Forgot to post this....

My friend, neighbor and running buddy: Paula, and I got together last night and made our declarations.  Above is one of mine!  We have been talking about doing a full marathon for a couple of years.  I have been afraid to commit , using my family as an excuse.  Well, no more of that.  Now I have to pick a race and register for it!!!!!   Here we go.....

Dancing Princess got in on it too.  She wants to get better at Gymnastics this year!

I didn't take a photo of Paula's poster.  She wants to get the nasty refined sugar out of her diet.  I want to do that too.  I think together we can reach both of these goals.

Off n Running,

AnnMarie

November trip continued...

We had a busy day in front of us.  The race start time for the Jingle Jungle 5K at Animal Kingdom was set for 7am.  They asked that all of the runners be there an hour before the start.  What a fun morning this was.

The moon greeting us in the early morning!

 
We all got to see the sun rise.  We found the Port-O-Lets and then the sun was up enough to take some pre-race photos.  Dancing Princess was Minnie Mouse for Halloween.  I had gone searching for a dress for her costume and found one for me!  I have never worn a costume in a race in my life!  This definitely was a first.  And I have never worn a dress in a race either.  I did buy the polka dot leg warmers for the race, but made the ears for Dancing Princess and all the Mickey Hands for everyone.

They had "Snow Machines" going.  In the photo here you can sort of see the snow falling.  I am sorry I didn't get more of the costumes in this shot.  They were really awesome.

A bad shot of the starting line.  Sorry, I am still perfecting my smartphone shots.  

Mickey was there too!

  What I loved about being in Corral A was that there were NO LINES to take photos with characters!  I came over a little knoll in the course and there was someone waiting to take my camera and capture this AWESOME shot!  Goofy as Santa, perfect.  You can see my costume a lot better here!  (Side note:  A client of mine borrowed me this belt.  I saw the company at the expo and they showed me how to use the bib number ties!  No more pins for this lady, I have to get my client her belt back after I get one for my self, of course.) ;)

  You can see the yellow cones on the right side of this photo.  We took our picture and turned around to head back toward the park.  As we did, I saw all of these hot air balloons.  What an amazing site that was.  Along with the beautiful sunrise and sky, what a great morning for a run. 

I think there might be some mist coming off this little patch of water.  There was a man dressed as a Safari guy holding off crocodiles along this stretch of road too.  

I know I used the Strava app to log this mileage, today was day 99 in my challenge to myself!  What a fun way to mark this special day.  This was not a timed race.  The medal is really a rubber and I think it would be cool if it were really a magnet for my fridge.  LOL!  

I know after we all finished our events, (one of Deanna's kids ran their first mile race and had so much fun!  Way to go everyone.) we headed back for lunch and naps.  The half marathon start time was at 10:00pm.  We knew we would have to wait awhile before the gun went off, so most of us took naps.

  We are ready and at the bus stop.  The forecast called for rain.  We were hoping it would hold off until midnight or so, that way neither one of us would have to run in it for too long.  No such luck.  It was a sprinkly, spitty kind of rain.  I was getting wet and Deanna had to wait longer to start.  I prayed she would keep her feet dry before the race and I avoided as many puddles as I could during.  

A bad picture of the starting line.

My medal, bib and t-shirt.

Tink medal, Wine & Dine medal and Coast to Coast medal.

The rewards from the weekend!

Here are the finished run shots.  Because of the rain, I couldn't get my smartphone to take pictures with my cold wet fingers.  The Epcot photo was taken by SwimChick.  

If I could, I would definitely do this race again on a non-rainy night.  My official time for this half even in the rain was 1:59.01.  I can't believe I came in just under 2 hours.  I was soaked.  I was given a special wrist band to collect my Coast to Coast medal from a special tent.  Even in that tent, I didn't feel warm.  I collected my gear and contemplated going to change into dry clothes and wait for Deanna.  I waited for her at our designated location.

I am so thankful for the lady who gave me her foil blanket, it helped some.  And even more thankful that Deanna finished un-injured and said she just wanted to go home and get warm.  Part of me is sad we didn't take in the party.  Honestly more of me was happy we could get on a warm bus and go home to a hot shower.  In hindsight, I would go change next time and find a dry place to wait.  And I should have taken a HOT bath when I got home.  

This race ended after midnight for me, so I counted it as my 100th day of running in a row, too!  What a fun way to do that.

During this race, I did not see many characters out.  Deanna said there were long lines and lots of characters.  I did see places where I thought there might be characters, but they were not there as I trotted by.  I am thinking they brought them earlier and took them in to warm up and get dry costumes!  LOL!

The next morning, most of us went to Downtown Disney and played at Disney Quest.  My kids LOVED it.  On Monday, we went to Animal Kingdom Resort for a delicious breakfast.  Yummy food was had by all.  That night was the Very, Merry Christmas Party.  My family was so excited.  I highly recommend going and hope to do it again another time.  We saw fireworks, light shows, and an amazing parade.  I have never seen a Parade that smelled of Christmas!  Really as floats went by you could smell cookies and Christmas trees!  We got to eat all kinds of Snickerdoodle cookies.  Dancing Princess loved them so much she asked if we could make those cinnamon cookies when we did some cookie baking for Christmas.

What I am excited to share most is that Deanna completed an amazing goal of running 4 half marathons in one year!  Considering she had not done one ever until we went to California for Tinkerbell, that is an amazing thing!  

My next most exciting thing to share is that 2 of my 3 kids want to run a Disney Half marathon and 1 wants to do a shorter race!  So we are now starting to save up for 2017 or 2018!  

Off N Running,

AnnMarie

Goals and Declare It Day...

If you have been reading or just know me personally, you know I am goal oriented.  At least most of the time.  :)  I posted my New Year goals here.

A few days back I went to the Badgerland Strider Christmas Party/Award night.  Wait, rewind, almost exactly one year ago, my Badgerland Strider challenge was put into motion!  Wow, I cannot believe it has been a whole year and that I got my prize at the Award night.  Proof that I am goal oriented, but only when I am in control of the outcome I think.  Like this Strider challenge, all I HAD to do was cross 8 of 9 finish lines.  I did not have to win the races or even place in my age group.  I just had to show up and cross the finish line.  Believe me, the way my year started out last year, that was a good mantra ~ Just cross the line, just cross the line...

As you know, I was not happy with that mantra and set another goal/challenge to myself back in August.  I decided that mantra stunk and I knew I was better than that, and I was going to prove it.  I started my challenge of running one or more miles a day for the whole month of August.  I did it, too.  Then I couldn't stop, I wanted to see how many days I could go with out stopping.  I made it to 139 before I fell in December.  That is a lot of days in a row.  I don't even think I ran every day with the Cross Country and Track teams in college.  I think I took off on Sunday after race weekends, but I may have gone out easy a couple of Sunday's too.

Well, onto DECLARE IT DAY!  At that Christmas party, I sat with 3 ladies.  We started to chat and as we shared stories, one lady asked me about Fellow Flowers.  And said a friend Anonymously "Flowered" her.  She said it really meant a lot to her and that she follows them on Facebook.  Her other friends, as well as myself, dug out our smartphones and started looking them up.

I didn't do much searching after that moment, and I had heard of them before.  In fact, my t-shirt here:

is one of their creations!

They have some really cool stuff.  I have a client who has a TON of their shirts!  The quotes are amazing and so fitting.

Well, now that I follow them on Facebook, I get some of their posts.  And I think one last week was about DECLARE IT DAY 2015.  This is an event they started a couple of years ago.  I am just now reading their Goal Guide and how the concept came about and what the day is all about.  It is about empowering women and moms to set goals for themselves.  From the guide:  

We wanted to eliminate the stereotypes that keep women from stepping in, and we were committed to crushing the vicious silos that prevent women from connecting with each other. We wanted a space for women’s voices to be heard, validated and celebrated.

The purpose of Declare It Day has never been about putting restrictions on WHAT your goal should be... but rather giving you the freedom and space to chase whatever matters to you. Over the past two years, we have seen women say it out loud, write it down and believe in themselves, and then, go on to achieve not just their goals but also a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. 

Last fall in Disney with Deanna, she said at least once a day while there:  "I think this is the first goal I have ever completed!"  And I am super proud of her and how far she had come to get to that weekend.  She has set new goals and is still running.  I believe her next life time goal to finish is college and if you ask her I am sure she knows exactly how many more days she has until graduation this spring.  

I am wondering how many of female friends have thought of things they would like to do some day after the kids are grown?  Or think that they could never do that?  DECLARE IT DAY is about setting that goal and getting help from other women to get it done!

February 7, 2015 is DECLARE IT DAY.  I am off to finish reading my Goal Guide and prepare for the day.  Will you join me?

Off n Running,

AnnMarie

PS.  A quote from the Goal Guide that made me think of blogging today!

“STRENGTH DOESN’T COME FROM WHAT YOU CAN DO. IT COMES FROM OVERCOMING THE THINGS YOU ONCE
THOUGHT YOU COULDN’T.”

NIKKI ROGERS 

November Disney Trip...

So sorry I didn't blog about our time in Florida.  I took several photos, as did SwimChick.  I will try my best to tell you all about it here.  WARNING:  This is a photo heavy post.  And I will break it up into several "days", because of that.  This post is about getting to Florida and the expo.  Enjoy.

Thought this was cute, they are watching the airport crew load/unload a plane as we waited in MKE Airport the morning we left.

And we played a little at the shop in the home airport.  Hehehe!!!!  Gotta love the cheese store.

Dancing Princess was a bit nervous for the plane ride.  She was almost 3 the last time we were on an airplane and does not remember that trip, except for the photos in an album.  We sat next to each other on both legs of the journey, and I could not convince her that the turbulence was like being on a roller coaster.  Her older siblings thought she was crazy for not being more relaxed and enjoying the flights, but we worked through it and made it in one piece.  Overall, she gave the rides a thumbs up!

  On the Magic bus to the resort!!!

We got in at dinner time.  Deanna and I had to do the shopping and took a cab to Wal Mart.  We bought our weeks worth of snacks and meals.  (I don't like going to a new store, I never know where anything is!  It took us a couple of hours and the families were "starving" when we got home with the food!)

This is the walk to our Tree House that night.  It looks a bit enchanting and fairy tale like.

So our first full day we spent a lot of time at the Wide World of Sports Complex.  I headed for the bathroom and lost Deanna and family the minute we got there.  I knew she wanted to buy runDisney New Balance shoes but didn't realize how badly until that point.  As I took my crew to the loo, she headed for the line to get into the shoe store!  I am sorry to say that I did not get a photo of the line or her new kicks.  They are pretty cool looking.  AND you can only purchase them at a runDisney expo!   

Here are some of the photos from the expo that I did capture:  

       Deanna and I by the Official Wine and Dine Poster thingy!  Doesn't she look fabulous!  So proud of her and all she has done to get to this day.  

I stood in a short line to meet Jeff Galloway.  He is the Official runDisney Training Plan designer and an Olympic Athlete!  Cool.

One More Mile is a fun company.  I have ordered some magnets from them and they offer all sorts for funny shirts.  Deanna is always talking about Dole Whip.  Please don't hate me or anything, but i have never had one!  I saw this shirt and thought of her.  I took this photo to text to her when we were lost at the expo together?!?!  (We went back to the expo after eating lunch and left the families at the Tree House!)  I think she bought one, too.  LOL!

I love the expo.  I love that you can try on some of the products you can only get online.  I think I talked a bit about this when I posted about our Tinkerbell run.  I did not plan to spend much money at this event, because I bought a lot in California AND I was taking the kids to Disney Quest and Magic Kingdom.

I had an interesting turn of events at this expo.  As I said earlier, I got there and headed to the loo!  I thought that everyone was heading to packet pick up so when we finished up that is were we headed.  I had signed myself up for the Jingle Jungle 5k AND the Wine and Dine Half Marathon.  So I had to hit two lines!  Many large races these days are putting you into Corrals based on a time you submitted when you signed up to run.  A lot of the time you must prove your time from a previous race.  You have some time before the official race day to update your proof of time too.  In August, I had done a half marathon that was faster than the one I submitted for my proof of time entry.  Somewhere along the line, I hit a computer glitch and could not get the runDisney site to up date my time.  "Oh well, my submitted time is still under 2 hours, it will be ok."  I thought.

When I get my bib numbers, I was in Corral A for the 5K and Corral L for the Half.  I dug out the map of corrals and see that L is the last available Corral.  WHAT THE???  "OK, no worries, I can still run this event.  I am only here for the medal anyway."  I told myself.  But I needed to see why I got placed in the last corral.  So I got into another line and waited.

The girl that helped me looked me up in the computer.  I could see the screen she was looking at and right there it said my proof of time and she says, "Huh?"  Then went to take to the guy in charge.  He came over and looked at the screen and says, "Oh, your one of those!"  Um, what?  He explained that there were a handful of entrants that the computer had a proof of time but the predicted finish time said 7 hours and we all got put into the last corral.  He got out a sticker and put me in Corral D.

In hindsite, I am so Thankful that I contested the placement.  I will write about race day in another post!

Off n Running,
AnnMarie