Week in Review

Kristen

While Heidi is in sunny Florida running Princess, I am stuck in PA.  I'm not complaining though, because it seems as if spring warm-up is coming.  My mom even saw a robin!  Anyway, it was a good week running-wise.  Tomorrow starts the official marathon training and I hope I am ready.

Monday:
Run 6 at 9:04 pace

Tuesday:
Rest

Wednesday:
Run 8 at 9:10 pace

Thursday:
Run 8 at 9:12 pace

Friday:
Run 6 at 9:10 pace

Saturday:
Run 8 at 9:12 pace

Sunday:
Run 5 at 9:13 pace
I also tried to coach my son through 1.5 miles.  Painful to say the least but we are all running the Hot Chocolate Run in Philly in April and he needs to be sort of ready.  

I will say this-my pace is certainly steady.  I will start tempo and speed workouts this week, which I have not done at all since December.  It will be interesting to see how fast those runs will be.  I ran 41 miles total, which is what my plan calls for next week so that shouldn't be a problem.  My legs are definitely feeling it today, but hopefully they will be recovered for tomorrow.

Have a great week everyone and if you haven't yet please vote for Heidi!

I AM A FINALIST!!!! PLEASE VOTE FOR ME!!!

Heidi

 

OK Grumpy Runner Readers.... I need some serious help from you all!!!! I entered to win a Nordic Track treadmill from Another Mother Runner. You had to make your own treadmill pic that represented you. With A LOT of help from Tyler, mine made it into the top ten out of thousands of entries. Now they have opened it up to voting. PLEASE go onto this website and vote for #3 Transformation Treadmill. Get all of your friends to vote for it too!! I REALLY WANT THIS TREADMILL!! THANK YOU in advance for your help. I totally appreciate it. Oh and Another Mother named it Transformation Treadmill, not me. Kind of appropriate!! You have until Friday to vote. THANKS AGAIN!! IF I WIN....you all can come over and use it. HA HA

 

Here is what it looks like....remember...it is #3.

 

 

 

Here is the link...

 

http://anothermotherrunner.com/2014/02/21/nordictrack-commercial-1750-treadmill-vote/comment-page-2/#comment-737621



Top 10

Kristen

Last winter if it was below 30 degrees I didn't run period.  This winter, since it got cold at Thanksgiving and pretty much stayed that way, I didn't have a choice so I put on my big girl pants and went out to run unless it was below 10 degrees-we all need to have some priorities.  Finally this past week it's stayed in the 30s and sadly I feel like I am on a tropical island-funny how your perspective can change!  
In honor of David Letterman and the thaw out here goes.

Top 10 Reasons You are Running in 30 degree temperatures...

10.  It doesn't take 20 minutes to get dressed.
 9.  Your hands are not frozen the entire run.
 8.  A side benefit of running is vitamin D-skin is actually showing.
 7.  You are not worried about slipping on black ice and can actually run at a decent pace.
 6.  You might actually have a cool down as part of your work-out because you are not worried about hypothermia.
 5.  You know you are not the only person on the planet-normal people are back outside enjoying the fresh air.
 4.  You can run for a few days without doing wash because you are not wearing all your running clothes at once.
 3.  You can run at any time of day and not wait for the temp to be at it's highest for the day because you truly believe that 24 degrees is much warmer than 22 degrees.
 2.  You don't spend all your time thinking about all your frozen body parts including your frozen nose hairs.

And the number one reason you may be running in 30 degree temperatures...
 1.  You actually break a sweat.

What would you add to the list?  Do you prefer cold or hot weather running and how cold is too cold?

Week in Review-The Endless Winter Addition

Kristen

Last January, we went to Disney to run the half marathon.  It was awesome and I remember thinking to myself that I would not run until spring came.  I think I ran maybe 3 times in February.  This January we were in California.  I wished that I could stop running but silly me decided to sign up for a marathon.  My husband makes up my training plans for me and he has had great success with the Hanson Plan.  He has decided that I should use that as my plan.  Since getting home from California 3.5 weeks ago I have been adjusting my legs to this plan.  I have one more week of semi-short runs and then the real training starts.  I really really hope endless winter is on its way out by then...

Monday:
Run 6 at 8:43 pace
I was going to take today off due to spending the day with a friend, but on my long drive home I decided my body would like to move a bit.  You never regret the run-ever!

Tuesday:
Run 5 at 9:11pace
I ran first thing in the morning-only about 15 hours after the day before which was a shock to the legs.

Wednesday:
Rest Day
I should have run today-snow was in the forecast for the next day, but I just couldn't muster up the energy.
 

Thursday:
Just did toning exercises for 45 minutes and an hour of shoveling.  I could have done another hour of shoveling but my body refused.

Friday:
Run 6.1 at 10:30 pace
The plow had not come through our neighborhood yet which is the cause of some of the pace.  I also stopped and chatted with all the neighbors who were out and helped an elderly man in another development get to his mailbox.  This was probably my favorite run of the entire winter though!  I also shoveled for another hour.

Saturday:
Run 4 at 10:00 pace. 
The roads still left a lot to be desired and with all the running I need to do I do not want to injure myself because of ice, so I went slow.  It's all about the miles...

Sunday:
Run 6 at 9:08 pace
The roads were finally mostly clear!  It's oh so cold out though-I dream about early morning spring/summer runs.  And yes, we have snow in the forecast for this week. 

Less Than 2 Weeks Until Princess..

Heidi

 

So runDisney's Princess Half Marathon Weekend is less than two weeks out.  I am registered for the Glass Slipper Challenge...a 10k on Sat. and the half on Sun.  I leave Wednesday, the 19th.  I am staying with my best friend, April for almost a week.  We have a lot planned in that week.  One exciting thing...we are going to the Orlando party for Another Mother Runner.  http://anothermotherrunner.com/    I am so excited.  Free stuff!!!  Plus an evening of talking with other runners.  Probably "real" runners.  Not "grumpy" runners like me.  Ha Ha. 

 

Oddly enough what we don't have planned...park days except for after the half which we intend to drink around the "world" in Epcot.  I mean it is a "Grumpy Runner" tradition...drink a beer or two after a race.  I don't know what April and I will do after the 10k.  Drinking after that race is probably not a good choice when you are staring down the barrel of a half marathon.  Oh wait...Ghiradelli's has chocolate milkshakes at Downtown Disney!!!!!!   Problem solved!!!!!!!  There goes the diet...again. 

 

So True!!

 

 

The fact that I won't be visiting the parks on this trip is astounding.  It is my favorite place on earth after all.  But I really won't have time.  Two races, the expo, April is in school and can't drive me. Ha Ha.   I am ok with it.  Really.  If I hadn't just been to Disneyland, I may have had a different opinion.  This will be a great trip with some quality best friend time.  Plus we get to race...twice.

 

Here is the issue...two races sounded totally awesome back when I registered for them...in June.  In fact, I registered for Tink then too.  Three races.  (But FIVE medals.)  Kristen could only do Tink and April could only do Princess.  Perfect...I could get my coast to coast medal and still have a friend there with me, holding my hand at both races.  Sort of...they are both way faster runners than me. 

 

It is all about the bling, after all!!!!

 

 

As you know, training for Tink was not so great.  I was having issues with my left shin and then my knee.  I had to take time off to "heal" my leg and well the weather...awful is an understatement!!!  I ended up having a great race.  I felt awesome.  I was a bit sore after but nothing terrible.  We walked all over Disneyland and I was ok with some Advil in me. 

 

A week went by before I decided to go for an "easy" run.  (Let's be real...there are no such things as easy runs in my world.)  I had less than a month before The Glass Slipper Challenge.  I needed to start doing some back to back runs.  I wasn't worried about another long run.  Clearly I had just accomplished that.  Back to back was another thing.  My body does not like back to back runs.  So I ran 4 miles on the dreadmill (it must have been cold out) on Sunday and then 3 miles on Monday...outside.  My shin and knee DID NOT LIKE these runs.  I felt awful.  I chalked it up to having "just" run the half.  They say for every mile you race it takes a day to recover from it.  Well technically I was on day 8 and 9.  Pheww.  I still had a few days left to not feel good running.  Then I ran on Friday.  I got to four miles before I decided walking the last half mile home would probably be a good decision.  Not only did my shin and knee hurt (something I have grown accustomed to while running) now my right hip hurt.  BAD!!  Like I needed to stop and walk home bad.  Did I tell you it was cold out that day?  Walking home when you are sweaty and it is cold out is not something I would promote.  So you know it hurt. 

 

The weird thing is...once I came home, my hip stopped hurting.  Now my left shin and knee still hurt but not my right hip.  So I gave it 8 days to recover and I ran this past Saturday.  Five miles outside.  Yes it hurt.  But it was bearable for five miles.  I then ran again on the dreadmill on Sunday.  Four miles of intervals.  After that nonsense it was clearly time to call my super awesome chiropractor....Dr. Glogowski...   http://www.activeexton.com/.  He is a miracle worker.  At least he was the last time I had issues. 

 

I saw him today.  I explained to him that he needed to fix me in less than two weeks.  He was totally up for the job. ( I am pretty sure he thinks I am nuts.)   I get to go back and see him on Wednesday and Friday and next Monday.  He threw out terms like...meniscus (not torn thankfully), hip flexors not flexing (there is a surprise), my favorite..."oh yeah your muscle is stuck on your hip bone" or something like that.  I got a little bit queasy on that one.  After a lot of pushing, pulling and stretching (I am so not flexible) he was done.  For today.  I think I may have felt worse than when I walked into his office.  My knee is now bruised and more swollen than before.  Has to be good, right??  He asked silly questions like, "are you running a lot of hills?"  Are there flat roads to run on in Chester County??  My nice flat trails are kind of snow covered these days.  Come to think of it...that is probably why I felt so good running Tink.  It was mostly flat.  Easy Peasy!!!

 

So that's my story.  Less than two weeks until Princess and I can barely run the 10k much less run the half the next day.  Come hell or high water I WILL FINISH THESE RACES!!!!!  I mean my medals are counting on me!!!   HA HA HA.  So as of right now, I am hoping to still run the 10k and walk run the half.  Time and Dr. G. will tell...

 

So true!!

 

(Pics are from Pinterest.)

 

 



Tuesday...A Big Snow Storm for PA and Nothing But Sunshine For Us...

 

 

Heidi

 

So once again we woke up early on Tuesday...2:30 in the morning early.  WHY??  Because our children had no school and the Avon Grove School District calls your cell phone at 5:30 in the morning to let you know.  That would be 2:30 our time.  Yes we knew the storm and the phone calls would be coming.  But in some weird way I wanted to know that my children had a snow day.  So I left my phone on all night.  We went back to sleep easily.  Then Kristen's mother in law (who happened to be watching her children while her husband was catching a plane to Vegas) called at 5:30 in the morning.  (8:30 her time of course.)  Kristen answered the phone like it was no big deal and had a full on conversation.  She never even let on that it was super early in the morning for us.  She is a good person. 

 

So what was there to do but get up and showered for the day.  We ate breakfast at that same restaurant down the street.  Yummy pancakes again for me.  We had to kill some time because we were headed to California Adventure and it didn't open until 10 am.  I don't even remember what we did exactly.  Perhaps it was posting pictures of how beautiful the weather was on Facebook to rub it in to our friends (maybe not our friends anymore) back in Pennsylvania.  We are so very considerate that way. 

Somebody actually called us obnoxious for posting this...can you imagine??

 

 

Posted this one too...who wouldn't want to see that it was a beautiful day in Cali??

 

We arrived at California Adventure at around 9:30.  We did the same routine as Saturday.  Waited in line for Radiator Springs Racers FP's.  It was Kristen's mission today to see how many FP's we could get.  We went to Soarin' and got in line and got an FP.  We were boarded and ready to go on the attraction.  We saw two scenes of California and BAM!!!  The ride stopped.  Bummer.  They gave us a Fast Pass to come back any time during the day.  BONUS!!! 

 

We then went to California Screamin'.  Rode the ride and got a FP.  We also got an FP for World of Color for later that evening.  We also went over to Tower of Terror and rode it and got an FP.  Don't ask me how... we just did.  AND the bonus was...there were still FP's left for an evening ride on Radiator Springs Racers.  Best Fast Pass Day ever!!!

 

Kristen had to take a picture of them all to prove to her husband we did this!!

 

The thing is...in order to acquire all of the Fast Passes, you have to actually walk across the park to get each one.  I think we may have walked 8 miles.  I am not kidding.  On an ordinary day in Disney, no big deal.  After running a half marathon on Sunday and doing the same thing on Monday, it was getting a bit ridiculous. 

 

We finally ate lunch at the same place we ate on Saturday... Pacific Wharf Café.  We both got soup bread bowls.  We were starving from all of that walking we did.  Kristen ate her whole bowl.  I ate a little more than half.  When we were walking to our next ride Kristen said, "I just ate enough bread that would have fed my whole family."  She was right.  It was a ridiculous amount of bread. 

 

Soup In A Bread Bowl...again.

 

 

So we rode some more rides, saw some characters and walked a lot!!!

 

This is a bear, in case you can't tell.

Doug

Donald Duck

Mater's Junkyard Jamboree...just like The Whip.

 

While waiting for World of Color to start, Kristen decided to have a beer and I decided Ghiradelli's was calling me.  ( I have no idea how I gained 6 lbs on this trip.)  I had a hot fudge sundae and Kristen drank her yummy craft beer.  That was our dinner for the night.  We were so stuffed from lunch and our "dinner"  we decided that would be enough.  I have no picture of my Ghiradelli's food.  So sad.  No biggie.  I will be in Orlando in 2.5 weeks.  I will make my friend April take me to the one in Downtown Disney.  It is a tradition after all. 

 

Finally we arrived where they were showing World of Color.  We were so tired we could barely walk or even stand.  There isn't any real seating here but Kristen forced her way in on a set of stairs where we could sit down.  Sometimes it is good to be tall.  We sat and waited.  Oh wait...I forgot...I ate popcorn while waiting.  In my research for Disneyland...people said the popcorn at Disneyland was way better than in Disney World.  OMMMM..it was the same.  Too salty.  Anyway, if it hadn't been for the fact that this was a show that was only in California, were would have been out of there.  But we waited.  And it started.  And it was good.  It was similar to Fantasmic with the water background but just more colorful and better songs.  As soon as it was over, we bolted back to our hotel.  OK, maybe me limped and walked very slowly. 

 

The whole way back to the hotel we plotted how we were going to get stranded at the Las Vegas airport and not be able to fly into Philly.  You see, our connecting flight was in Vegas.  Kristen's husband was also in Vegas.  Wouldn't that have been terrible to have a free hotel room in Vegas for a night because we couldn't get home to our families in Philly???  NO SUCH LUCK!!!  We got off the plane in Vegas and didn't even have time to go to the bathroom.  They were already lined up and ready to board the plane that wasn't even delayed.  Bummer.  Well Home Sweet Freezing Cold Home we came.

 

Our trip was an awesome girls running trip.  I encourage everyone to do a Disneyland race, especially with your girlfriends.  Next time however, we decided we are going when it is slightly warmer and we will be heading to the beach after the race.  Too much walking for a race trip.  Tink was moved to Mother's Day Weekend 2015.  Coincidence???  I think not.  HA HA HA.  (Sorry kids...Mama is gonna race on Mother's Day....and then go lay on a beach.) 

 

 

Here are some random photos from California Adventure...

 

 

                                                                              This was Walt, Mickey and us at Disneyland Park.

                                                                                           We LOVE you Walt!!!

 







 







Week in Review

Kristen

Another week has passed-another week closer to spring.  Unfortunately the groundhog saw his shadow this morning which means 6 more weeks of winter.  I believe it as we are expecting another snowstorm tomorrow. 

I started officially training for my marathon.  I will talk about the training program I am going to be using later this week, but suffice it to say, it should be an interesting 18 weeks!

Monday:
Run 5 at 8:50 pace
I am in the process of re-setting my body.  The plan calls for me to only be running 2-4 miles a day but with more frequency.  In this winter wonderland it seems like a waste to put on as many clothes as I wear, so I'm running 5 miles each of my running days until the mileage starts to increase and then I will follow the plan completely-hopefully!
 

Tuesday:
Bike for 45 minutes on the trainer.  This is starting to become VERY boring-even while watching TV.

Wednesday:
Rest Day.

Thursday:
I did 45 minutes of exercises.  I follow a plan from pinterest.  Jumping jacks, squats, sit-ups and push-ups. It's actually a decent workout.

Friday:
Run 5 at 8:47 pace

Saturday:
Run 5 at 8:49 pace.  

Sunday:
Run 5 at 9:00 pace.  I could definitely feel it in my legs this morning.  This is the point of the training plan.  This will prove to be interesting as I am supposed to run 5 again tomorrow.  

 

Monday-a little sore?

Kristen

Well, since we were both asleep so early, we had no problem being awake bright and early.  Since we also only ate the equivalent of one meal we both woke up starving.  We went to the corner and had a delicious breakfast and sat and talked and I think I drank about 10 cups of coffee-its good for hydration.

 

This is the smallest castle!

We were at the gate to get in by 7:30, I know it sounds early, but to us it was 10:30.  We wondered if they would do the opening like Magic Kingdom-they don't.  Once through the gate we were ready to go.  We headed straight to Space Mountain for FastPasses and then went and rode the Matterhorn.  Once was more than enough for that ride!  Dylon was so excited for me to ride it-I was so excited to get off!

While we waited for our FastPass to be ready we rode most of the rides in Fantasyland.  The Teacups are much more fun in Florida.  We were shocked by how empty the whole park was.  We were literally walking onto ride after ride and this was a holiday.  After Space Mountain we went back to Toontown and wandered around-this whole area was very cool.  We saw some characters.

 

 

Once we left Toontown, it was all over.  Like magic, the park had filled up.  Thank goodness we were there early.  We probably rode more rides in the first 2 hours than we did all the rest of the day.  We made our way over to Indiana Jones and got fastpasses.  What a cool ride!  We liked it so much we got fastpasses to ride it again.  As a comparison to our Disneyworld friends-it's like Dinosaur but with different theming.

Eventually the crowds got to be too much.  Part of Disneylands problem is space.  They don't have the space for people to stand in line so they are standing in line in the middle of a walkway.  It makes for a very crowded feel.  We decided to find a good spot to watch the parade and spend our time people watching.  Both these things are favorite activities of mine and yet when traveling with my family, we very rarely see the parade.

After a very cool parade we looked at the extreme about of people and decided rather than fighting through the crowds one more time, we would call it a day.  Heidi had been talking about eating at In and Out Burger for weeks.  Apparently there was one about 3 miles away.  We went over to the hotel and asked a taxi driver how much he thought it would cost round-trip.  His response-$25-$30!  To drive maybe 8 miles round trip??  No thank you.  We decided to get a quick dinner at The Grand California.  And guess what?  They had delicious burgers there and we didn't have to pay for a taxi.  After dinner we had a quick drink and called it a day!

Here's a list of rides we rode in no particular order:

Alice in Wonderland
Astro Blasters
Chip and Dale Treehouse
Disneyland Railroad-not nearly as cool as Disneyworld's
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
Indiana Jones Adventure x2
Mad Tea Party
Winnie the Pooh
Matterhorn
Mickey and Minnie's houses-come on people they don't live together!
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Pinocchio
Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin
Space Mountain
Star Tours


The only things I feel like we missed and the lines were just too long were The Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain.  We actually had fastpasses for Splash for after the parade, but again it was all about too many people to fight through.  Overall, I really feel like we experienced the whole park.

And thankfully, neither one of us was too sore for all the walking.  We did definitely see some people who were really hurting though!

This was our walk back and forth each day-so pretty!