1/2 Marathon

I did it!! I finished the 1/2 marathon. I ran in my neighborhood to get all of the 13.1 miles in. I decided to do this because I wanted to do the Disney 1/2 Marathon that was on the same weekend. I couldn't afford it. It was crazy expensive. So, I decided to train with my cousins anyway and still do a half on the same weekend that they would do their race.

It almost feels anticlimactic because I have finished a marathon. However, during the marathon I was walking most of it. I was planning to walk the whole thing until I realized it was going to take forever so I decided to run the last 10.6 miles. That 10.6 miles was the longest I had run before. And I had so many breaks in those 10.6 miles for stretching and resting for water that it doesn't feel the same as running the whole thing would feel. Still an accomplishment to finish one though. I won't take anything away from actually finishing it.

So back to the 1/2 marathon. This was an effort to run pretty much the whole way. I know myself and know that occasionally I will have to walk. Even if it's only like 30 seconds of walking, I know occasionally I will need to do that. I ran the first half only stopping 3 times. The first half was so nice. Easy running because it was overcast and cool out. The last half was so much sunnier and I felt like I was getting heat exhaustion. I am prone to that so it wasn't surprising to me.

My house was the half way point so that I could stop for water and something to eat (graham cracker). I knew my grandparent's house was on the way too so I could stop for water if I needed to also. I didn't feel like I needed it when I passed their house the second time, but by the time I got to the trail again I was dying. My legs and feet were actually fine. It was the heat that was the problem. I kept finding shade to walk in when I could. I was about 2-3 miles from finishing but felt so lethargic. At some point I decided that I might have to walk the rest to finish it. I kept doing little bursts of running trying to get started again but would just be so exhausted that I would have to walk again.

At one point I was praying, "God, please let someone be outside." Right around the corner some lady was outside watering her garden. I went up to her and asked her if I could drink some water from her hose. She said yes, but then insisted she get me a water bottle instead. (Since this was a stranger, I did notice that it was sealed before I opened it.) haha She talked to me about seeing me running before and that she was going to do her first 5K soon. It was so refreshing to get some water and I couldn't wait to finish. At that point I only had about 3/4 of a mile or less to finish. I did get a couple more running bursts in, but was just too wiped out.

I finished it!!! And as soon as I sat on my porch i could feel my heels start to hurt. Thankfully they didn't hurt at all during the run. But as soon as I got up I already couldn't walk very well.  Lots of resting and a couple days later and I could finally walk without pain. lol

At the end of it I felt this sense that I wouldn't ever do long runs again. I just was over it. But now I'm not quite so sure. The thought of running longer again is tempting, but I guess I will just see how it goes. I haven't run since. I did get orthodics today so I'm hoping that will start the healing process for my heels. At the very least I will continue running my 5Ks. Those are my favorites. But I have a feeling I'll do some longer ones too.

Mental note, pick a day that will be overcast to do a long run. Or run earlier or later with lights or reflectors or something. Especially an almost 3 hour run. I started at 6:15 in the morning hoping to have it all be fairly cool. The beginning was awesome and my run was good, but as it got hotter it was harder for sure.

So, no race medal or running through Disneyland, but I still did it anyway. And now I can say I have done it. It does make me want to do it all running though. ahh, maybe. I don't know yet. We'll see.

My time was 2 hours 55 minutes. Even with all of that walking. I was hoping for under 2 hours 30 minutes running most of it. So, that's pretty good considering I had to walk pretty much all of the last 2-3 miles.

10 on Tuesday

Ok, so I logged into my blog on Tuesday, and as I'm writing this it is already after midnight. Why am I still up?

1. I went to Disneyland again today. My sorority sister's daughter was celebrating her birthday at the happiest place on earth. I'm so glad that we went. The girls all had a blast together. So compatible as friends. And it was great reconnecting after so long.

2. I let Jillian kick my butt tonight. I did the 30 Day Shred LEVEL 3!!! This was only the second time I have done level 3 and it was easier this time. I was actually able to do the full sit ups. I couldn't even do it last time. I was so excited. I also did a few other moves better/easier than last time too. woho!

3. I am determined to make this week a great week for my weigh in on Friday. Last week I lost 1.8. It's good, but I want to be losing more. I know I can if I just get better on the weekends. A couple friends and I talked about our weekend battles today. We decided that we are going to pretend that we have another weigh in on Monday as well. So, the 3 of us are actually going to weigh in together just to make sure we were good on the weekends. Keeping each other accountable. I'm so excited about this. I think it's just what I need. Motivation to stay the course.

4. I hear Skyler coughing in her room right now. Oh, how I pray that she isn't getting sick. The poor girl seems to be getting sick left and right.

5. Oh the drama with the doctor. I will have to elaborate more. I have a follow up appt. on Monday.

6. The girls and I ditched the BMX bike show tonight. I seriously did not want to go. And I totally forgot about it and had thought we were doing Disneyland. Then I get the illustrious "golden ticket" home from school that Courtney won. This entitles her to get there early for better seating. Still no desire to go other than to make her happy if this is what she wants to go to. So, I gave her the choice. I told her all about the bike show and that her friends would be there or Disneyland where she would meet some new friends. It was such a quick choice. Disneyland it was. Then she kept going back and forth, but ended on Disneyland. :)

7. Oh good. No more coughing sounds from the other room. I hope she can get some good sleep tonight. They both should with all of that fun and exercise tonight at Disneyland.

8. I asked the teacher about the "3rd grade phonics book" because it was hard to believe. She said that she didn't really know for sure if it was 3rd grade for sure, but that it was the 3rd phonics book. So, even if there is one per year, it would be 2nd. Regardless, it's above reading level.

9. I also found out that she started the Accelerated Reader Program at school too. And from the mouth of her grandma (who is the librarian), she didn't think there were any kindergartners in that program. How exciting. Charting new waters. So, she will be reading the book and coming to school and taking a test on it. Then she gets a new book. There are points and prizes and fun stuff like that. We read the book today and she did so well with it. Several new words and she is learning them fast. She could probably test on it tomorrow. I'll have her read it again just to be sure before school. Ya, ya....I'm a bragging mom tonight. So proud of how well she is doing and excited about her eagerness to learn.

10. Only a couple more days until weigh in. More workouts coming my way. :)

Weekend Review & Realizations

The weekend starts with Friday as usual since my hubby has the day off. Weigh ins started off the weekend. We had a play date with some of Courtney's friends from school at a park. We had dinner out with my parents which started the bad eating for the weekend.

We had a fun time hanging out with my brother and Chris who were down from Colorado to take his state test to be an electrician back in California again. My brother, Shawn will be moving back here at the beginning of June!!! We are so excited to see the whole family!!!

Saturday Courtney got to go to her Saturday Academy at school. I'm just bummed it was the last one. She just thrives with extra learning. She just came home today telling me that she is now on the 3rd grade phonics book (she's in kinder). Crazy! I'm so proud of her.

Saturday night was a new experience. I got to run with my hubby. He just started running and has walked up to 1.6. He has run/walked a mile before. He went running with Shauna and I and finished a 5K!!! And on top of that, his first 5K was a hilly one. We kept encouraging him to keep going.

Sunday we headed over to Disneyland with some awesome friends (Ellen, Gracie, Mindy, Kiara, and Alex). Preston couldn't come this time and Scott was feeling the love from all of the kids who couldn't stop hanging all over him. lol Normally the love is shared between the 2. He ended up giving rides to them and making himself even more sore. lol

I have been having trouble on the weekends with eating. I think I need to pretend that weigh in is on Monday so that I don't eat horrible on the weekends. It's like I'm giving myself permission to indulge. I need this to stop!! I can't stand having to make up for the damage I've done on the weekend. I WILL change this behavior!! I will make this a good weight loss week!!

I also need to drink more water. Normally I'm pretty good at this since I really can't drink much else. But I know I'm not getting enough for good weight loss. So, that's another goal I would like to reach for.

Our computer has a bunch of viruses in it. Oh joy. I was going to search for something using Mozilla/Firefox's main home page. It has a google search right there. Don't use it!! Go to google.com and use it there instead. The search results that I got gave me a virus. Immediate. Ug! I just clicked on the search result. No download or anything like that. So, thankfully a friend (Jon YOU ROCK!!) offered to help us out and fix it. So, he has it. Then my parents offered to let us use their laptop to use in the meantime. (My parent's rock too!!) lol Did my apparent NEED for the internet show? lol I actually just went over to their house to send out the weight loss email to the challengers. I have facebook (well most of it..no games) on my phone and can access email through my phone too. So, I was pretty good. haha This is so cool though. Love this laptop. :) So, that's how I'm writing this out today. Hopefully I will still have my word docs because I use them all the time to save everything. I did try to save them on a disk and the computer wouldn't let me. I'll have to do that once it's all better. The biggest thing is all of the pictures that are on there. Thankfully we post tons on facebook so we do have access to a lot of them. I need to get better at backing them up on CDs. This should teach me a lesson.

Disneyland - New Experiences

Oh what a day! This was a momentous trip to Disneyland. BOTH of the girls grew to the new height requirements they were getting closer to. So we got to ride new rides (to them).

Skyler grew to 40" so she now can ride everything at Disneyland but Indiana Jones. Scary! When did my little dare devil get big enough for that? Today. She grew about a half inch since the last time we measured her. Her new rides she can go on now (at Disneyland..and not including DCA) are; Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, and Star Tours. We opted to try out Splash and Big Thunder today for her. She LOVED them. She was laughing so hard when she would get air on Big Thunder. She also loved getting "soakin' wet" on Splash. Every time she got wet she would say something about loving to get wet. I have a feeling next week when we go to DCA that she will be trying the new rides she can go on over there like Soarin' Over California, and Tower of Terror. We'll see about that one. But she seems to want to do it. We are just so excited for her that she doesn't have to miss out anymore. So now she can go on almost all of the rides. How exciting.

Courtney grew to 46" so she can now ride Indiana Jones at Disneyland. So now she can ride EVERYTHING at Disneyland. That's just nuts. She's so old. :) We warned her about the snake so she could hiss at it instead of being scared. She said it still scared her a little bit. We also warned her about the big rock that rolls toward you. And to not be scared because you go under the rock. She's so cute. She was wondering if she would have to duck to get under it. :) She said her favorite part was going under the rock.

What a fun weekend this is starting out to be. Last night we hung out with my cousins, the Hoopers. We ordered pizza and hung out. We even made sundaes. The kids LOVED that! The guys got to even both be happy while watching a Dodger/Angel game. (One likes the Angels and the other the Dodgers.) We are doing a bbq at our house with my in laws tomorrow. (Still have to clean for that one.) :) Then Monday we are going to a picnic.

Courtney's kindergarten assessment is this Thursday to see what class she will be in. More advanced or beginning. Hopefully she will be in the advanced class so she can be encouraged to read more instead of basics like what sounds letters make. She has been doing great at reading sentences here and there. We're proud of her.

Skyler is going to be starting preschool in the fall. How fun for her. She loves going to drop off/pick up Courtney at school. She wishes she could play on the playground when we are there but they can't have non-school kids play due to policies and insurance issues. The only time she gets to is on a family party night at school. Then she gets all excited to play. She will LOVE it and is so ready to be in school.

Here are some pictures from today.

The girls getting to take a picture with Jasmine.

Courtney making the mark for Indiana Jones!!


Skyler and I in line for Splash Mountain

Scott and I in line for Splash Mountain...gotta do something in a line that long. Next time we are getting a fast pass for that one. We waited about an hour and 15. The fast pass people waited about 5 minutes at the most.

Skyler measuring at Splash Mountain! How exciting. Skyler was so excited that she was a big girl.

After Splash Mountain. We were sooo wet. A hug wall of water came up and over us all.

The whole front of me (shirt, head and pants were so wet)

My sweetie pie!

Sticky hands from cotton candy!!

So excited that they went on Big Thunder Mountain

Candlelight 2008

Wow, what an amazing experience it all was. Such a great show and amazing reaction from those who watched as well.

Our day started off by arriving by 12:30pm. Then waited for the practice to start. We went through all of the songs with just the choir and then added the orchestra, hand bells, and heralding trumpeters. Wow, were they loud. Beautiful, but loud. Then we had a break to eat and after that we started getting ready to line up and for more instructions. Then we lined up into 6 huge rows and got our robes on and our little stoles (little collar things). We got to get our fake candles too. :)

Then we started walking. We had about a quarter to half mile walk to get to the right gate to start. We went under the train and everyone was waving their candles. It was awesome. 4 cast members started it and everyone followed. Then we started the procession down the parade route. The funny thing is that we didn't even know what songs we were going to be singing as we did the procession until we heard them playing and started singing them. We knew they were just random carols, but still. I think we should have at least known what songs they were. We sang the same like 3 songs over and over and over until we were finally all up in the risers. We ended at the beginning of Main Street (right in front of the train station).

John Stamos was the narrator this year. He read the Christmas story and it was so awesome to have this message being said to all of those people at Disneyland. It's the most "christian" day at Disneyland. He did a wonderful job of narrating and told of how he used to come to watch Candlelight and how he is a local and goes to Disneyland a lot. He was such a jokester when we were rehearsing. It was cool to see that fun side of him.

The performance went wonderful. Scott and the girls were there watching the first one. Then they went to go on rides. We got to hang out in the Lincoln Theater during our break. They even had a cool dance light on outside. We took a group picture with everyone we could find. Before we knew it, it was time to line up again.

My foot was already hurting before I even got to Disneyland. Let alone all of the walking and standing we did. At one point I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to walk off the risers. But then the pain would subside and I could move it again. I don't know what I did to it. It was hurting on the arch of my foot and radiating to the outside and up. I wasn't the only one who had some kind of thing happen. From what I heard, 3 people went down during the first performance. I didn't see it happen cuz they were all on the opposite side of where I was. We were crammed like sardines, so it's a miracle how they got them off.

The second performance in my opinion was the best. I was able to hit every high note and it felt very good. I was trying to conserve my voice in the first performance so I didn't attempt every one the first time. They told us to do this. Not go for every one if we feel our voice getting shaky. I didn't want to lose my voice. And I didn't...so I was glad I did that. What was awesome is that I could actually see my friends, Don and Amy in the audience. I couldn't believe it. I didn't think there was any chance of seeing anyone I knew in the audience. There were just so many masses of people there, that I thought it was impossible. But there they were cheering us on. I was trying so hard not to wave. hehe

We got to re-enter the park if we wanted to. Plus, they gave us 2 free tickets to come back anytime. So, I'm sure we'll be giving those to someone to use. We also go the opportunity before that night to purchase sweatshirts. And the only way you can get these sweatshirts is by being in the choir. So, of course I got one. I'll wear it proudly.

We caught up with some of the ladies we came with and hung out at Downtown Disney (DTD) a while. Scott and the girls were already at the car about to leave. We kept getting stopped by people telling us thank you and how beautiful it was. Or how much they love it. Or that they come every year. From what I hear, the seats that are reserved were sold out in 3 hours. It's a dining package plus a seat. (And NOT cheap.) Everyone else gets to stand. We kept our robes on for most of the night in DTD because it was so cold. It felt a little silly wearing them, but it was cool too. Cuz people kept stopping us.

We had a great night and it was so fun getting to know some of the ladies in choir better. We were such a huge choir that I was seeing people everywhere that were with us. We were the second largest choir (80). The largest was the Disneyland Employee Choir (125). Most of the choirs were high school choirs or college choirs. Only a couple church choirs. It really was a ministry because not everyone singing really believed in what they were singing. Not necessarily all people in a high school or college choir would be Christians. And of course the audience.

I really hope people were touched as much as I was by this experience. The ladies talked on our way home about whether we would do it again. We all said yes, because the benefits far outweigh the costs.

PLEASE leave a comment if you were there so I'll know. There really is no way of knowing unless you tell me. :) And of course, feel free to leave any comments. I love getting them.

Scott told me when we got home that they announced what choirs were singing in the performance and when they mentioned Whittier Area Community Church, we got a huge roar of clapping and yelling. That was cool. I wish we could have heard it. There must have been lots of supporters out there from church or fellow Whittierites. Another choir from Whittier sang with us too. The Pioneer High School choir.