Wine and Dine Weekend

This past weekend, my boyfriend (Ray), roommate (Austin), and I headed down to Orlando for the Wine and Dine weekend!

Here's a recap of before and after the race, and I'll get to the race next!

We arrived Friday night and checked in.  We were staying at Port Orleans Riverside, and it was GORGEOUS! I'm absolutely in love with this resort, and hopefully we can stay here again sometime.  It was a little pricier than the value resorts we normally stay in, but I loved every second of being there.  It was a great atmosphere, and all the Disney details were perfect!

This is actually Saturday morning, shhhhh

After getting settled into the room, we headed off to the Polynesian.  We have a #runnerslove meet-up, where I got to see Meg, Lauren, and Kristy again (so exciting!) and a few other bloggers I hadn't met before.  I so wish I got to spend more time with all of these lovely ladies, but there was so much to do!



After that, we headed up to Kona Cafe for dinner.  Here you can see my #runnerslove headband, and my lovely pineapple.  It's the Lapu Lapu, and I've been wanting to try one since Princess weekend.  They're expensive, but this time I decided I was having it!  We also had lots of great sushi and food.  I was absolutely stuffed by the end of it, but I think it was a good day/night before the race dinner.  Nothing fried or heavy.




Saturday morning we woke up early to get to the expo before it opened.  We went to the food court at POR for breakfast.  I had a ham and cheese croissant, chocolate milk, and got a pain au chocolat for later!  We were able to get in to the expo early, which was super exciting.  There was no line at all to get my bib.  The official Disney merchandise was cleared out of the Field House by that time, it was just bib pick up and a photo opportunity.

We headed over to the Josten center, and truly got into expo mode.  I headed straight for the official merchandise, before too many people got to it!  The maroon jacket I really wanted was only left in XL's, which was kind of sad.  I did end up getting a grey I Did It shirt, a purple hoodie, and a magnet for my car.  Ray was sweet and bought me a purple tech shirt as well.

Austin was able to get a few things for his girlfriend, who was back at home, so that was sweet of him!

I also got 3 SweatyBands, 2 SparkleSkirts (one for my costume that night), one of Jeff Galloway's books (now signed by him), an orange hat for my costume, and probably a couple of other things I can't remember now.  Everything is in various states of being unpacked, so no pictures for now!





After the expo, we dropped everything back off at the hotel, then hopped on the boat to Downtown Disney.  I think this was a really calm and relaxing way to get there, even if it took a little longer!

We went to Raglan Road for lunch.  We got parmesan garlic truffle fries as an appetizer, which is one of my favorite Disney foods.  I had a grilled chicken breast sandwich (I don't remember what else was on it), and ended up bringing half of it back to the room as my pre-race food.

After lunch, we did a little bit of shopping.  I got a couple of presents for friends at home, and a Disney Vera Bradley backpack and matching wallet.  So, I'm no longer using my matching wristlet in my Disney Dooney purse, but my OCD will just have to live with that, since now I get an actual wallet with card slots, etc.

We hopped back on the boat and went to the resort to rest for a bit.  I was going to try to nap, but that didn't end up happening.  I hydrated as much as I could, rested, and tried to stay calm!  That didn't go very well, but I tried my very best.

I ate the other half of my sandwich around 4:30, I think, which ended up working well for me.

Around 6:30 I started getting ready, and was on a bus around 7:15.

The rest of the race will come in another post, but for now we're going to time travel to Sunday morning!

We woke up way earlier than I wanted to, but we had to check out and get back over to the Polynesian.  Side note, the Polynesian has now become the Pomeranian in our apartment, thanks to a forgetful roommate!  I had made reservations at O'hana, because I'd heard so many good things about it!  Let me tell you - nothing disappointed!! I'm absolutely in love with this place, and I got to have Mickey waffles for the first time ever!  Everything was perfectly cooked and absolutely delicious!! And I loved seeing the characters.

We stopped at the Florida mall on the way home so I could stop at Lush, and that sadly ended our wonderful weekend!






Have you been to O'hana? Were you at Wine and Dine?
Lauren

Valentine's Day Celebration - 10k and a fancy dinner

I know, I know, bad blogger going 2 weeks without posting.  But I have 2 or 3 posts that I should get up today/tomorrow to make up for it!  First was from yesterday, Saturday.  On Friday we didn't celebrate Valentine's day, we just went to my parents' house for dinner.  Saturday brought the inaugural Savannah Hot Cocoa Half and 10k.  My boyfriend and I were both doing the 10k, and we had both gotten SavedbytheDeal deals for half off (at different times).

The weather going into it was decent - it was 50's and sunny but the WIND was absolutely killer!  It didn't make it cold, really, it was just so darn strong, and most of the race it seemed we were fighting against it.  Sometimes I couldn't even hear him because the wind was rushing by my ears so much.

The race itself was in a community about 15 minutes away from us.  It's not a gated community, but very nice.  Gorgeous houses - I love to go "house shopping" whenever we have races through neighborhoods.  It was an out and back course with the 10k turning around at 3.1, and the half continuing on to 6.5 before turning around.  Probably the only issue I have with the race itself was the water stops.  I didn't end up stopping at all - I was on a mission to PR which I'll talk about later - but they were inconveniently placed.  The course went out and about a third of a mile in you go through a little gazebo type thing, where a water stop was.  Then you go around a lake (pictured below), and back through the gazebo, just around mile 1.  In my opinion, this is far too early for a water stop.  If there was one at the turn around point, I probably would have used it, but we just hit the gazebo again around mile 5 when we went back through.  That, for me, is too late in the race.  I will say that the water station was very well stocked - fruit, water, Gatorade, and of course chocolate!  They had Snickers, Reese's, and a couple other kinds I didn't see.  I just wish they were placed a little better.

My boyfriend ran this race with me.  He knew he couldn't PR, since he just did at Tybee with a time of around 1:10 and change, and didn't want to race for time if he couldn't PR, so he stayed back with slow little me!  I, on the other hand, DID PR!  I was so so so excited!  I finished in 1:22:52, which is a PR of 3 minutes and 17 seconds.  I honestly feel like if the wind was nonexistent I could have broken 1:20, but I was so excited to PR, and by that much!  I did my 1:1 walk:run intervals, skipped the first walk like I always do, and skipped I believe a total of 3 run intervals, which is much less than I normally do.  

At the finish line there was hot chocolate, Girl Scout cookies, and chocolate fondue with many dippers - strawberries, grapes, marshmallows, pretzels, and more things I'm sure I'm forgetting.  They also had Hershey's Kisses, homemade cookies, and a few other little things.  I just had a cookie and a Kiss; I pushed hard during the race and my body wasn't quite ready for food yet.  We got our medals and mugs, and walked around for a few minutes after to cool down, then met a friend at Cracker Barrel for breakfast.

Another comment about the race - there was really no course support.  The volunteers at the water station were absolutely amazing, cheering for every runner.  They had a few volunteers here and there to keep you on course, and at the 10k turn around (I'm sure the half turn around as well), and they were cheering.  A few people were outside of their houses watching, but not really cheering.  It didn't really bother me, but I did notice the lack of it, but completely understood with it being a neighborhood race.  I knew one lady who was running the race, Tara.  She's such a wonderful person that I met through running, through rarely see and barely know, but when she passed me on her way back in while we were still going out, she cheered for us and yelled our names, which was sweet!  We also met a couple (and their cute little baby) who did Tower of Terror and are doing Glass Slipper Challenge next weekend!  Overall, it was a great race that I look forward to running again.

After having breakfast/lunch and getting all cleaned up, we hung around the apartment for a while, then got ready for our fancy dinner.  We went to the Melting Pot, as we always do for fancy occasions, and it was fabulous as always.  They even brought us a champagne toast at dessert, which was so sweet!  I won't go into too many details, but if you've never heard of it it's an absolutely amazing fondue place!

I can't stay fancy & classy for long!

Overall, it was a great Valentine's Day a day late.

What did you do to celebrate?
Lauren