!  My mom is going to embroider this lovely on the back for me...

I'm wearing some kind of tiara, but haven't picked which one yet.  You see, 13.1 miles is a really long way to run.  And, I typically get cranky and angry around mile 6; I'm guessing having a metal tiara bouncing on my head will just increase my anger to full rage status.  My mom got me a tiara for Christmas which will go with me, but I'm also purchasing this little guy thinking it will be a tad more comfortable.

Three!

Yes friends... THREE.  But, it's not a happy three :( 

Three weeks in and I GAIN three pounds!  I'm not really that surprised since this past week brought with it many, many social gatherings; pizza party Thursday, bachelorette party Friday, and a house warming party on Saturday. I'm really trying hard to not get bummed and discouraged, but I'm finding that nearly impossible.

I did manage to get to the gym A LOT. Yesterday was the big game...one of the few I actually really wanted to watch. Of course, our cable was out and with a few inches of snow coming down outside, I didn't want to venture far from home.  What's a girl to do...go to the gym...

This was a genius plan until I realized how long a game is and how much working out I'd have to do.  After an hour on the elliptical and an hour on the treadmill I gave up and literally just stood on the treadmill to witness for myself the end of the Bears season.

Here's to another week and a -3 next Monday!!

New Year; New Goals

I keep going back and forth on whether to start up and attempt to keep up my little blog here.  I've got big goals this year and kind of want a place to talk about the adventure that lies ahead!  So, here goes!

I'm not a big fan of New Year Resolutions.  I typically don't make them mainly because I'm crazy stubborn and HAVE to keep them when I make them.  About every 5 years I end up making one or two and yes... end up actually keeping them.  Here's what I started on Jan. 1:

Lose 111 pounds.
Never leave the apartment w/o doing hair, makeup, and coordinating outfit (workouts and grocery store runs do not count).
Make my bed every day.
Use mint.com to keep my budget in check.
Give more sacrificially.

What I've done so far...

• Joined Weight Watchers online.  There's an app for the iphone that is amazing!  It makes keeping track of points soooo much easier.
• Participating in a weight lose competition through February.  So far, I am in third place overall!  Whoop!
• Training for the Disney Princess Half Marathon!
• Making my bed every morning (it takes approx. 3 seconds and makes my room feel cleaned).
• Continuing to use Mint.com (started in December)  Been a rough couple of months financially, but have made it work probably thanks to this tool.
• More than doubled my monthly giving. I figured if I wasn't having to actually budget in my giving, I wasn't giving enough.  I love giving, but it's hard when you are constantly strapped for cash. I now HAVE to budget it in or I won't make ends meet at the end of the month. I HAVE to make decisions based on the fact that I want to give.