I'm Going to be a Princess and Give Away Winner

As of last Friday night, I am officially registered for the

2013 Disney Princess Half Marathon.

My boyfriend and I are making it a huge birthday/vacation/running extravaganza! I will be in Florida from February 16th through February 26th (the race itself is on the 24th). I'm so excited I can hardly see straight!
We booked our hotel, dining reservations, airfare, and race registration. This is REALLY happening! AHHHHHHH!!!! Any other bloggers out there going to do the same race? It would be awesome to get to meet up with some of you amazing people! Looking at our dining reservations, I just have to be very careful that I don't overeat the days leading up into the race (which is going to be so hard to do while we are on the Disney cruise!). I'm going to need all the strength I can muster... or I'm just going to have to utilize the fitness center and pools as much as possible- that sounds like a better plan.

I've decided (as was my previous plan) that I'm going to try and dress like Ariel for the run (it is a tie between her and rapunzel, but I would look horrible as a blonde!). Purple top, green sparkle skirt, green compression socks, and green shoes. I may or may not also dye my hair bright red the week before the trip (so it doesn't bleed everywhere when I'm actually running).

This means I really need to be serious about my training. I keep saying it over and over again, but life continues to get in the way. What happened to the discipline I had last year?! I miss it. Tonight I'm going to do some cross-training to get myself back into the swing of things. Then, Thursday morning I'm doing a 3 mile run. Saturday or Sunday (depending upon weather) I'm going to do an 8mile run. I should be doing a 10 mile, but since I haven't run at all this past week and a half, I don't want to jump back in too soon and hurt myself. I'm going to listen to my body and take it slow. That's really all I can do! I need y'all to help keep me on track- if you don't see me updating, please shoot me an email and make me feel guilty!

I think part of the reason I keep slacking on my training is because I'm scared of hitting double digit runs. I shouldn't be, considering I did them last year, but I think I'm psyching myself out because sometimes I have really great long runs and sometimes my body is so tired that my long run is horrible and it depresses me.. Any advice on how to stop that? I could use it.

In other news, the MDA Lock-Up fundraiser was a great success! A HUGE thanks to everyone who donated as $600 was raised. The page is still up for another month or so if anyone else would like to contribute. However, the winner of the Mystery Loot Give Away is Jessica Hill! She wins a gift certificate to Lululemon and an array of goodies that will pamper and delight!

Again, a huge thank you to everyone who particpated!

Happy last week of summer!!

6 Miles and a Happy 4th!

First off- Happy belated 4th of July everyone!

Source

I hope y'all had a safe and fantastic Independence day- I know I did! I got to spend my day at Mohegan Sun Casino. They have an amazing fireworks show at the end of the night, and wouldn't you know it but my boyfriend was on the pyro team! Woot! Anywho, we got to the casino around 1:30 and the fireworks didn't go off until a little after 9pm, so while he was working away and playing with explosives, I did laps around the casino, gambled a little, did some shopping, and then headed to the garage roof party to wait for the show. I walked around for about 6 hours! Holy crap crackers!

In other news, I've been keeping up with my training as much as humanly possible with my new summer hours. Today I was hoping to do a 6.5mile run, but I only managed 6 miles before I had to shower and head out for work. On the up side, I did those 6 miles in 1:29:50! Just under one and a half hours! HOORAY!! I'm kind of proud of myself, if I'm going to be honest. I was really feeling tired during mile three, but I managed to continue to push myself. I played around alot with my intervals. I mostly stuck to run 3, walk 1.5. But sometimes I would switch to sprint 2, walk 3 just to give it a little extra oompf.

My legs and back are already starting to feel a little sore, but I'm planning on going in my pool today after I get out of work at 12:30. Hopefully, the weightlessness and the refreshing coolness of the water will help relax my muscles while keeping them active. My next run I'm moving to Monday morning because Tuesday I will be very busy with work. It's only a 2 mile run so it shouldn't be too bad at all.

One thing I'm trying to do for myself this summer is to make sure that I have at least 5 out of the 7 days where I have done some sort of exercise- Whether it's a short swim, a run, a walk, Just Dance on the Wii, or even cleaning- I'm trying to fit something in. I've been stuck at 209-210lbs for the past 3 weeks and it is killing me! So, not only am I trying to increase my calorie burns, I've decreased my daily caloric intake. normally I stick around the 1770 range, I've dropped myself down to 1600 calories a day (this is not taking exercise into considerationg- with more calories burned, I can add on more calories to replenish my system). I'm also trying to more diligent about increasing my daily water intake. I keep a water bottle with me wherever I go, I just have to remember to keep drinking it throughout the day. Ugh!

I would like to be under 200lbs by the time October hits. Not only because that is when I have my half marathon, but also because I will be going on vacation to Las Vegas! I feel that this is a very do-able goal- I just need to stay motivated. Sometimes I get into these funks where I practically convince myself that I will never get through this plateau and under 200. Any advice on how to break that habit?

http://pumpkintoprincess.blogspot.com/2012/07/firecracker-5k-to-benefit-leukemia-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PumpkinToPrincess+%28Pumpkin+to+Princess%29 posted an awesome motivational status on facebook the other day and it really applied to me:  "The BEST muscle to work for weight loss?? Your brain. Change the way you think about food and exercise and it's affect on your health & you WILL change your body." I love that! Also, while I'm talking about Amy- check out her blog and register for her Firecracker 5k Virtual Race to benefit the LLS. You get an awesome engraved finisher medal too! Great stuff!

Anyone have any fun and exciting plans coming up for the summer?

Back In the Saddle

Seeing the title I just chose, I kind of wish I could go horseback riding. I love horses and I've always wanted to know how to ride one. Maybe it's my inner cow-girl coming out.

Anyway, it's been a very long week... and it's only Wednesday! Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
Last weekend was the 100th year Anniversary Jubilee celebration for the Girl Scouts (the organization I work for). I spent part of Friday helping set up, all day Saturday working it, and then Sunday I went back to help take down (though there wasn't much to do). Saturday was a blast! Hectic, but fun! We had around 9,000 people show up to the event. I got up bright and early and was at the fairgrounds by 8am. Around 10:30am I helped lead the opening parade. By 11:30 I was tossed into the food booth to help field orders because the lines were over an hour long! Ahhh!!! After a few hours of that, I made it to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) stage to help load and unload the performers. I also got to MC and introduce the acts as they came out. Rock on! By 6:45pm, we started breaking down everything in the STEM area as the day was finally over. I left the fairgrounds a little after 7pm, got home, had dinner, and went to bed.

Sunday they didn't have much of anything to do as far as clean up, so I headed home. Later that evening, we had to rush my father to the hospital. he had been having severe abdominal pain and couldn't move. At first, they thought it was his appendix. Turns out, it was his gallbladder. They ended up having to do emergency surgery on him Monday morning to remove it. He is still currently in the hospital (he developed a fever yesterday and is still in a lot of pain, but he's doing better), and we hope he is going to come home tomorrow.

I did manage to get in a very nice run Monday morning before I went back to the hospital. I did 2 miles in 28:02. I ran the first 6 minutes straight, then maintained a 2 run: 1 walk ratio the rest of the time. I chose that method for multiple reasons; 1. I haven't been running like I was last year, so my muscles and everything need to be re-conditioned before I start upping the ante, and 2. I chose to run faster for those two minute spurts and try and push myself more than if I tried to run 5-7minutes straight. I plan on doing the same thing tomorrow for my second run of the week.

I've also been trying very, very hard to keep track of what I eat every day and have been keeping up pretty well with MyFitnessPal (again, feel free to add me biggergirlsrun2). I've made a couple of new friends on there and hope to make even more! I'm a firm believer in the more support, the better. Since I first reported that I had gained a good portion of weight back, I'm happy to say that I have lost about 4lbs. Hooray! I'm sure once I really get into my training schedule, I will lose more. And I'm super psyched about that!

One of the forums on MyFitnessPal.com asked people to list what their summer fitness goals were. I thought that was pretty nifty, so I decided to share mine here and see what goals y'all might have as well.

My summer fitness goals are:

to train (intelligently) for my 2nd half marathon,

to run at least 50 miles,

to go rock-wall climbing (inside),

to go ziplining,

 to go for at least 3 really nice hikes,

and to try a new Zumba place.

What do you think of my goals? What are YOUR summer goals?

Summer!

It's Warm!

It's practically SUMMER!!

I went out for a run yesterday afternoon- no destination in mind, no time crunch to worry over. It was warm out, which was nice, and I fell into a nice, steady pace. I hit my mile marker and decided to turn back around to head home (I needed to shower and get ready for work). When I hit my street, I checked my watch and did an instant double-take. There was no way my clock read 23:09! What!? That's craziness! That means I did a sub 12 minute mile FOR TWO WHOLE MILES! I'm officially patting myself on the back for that. I mean, it's not a pace I could hold for 13.1 miles right now, but I'm impressed I was able to do it for two miles.

Also, now that it's finally warmer out, a magical, wonderful thing has happened.

Our pool is open!!

Ok, so it's kind of green still and definitely not ready to go swimming in, but at least it's open again! I can't wait to go for a long run and then hop directly into my pool (running clothes and all- minus my shoes and iTouch haha). I'm not a swimmer by any means, but a refreshing dip after a hot run sounds amazing! And who doesn't love lounging in the pool every now and again?

In other news, I went to a friends concert the other night (he's a music teacher and his kids had their final concert of the year- they were Phenomenal!). His school is in a different part of the state, so I headed up there a little earlier than I should have and did some shopping at EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports). It's the first time I had ever gone in there so I did a lot of perusing. They have some awesome wool running socks that I may go back and purchase. They also had a large amount of GU and other energy gels, so I got some. 

I bought a Powerbar gel in Vanilla, a Clif bar gel in Vanilla, and an 8 pack box of GU in Lemon/SubLime. I can't wait to try it out! Anyone ever use any of the above products?  If so, how did you like them? If not, do you use something different that you prefer?

Also, don't forget to enter my Bondi Band Give Away HERE!