Ermahgerd Run Disney, why?!

Why do you have to do this to me, Run Disney? I know it's old news by now (thanks to the blogosphere and social media), but Run Disney announced a new race challenge by adding a 10K to Princess Half Weekend called the Glass Slipper Challenge.

Or something like that. You should probably check with the other hundreds of blogs that have announced the race and have all of the details.

Or you can simply get all of the necessary info through the Run Disney website.

I'm not here to give you details, I'm here to whine. Want to know why? Because I can't afford to do all of this crap and I'm totally jealous of everyone else that can.

There, I admitted it. There's even going to be a special edition of the Coast to Coast medal in Princess colors for those that participate in Princess Half Weekend and Tinkerbell Half Weekend.

My brain is absolutely convinced that I must possess this piece of bling, despite the fact that it is ugly. I must have it because all of the cool kids will get one and I won't and then my life won't be complete and I'll end up a meth head and homeless on the streets where I'll end up selling all if my medals on eBay so that I can feed my drug habit.

Never mind the fact that I barely look at my medals again once I have them. And seriously? It is really ugly. Enough with the pink and purple everywhere.

And why can't we get an updated regular Coast to Coast medal? I'm about to get my third. It's boring by now. Zzzzz

Don't mind me, it's just the sour grapes talking. When life gives you sour grapes, make wine. I will be having a bunch of that tonight. Happy Friday!

Two Hundred

This is the 200th post on my blog. I had something half written that was filled with my usual snark and sarcasm, but then Boston happened.

I can't remember the last time a public tragedy affected me the way the events of this morning have. Don't get me wrong, I'm not immune to world events and tragedies, but this particular one really got to me. One minute I was happily discussing Dumbo Double Dare costumes and the next, social media went crazy with news regarding Boston.

Source

As soon as news began to spread about the bombings at the Boston Marathon, my phone began to blow up from my clients and friends asking me if I was running Boston and if I was okay. It's  humorous that they think I have the ability to qualify for Boston, but that's about the only humorous thing that happened after the bomb detonated.

I just can not believe it. I can't wrap my brain around such a horrific event. Maybe it's because I've crossed the finish line of a marathon and it was a life altering event all by itself. The video footage that I saw showed runners at the 26 mile mark as the bomb went off, several of which were so focused on the finish that they didn't even realize what had happened.

Source

Social media came alive with support for Boston and campaigns launched to run and keep running.

I'll leave you with my favorite tweet of the day:

That's the truth.

My heart goes out to everyone at the Boston Marathon, runners and supporters alike, and to the running community as a whole. This was a terrible and tragic event that could have occurred at any of the majors.

Keep running. We have to.

Run the Sahara? Methinks Not...or maybe. Or Yes.

So yesterday, while I was innocently minding my own business and having a crazy day filled with an assortment of annoying and stressful situations, I get the following text from Tara:

Now for those of you that have not been forced to spend any quality time -like running a marathon (sorry Abby) - with Tara or myself, you may not be able to read between the lines of this simple text.

Let me assure you, dear readers, within the first five minutes of watching this documentary, Tara had already envisioned herself trotting through the desert with a turban wrapped around her head prancing side by side with camels.

Here was my immediate response:

Now before I get slapped with being labelled as a buzz kill, I would like to point out a few things. This is pretty much how all of our adventures go down. Tara comes up with something ridiculous and crazy and I say no. Then something happens in my brain and not only do I find myself agreeing to do whatever crazy thing but I somehow up the ante.

I pretty much said no to running a full marathon. I clearly remember saying NO about fifty times to running the NYC Marathon.

Tara: I think we should run New York.

Me: No.

Tara: But it's through all five boroughs!

Me: No.

(repeat 50 times)

Then somehow I ended up not only agreeing to run a full marathon (never mind that the 2012 NYCM never actually occurred...) but I figured, hell, if we're going to do that, we might as well do Goofy while we're trained for a full.

Tara: I still think we should run New York.

Me: No.

Tara: I'm totally running New York.

Me: Well, we might as well do Goofy then, too.

So a little funny text about running the Sahara may seem perfectly innocent to some people. No way I'm running through the Sahara for no good reason. I mean, I live in the effing desert and it pretty much sucks. Summer is like nine months long! You could conceive and birth a baby in the season of summer out here in the desert. Who would be stupid enough to go to Africa just to run in the desert?

Wait... Then the wheels in my own brain start turning and I start picturing MYSELF prancing through the desert with camels because I just remembered that there's a marathon at Petra.

SEE? See how this happens? One minute, I'm the voice of reason and then the next minute, I'm finding a way to make it happen. I mean, how amazing would running by Petra be? It's a bucket list thing, anyway. Two birds, one stone, blah, blah, blah...

Source

So now I've gotten myself all excited about the possibility and I'm ready to get on the crazy train to Africa only to find that they no long can hold the Petra Marathon.

Boooooo.

Tara and I have known each other for nearly 20 years and we were room mates in the 90's so there have been a lot of scenarios just like this that have played out of the years, including a random car trip to a truck stop on the California border to get pie at 2:00AM.

Tara: Let's do something.

Me: Let's drive somewhere fun.

Tara: California!

Me: It's almost midnight.

Tara: So?

Me: Let's go to the Flying J and eat pie.

Granted, we weren't old enough to buy alcohol back then, so that's my only excuse for driving 4 hours for pie in the middle of the night. Although, side note: we never made it because I had a tire blow out in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night. And I was driving on a suspended license. But that's a story for another day.

We've traveled so much together that we joke about being heterosexual life mates. I hope we both end up marrying men that can appreciate our unique ability to do crazy shit, because otherwise, they'll get left at home.

This kind of behavior has only gotten worse since we completed Goofy. Never mind how horrible and crippling it was. Once you cross the finish line of the marathon portion, your brain thinks that you have somehow gained super powers.

Anyway, a big thanks to Tara for being a super partner in crime, cuz, hell. I don't think we would have done half of the stuff we've done if we didn't enable each other. Although, Tara doesn't see it as enabling.

And we wouldn't have awesome pictures like this:

One of my most favorite pictures EVER.

Now I'm off to go research other possible racing opportunities, since Petra is off of the list. Great Wall of China, here I come!

Anyone else have an amazing partner in crime?

Thursday Adventure Run

I know it's hard to believe, but I've actually been running a lot. So weird considering I don't have any long distance races coming up until Dumbo Double Dare which is over Labor Day weekend. Last year when I started training for the NYC Marathon in May, I had pretty much done nothing for most of the spring. This year, I would really like to be ahead of the game, so I've been running at least 4 days a week with a few friends to keep my motivation going.

We decided to try something new on Thursday. Road Runner Sports hosts an Adventure Run on the first Thursday of every month. Check in is at 5:30 and the "race" starts at 6:30. There are about 10 locations within a few miles of the store and the runners try to hit as many as they can within an hour.

At each stop, you get raffle tickets and at the end they raffle off a ton of stuff. If you wear your adventure run shirt, you get extra tickets at each stop. The best part is that it's totally FREE! (Well, except for the shirt I needed to buy...)

Neon yellow really isn't my favorite color...

I went to Road Runner Sports immediately after work and it looked like a small expo was set up in the parking lot.

Right before the race starts, they post the locations on a big map. I'm pretty sure the locations change each month.

Tabatha and Tara planning our route.

Right at 6:30, we took off. Several of the stops were located within the the shopping center, which is pretty large. We used our phones to figure out where we were going.

Mona, Kimberlee and Tara

I think we made it to 8 of the 10 stops and then had to get back for the drawing by 7:30. We covered about 3 miles by the time we had returned.

Lots of tickets

Unfortunately, I didn't win anything, but Kimberlee did! I don't remember exactly what she won, but she won twice.

After the drawing, there was an after party across the street at Elephant Bar where the Adventure Runners took over the bar. They honored happy hour specials and had more drawings for those that attended the after party. I won a fascia (fascial?) massage gift certificate. I'm excited, but also a little scared because I know that it's gonna hurt!

I'm glad we decided to check out the Adventure Run. We had a lot of fun and it was a great way to change things up a bit. I highly recommend trying one.

Has anyone else done anything like this before? Was it fun?

And The Award Goes To...ME!

A few weeks ago, Everyday Girl nominated me for the Liebster Award. Thank you so much! I love the chance to get to read new blogs and I'm honored that people take the time to let me know that they like mine. I was nominated previously, so I really don't have anyone to nominate, but I love to participate in these kinds of things (because, hey, isn't that what blogging is all about?).

For those that haven't heard of the Liebster Award:

This award is for an aspiring blogger with less than 300 followers.

Rules:

- Answer the questions the tagger has asked you

- List 10 bloggers you nominate and link them in your post. Let them know

- Create 10 questions for the bloggers you have tagged to answer.

So here goes:

1) What is your favorite book or movie?

My favorite movie of all time is Princess Bride because I'm pretty sure that it's required by law that everyone chooses Princess Bride as their favorite movie. Plus, it really is awesome, so who can argue with that?
Another favorite of mine is Clueless. I can't help it, that movie never gets old.

2) Do your friends and family know you blog or are you anonymous?

I'm definitely not anonymous and my friends and family know about my blog. They just don't really read it as far as I know. I'm assuming this is because they get their fill of my awesomeness in person on a regular basis and really have no need to get more of it via my blog. Or it's because I'm actually super boring and my friends and family have no need to find proof of this fact through my blog. Either way, I'm fairly certain none of them are reading any of this.

3) Where would you like to be in 5 years time?

Working for the FBI or colonizing Mars. Or more likely, at the same job because I don't cope well with change. I'm hoping I will have found the man of my dreams by that time, but my track record in choosing suitable mates is lacking to say the least, so it's possible I'll be an aging spinster with a lot of cats. (Please note, that I currently do not have any cats, so I'm not crazy, yet.) If you would like to be the love of my life, let me know. I'm interviewing...

4) What is your favorite blog?

This is hard because I love a lot of different blogs. So in the interest of not hurting any one's feelings, I'm excluding any of my friends that have blogs. One blog that I love to read and makes me laugh on a regular basis is Eat Watch Run. Seriously, she's hilarious.

5) Name one thing you have always been good at?

Riding horses. I've been showing horses since I was 11 years old. It's been such a huge part of my life for decades that I can't even imagine me life without riding.

6) What do you do to relieve stress?

Running is really the best stress reliever, but hey I'm human. Sometimes a Reese's Peanut Butter Egg also does the trick. ( And yes, the eggs are better than regular peanut butter cups.)




Come to Mama...



7) What is your favorite color?

Blue. My favorite color to wear is black. Maybe my inner goth needs an outlet.



Having a necklace makes it totally legit, right?



8) Do you have a bucket list?

Definitely. In fact, I really should add a page to this blog just to list all of the things on my bucket list. Probably the item that's been on the list the longest, even before anyone coined the phrase, "bucket list", was to visit Egypt. I started reading and planning my Egypt adventure when I was 8 years old.

9) If you could use one word to describe yourself, what would it be?

Compassionate.

10) Do you have a favorite quote, what is it?

"If we did all of the things we were capable of, we would literally astound ourselves." ~ Thomas A. Edison

 Thanks again to Everyday Girl for nominating me!

Out And About

So I've been a super motivated runner, can you believe it? Neither can I. I really don't know what's come over me, but I've been running pretty regularly these days.

Tonight I met my friends, Kim and Mona up at Kim's house. She lives in an interesting neighborhood. I love it. We took it pretty slowly since none of our runs have been under 5 miles in the last few weeks. We did an easy 3 miles doing walk/jog intervals.

We saw some interesting sights. such as this place where nothing happened, but needed to be commemorated by a plaque.

Okay...good to know...

We saw an interesting bubble house...

There's even a bubble guest house.

And a beautiful sunset.

Since I'm an athlete and Kim is the world's best enabler, I ended up hanging around her house with Kim and her husband drinking wine and champagne and eating chips and dip until after 11:00PM. Isn't that what everyone does after a run?

I'm still wearing my CamelBak. Classy.

That pretty much sums up Work Out Wednesday. I basically ate and drank more than I worked off. Oopsy.

Motivation Monday

Once again I've been a bad blogger. Things are just so busy! Two horse shows in one month is exhausting (and really hard on my wallet!)

I don't know what's happening to me, but I've been super motivated to work out and ride. I've been really dedicated to my runs. Weird, right? I'm the queen of being under trained and showing up for a race. I'm liking the new me.

I'm in love with the My Fitness Tracker app for the iPhone. It's perfect for those that suffer minor OCD, like yours truly. I can see why it works. Check it out if you have an iPhone.

Anyway, I have tons to blog about, but for now, (since I'm blogging this while waiting on hold to speak with someone in my warehouse while I am at work. Dedicated employee, right here!) I will leave you with this pic of Lou and me after a great ride this weekend.

Is anyone else feeling extra motivated right now, or is it just me?