Friday Five: 5 Things I Did This Summer

Mar, Courtney, and Cynthia host Friday Five, and today is talking about this that happened this summer! I'm going to let the pictures mostly speak for themselves this week.

1. I went to school.  It was brutal.  4 week semesters! They're normally 16.

I might have studied in a bar - sorry Mom and Dad!

2. I finished moving into my new place!

3. I ran a half marathon with my big sister!

4. I ate.  This is just a small selection of the food pictures I have from this summer.

5. Most importantly, I spent time with family! A week long trip with Mom, Dad, brother, sister (in law), and 2 nephews!

Did you do anything exciting this summer? My favorite time was when I was on vacation.  It was amazing to chill out for once and spend time with family I hadn't seen!

Lauren

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

Nike Women's Half DC Weekend - Leading Up to the Race

So, a week and a half later, I'm finally posting about Nike Women's Half!  I won't go too much into detail, since each mile by mile is getting kind of fuzzy, and many others have done extremely in depth recaps that sum everything up much better than I could!  This is going to be slightly long because even though I'm not going in depth, I'm just taking out most of the weekend in one post, so bear with me!

We drove up to DC on Friday.  We hit about an hour outside of DC just before five o'clock.  At one point we literally moved two miles in an hour.  It was absolutely horrible and took us just over twelve hours.  For comparison, we barely hit traffic on the way home and it took just under ten hours.  We found this amazing place called Ray's to the Third so of course we had to stop there!  Amazing burgers and delicious shakes!  It was a perfect choice.

Saturday morning, we got to the expo just as it opened to avoid the lines I'd read horror stories about from last year.  We had absolutely no wait to pick up my packet or my t-shirt!  It was a much longer walk from the metro stop than we thought, but luckily it was gorgeous out.  The expo was interesting.  It was kind of nice to not have people trying to sell you things or sign up for races, but there also wasn't much to do.  We did see Meg and Kristy at the expo, so that was super exciting!  I did get my hair braided at the Paul Mitchell station and it stayed up beautifully, so that was a major plus!  After that, we went up to Nike Georgetown.  I got a couple of shirts, and they're so soft and comfy!

We had some time to kill before the #runnerslove meet-up, so we went down to the bank for Ray, then up to the LUSH Cosmetics store.  I was so happy we found one and didn't even have to go out of the way to get there!  I love my LUSH, but sadly we don't have one anywhere near here.  I found it interesting that hardly anything in Georgetown opened until 10 or 11.  Finally it was time for #runnerslove at Sprinkles Cupcakes.  Oh my goodness!  The cupcakes were to die for and the company was even better!  It was so nice to finally get to meet a few of the people I'd been waiting for, and to see some familiar faces!  After Sprinkles we went up to this little park and sat and talked for a while.  It was so gorgeous and perfect out!  Then Kristy, Meg, one other blogger whose name I horrible don't remember, and Ray and I went up to Alex and Ani.  My sister is a huge fan of them, and I finally got my first bracelet with an anchor charm!  

Ray and I headed back to the hotel to drop of all of our goodies, and then headed into the "real" DC to do some sight seeing.  First we saw the Capitol and a few other important buildings (I'm a horrible sight seer, really), and then stopped in this little cafe to get a sandwich for lunch.  We then headed to the White House, then the other end of the Mall to see the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, etc.  It was a very touristy day, and was a lot more walking at about 10 miles than I meant to do.   Oops!

We finally got back to the hotel, and then went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.  Oh. My. Goodness. It was delicious!  I wish we had one here.  We tried to get to bed early and succeeded partially.

I've included just a few of our way too many pictures below!

RunTheBluegrass Recap

So, this past weekend Ray and I took the ten-ish hour drive up to Lexington, Kentucky so I could RunTheBluegrass.  And we both checked off Kentucky from the list of states we've been to!  We drove from Georgia, through both Carolinas, Tennessee, and finally Kentucky.

We got in around 3:00 in the afternoon on Friday, after leaving at around 4:45 in the morning.  We stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast, and Arby's for lunch on the way which made it take a little longer than just driving.  Oh, and we stopped for gas twice.  

The expo was bigger than I expected, and had lots of great vendors.  Of course, most of the races that were there were local, and I don't plan on running Kentucky again, so that was kind of unfortunate, but fun to see what they offered!  As for official race merchandise, we got two leather coasters (Jim Beam and Blanton's), our special bottle of Blanton's bourbon, bourbon fudge, and two coffee mugs.  They're super cute and I can't wait to use them!  I also got a couple cute tanks from Gypsy Runner.  There was so much more I wanted, but I was trying to be good!  We also talked to a guy who was from a local running store about Newtons, and I'm definitely thinking about getting some as my next pair.  We have a local store here that specializes in natural running, and Newtons are one of their main products.  After that we headed over to Wild Thyme for the runners' dinner, made some friends, and had some absolutely delicious food.  It was all buffet style, and you can see most of what was offered on the pictures of the plates.  The alfredo was home made, and I think even the pasta was!  Vegetarian lasagna and meat, delicious garlic bread, veggies, pork, and a few more things I can't remember.  Then, for dessert was bourbon bread pudding!  It was so good.  All of it was accompanied by beer from a local brewery, and they're also one of the main sponsors of the race.  If I'm ever back in Lexington, I'll for sure eat at Wild Thyme.  It's a farm to table restaurant, the whole kitchen is open so you can see, and it's so yummy!

Saturday morning we woke up early, and I got ready for the race.  Silly me managed to pull up Savannah's forecast instead of Lexington's, so I thought it was about 20-30 degrees warmer than it was, and therefore didn't wear tights.  Whoops!  The race was around 45 degrees, rained literally the entire time, and according to the weather channel felt like 32.  It was misty at the start but not raining yet, but basically as soon as we actually started it rained.  Oh, by the way, if you do this race, get there early!  It said get there between 7-8, we planned on getting there about 8, and it took us probably 30 minutes to go half a mile as we were filing into Keeneland.  Ray was getting quite angry at the line jumpers, and I was just trying not to freak out about the cold and it being my first half marathon.

I have a blurry picture of the start and a couple from along the course in the post, but my iPod was in a plastic Ziploc so it wouldn't die in the rain (my phone, on the other hand, was left out of a plastic bag and suffered no water damage despite being in a pocket that was literally dripping water).  It truly was absolutely breathtaking and gorgeous and serene.  Unfortunately, that was all marred by the weather on Saturday.  Even so, pictures really don't do any of this area justice; it's something you truly have to experience.  I want to give a more detailed recap, but I honestly just don't remember a lot of the race.  I was cold.  I was wet.  There were hills.  I felt like I was almost never on flat land, it was always uphill or downhill.  My legs probably would have been screaming were they not numb.  I counted three hills in the first mile, and stopped counting after that!  There were times were all I could do was focus on putting one foot in front of the other, because I couldn't feel myself running.  I was a few SparkleSisters who gave me thumbs ups, so that was nice, but otherwise I stayed in my own world with my music.  My only goal going in was to finish, but about halfway through I decided I would finish under 3:15.  I did!  My official time was 3:10:55, with a 14:34 pace.  I don't know how I managed to pull that out of my ass since most of my long runs average a 15-16 minute pace on completely flat land!  I also was feeling some of the effects of running at around 1000 ft under sea level when I live literally at it.  It was overall quite an experience, and I'm still processing it all.  There were a lot of positives and negatives, but I'm pretty sure most of the negatives just came from the weather.

I literally went straight from the finish line to the car.  I knew if I stopped moving I wouldn't start again, and all I wanted was to be warm again.  I think I had the beginning stages of frost bite, because my thighs were completely red, as was my stomach, and it only just barely started to go away after around 30 minutes in a warm shower, and I've never stayed red from cold for more than 5 minutes or so.  Once I was warmed up from the shower, and had dealt with my foot (I ended up getting two major blisters on my feet and killer bruising from where I got it taped for my planter fasciitis because the tape was too tight and it got wet), I decided I didn't want to move for a while and got snuggled up in bed with Ray.  Around 3:00 we finally decided to go to "lunch" and ended up going to Big Boy.  I'd never heard of it, but Ray had from movies and tv and was dying to go.  I will admit that I've never ate a bowl of mac n cheese that fast before in my life!  I also felt kind of "off" the rest of the day.  I wasn't nauseous, but unexplainably weird feeling.  I think my body was just in shock.  We went over to the mall so I could go to LUSH Cosmetics, since we don't have one in Savannah, played in the Apple Store, and then went back to the hotel and crashed, then ordered pizza around 8:30.  I felt a lot better than I thought I would, and a heck of a lot better than after my Tower of Terror 10 Miler, considering I could actually walk and all!  Today, I'm hardly sore at all.

Sunday we woke up around 8:00, ate breakfast at the hotel, and then ended up getting on the road around 9:30.  Around 11:00, we decided to fulfill every stoner's dream and go to White Castle!  It was exciting, and much better than Krystal (which I still don't see the appeal of at all).  Around 2:00 we got in to Asheville, drove along a little bit of the course I'll be running in June, and got lunch.  It was this place called Farm Burger, who has all grassfed beef, local and fresh ingredients, etc. and you can basically build your burger however you choose.  We also got parmesan garlic fries which were amazing!  I don't have a picture of my burger, because it wouldn't have been pretty at all, and I devoured it as soon as I got it.  We'll definitely be coming back here in June!  We finally ended up getting home around 7:30 Sunday night, absolutely exhausted.

With getting the time that I did in this hilly and rainy of a race, I'm definitely aiming for under 3 hours at Nike at the end of this month!

Did you have any firsts this weekend?
Lauren

Tower of Terror Packing List!

So, I set out today to put together a packing list for my boyfriend and I for Tower of Terror.  I'd love if anyone could take a look over it, see what I'm forgetting, etc.  (I should note that we're driving down Friday morning, driving home Tuesday morning, and going to Universal on Monday.  And no, we're not going to the Disney parks at all =( )

For him (running the 5k)

• Running shirt, shorts, socks, underwear, shoes
• Clothes for Saturday - Tuesday
• Underwear
• Bathing suit(s)
• Shampoo
• Body wash
• Deodorant
• Villian's Bash ticket
• ID
• Waiver
• Phone
• Phone Charger
• Headphones
• Safety pins
• Universal ticket
• Hotel confirmations (this is for both of us, I just like putting it on his list so it's not quite so short compared to mine)
• Snacks (same with this)

And for me (running 10 Miler)

• Running shirt, shorts, socks, shoes, tutu, compression sleeves
• Hair ties, bobby pins
• Running bow
• Sparklysoul headbands
• Purple sports bra
• Clothes Saturday - Tuesday
• Underwear
• Bras
• Bathing suits
• ID
• Waiver
• Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash, moisturizer, lotion
• Phone, phone charger
• iPod, charger
• Garmin, charger
• Kindle, charger
• Headphones
• Safety pins
• Universal ticket
• Gels/chews/fuel for race
• Breakfast foods
• Ibuprofen
• KT Tape
• Hairbrush
• Ice pack if we find out we have a freezer

I feel like these are such long lists, but I've never had a "racecation" before. 

Anything I'm missing?  What do you have as 'must-haves' that aren't on this list?

Lauren