Thursday, March 22, 2012

Training run & 5K recap

ACK!! 
I thought this post went already. I thought it was set for last week. My bad.


Written 3/12
So this was a huge week and weekend. Besides the playground, belt ceremony, Scout Sunday and many other fun things I packed into this week, I still had to get my runs in.

Last weekend I ran my 8 mile training run at this beautiful 5 mile trail loop around a reservoir with my fantastic running group. I don't know how I would do these runs with out them and my BRF (best running friend) KC. So glad she joined this group with me!  I was able to get a 5 mile and just a 3 mile in during the week by myself. Gotta take what I can get.

This past weekend I had 9 on my schedule. And a 5K. mmmmm. What to do?
I'll tell you what I did. My training group, The Jersey Girls, also signed up for this fun local race. It was run by my Hubby's fire dept and had a great after party, fun post-race giveaways and a gift auction (which I won none of! boo!) Anyway, all the JG that are also doing the half in May also had to run 9. About 6 of us met early and went on our 6 mile run before the race!! Crazy! Right? And the best part was I did really well in the race! And there were some doozy hills on both the training run and the race. I wish my Garmin was uploading to the new iMac so I could show you the elevation. I know it's not Denver or anything, but for a shore town to have a course that has an elevation gain of 352 feet is pretty amazing, and one of the hills is a HALF mile hill <--that was on our 6 mile training run, not the race.

We did 6.28 miles before the race in 1:14 (11:42 pace) Not too shabby knowing I still had another 3 to go.
The 5K was a tad short. It measured on my Garmin as 2.95 miles, but I did it in just over 31 minutes (10:35 pace!) And that was after doing 6 miles! I couldn't believe my legs were still moving! And I even passed people at the end. There are no pictures of my finish, but I have one of the Kid! I know it was in yesterday's post, but I just had to share again.

He ran (and walked) it in just over 33 minutes!!
I was so proud of my little man. xoxox.

Here are a few of the Jersey Girls and my Jersey Boys after the race. 
(I'm in blue. Hubby was late getting to the race after my training run with my change of shirt. 
Our car had a dead battery because someone left a light on all night....
I had my pink packed and wore it to the bar for the post-race party. LOL)

This weekend is the first 10 miler. Which my BRF, KC, and I have to do together on Saturday morning before we head up to Great Wolf Lodge with the cub scouts. Eeeek. We'll make it work. 8 more weeks until my second half marathon!! :)

Random Thoughts

So I had 2 really good running weeks in a row. 16+ miles for both weeks. 3 weeks ago I did a 4, 4.5 and an 8 miler. The next week I got in a 5, 3, and 9. And that 9 was a split run. I did 6 before that 5K for training. Crazy! Then last week life just got in the way. Hubby has been working like a madman now that he is Sgt. and despite the gorgeous weather we were having in NJ I just couldn't get myself motivated. I had a total of 10 miles last week...in one day.

My new Sweaty Band for St. Patricks Day!!

On St Patricks Day my BRF and I went for a 10 miler and then we headed with the cub scouts to Great Wolf Lodge. If you don't know what that is, well it's a loud indoor water park. I could still hear the water flowing for days after we got home. I was exhausted for 3 days. I was all stuffy and couldn't breathe, but I did get out yesterday! Yay! Hubby had more important meetings this week and was working on days he was supposed to be off.... I *almost* let this week slide...but I stuck the baby in the jogging stroller and headed out yesterday for 4.25. That thing is no joke! I am hoping to get a few miles in tomorrow, and I have 7 on the schedule for Saturday. Last 'shorter' long run until we ramp it up for 3 weeks and then taper!

Just 6 weeks from this Sunday is my second Half Marathon!

I haven't uploaded any new pictures this week. The Baby is 'Pal of the Week' at nursery school next week and I had to try to upload some pictures to Costco from the new iMac and I think that is going to be a massive problem. You can't see the folders or thumbnail pictures on the Costco site. Costco photos has been my go-to photo place since 2005. All my photos are there from years of making calendars for family. I didn't do a 2011 one, but I am planning on making photo albums for the grandmas for Mothers Day...don't know how I am going to accomplish this one.  They don't make it easy.

All week I kept thinking of fun or profound things to blog about. This post sucks. Sorry. But I will leave you with a sweaty foggy picture from mile 3 yesterday on my run to the beach.
I took one of the Baby and the crazy fog, there is actually an inlet there and you can't see the other side! ...and then a nice lady asked if I wanted a picture of us both. Glad I had my phone. :)


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Weekly Photos

Today I uploaded all 200+ photos I have taken with my new camera. In a week. I know. But, to be fair we had a couple really nice days this week so I couldn't NOT use the fantastic outdoor light. Plus, we had  the Kid's Taekwondo ceremony and Scout Sunday at the church. Perfect places to play with my new toy!

If I keep this up I may do a weekly photo post of my favorite photos. Please, if you know anything about cameras let me know if you see anything I could have done better. I used the auto focus on all of these, I think. I was playing with the manual focus for a while, but I don't think there were them.

 I know this one has too much sun on the side of his face...but it's oh so cute!

 I think he wants to do Taekwondo like his brother!

 My speedy kid!

 This was a zoom in from across the field. Used the awesome 55-250mm lens.


 Found a feather at the beach. I was up on the boardwalk and used the big lens again.

 My favorite shot. I have to figure out how to stop the blur!


 Yes, that high kicker is MY Kid!

 Last time wearing his Brown Belt.

 NEW RED BELT!

The Kid also ran his first 5K on Saturday! In about 33 minutes!!
This was taken by me with Hubby's iPhone.

 Reading a line at Scout Sunday at the church.

 There were about 13 kids playing in the neighborhood today! We enjoyed the weather so much!

 By far my favorite shot of the Kid so far! He was just walking toward me and I picked up the camera.

FUN!!
This was hard to catch! They were going totally opposite for a while, but they finally started swinging together. Doesn't that mean they are married now?

Friday, March 9, 2012

To MCM or not to MCM?

One year ago I signed up for this little race in DC. You may have heard of it, the Marine Corps Marathon. Yes? But last year I got plantar faciitis in the middle of the long runs, and I missed a few so I bumped down to the 10K. My husband and I went down to DC with 2 of my girlfriends and had such a fun weekend. So much fun, we want to do it again. Hubby was so excited a month ago. The race is on his 40th birthday this year. He said he wanted to get more friends to come do it, but now he is all wishy washy. I don't think he recruited anyone. My BRF (best running friend) KC wants to do it again. Registration started at 3pm last Wed, 5 minutes before my older son gets out of school. What bad timing. Last year was noon. We were going to try anyway.

We got in!!! The MCM sold out in 2 hours 41 minutes. That's INSANE! But, we are in.

Right now I am training for this little race in NJ on May 6. I did another 8 mile run on Sunday and did 5 on the boardwalk on Tues, and 3 on Thurs. I am right on schedule. A full is a big step, but I am up for the challenge. Tomorrow I am going for my 9 mile training run, in pieces. First my running group is running 6 miles...and then we are doing a local 5K. Crazy? Probably. Luckily, it is in the town I live in and the 5K benefits Hubby's fire dept, so we'll know everyone. The best part is that my 7 year old is running it too!! He did a 2 mile run last month and has been begging to do a 5K.

My family after the 2 mile Beach Run
the Baby was a great cheerleader!
Yes, we were wearing shorts in Feb. In NJ. It was a really nice day. 
I had already ran 6 miles to do 8 total for training that day!

Now that I have the new computer I have downloaded ALL my pictures since Feb 2011 into it. I can't wait to just go through and write posts based on my pictures. Fun!

And just for fun here is a picture of me and my family on my 35th birthday this January. 

My mom, me, my grandfather, my dad and my kids. 
This is my dad's dad. He is 85 or 86 years old. I forget. God Bless him.

My kids are so lucky to have 3 great-grandparents....
ok, here is one of my mom's parents in Florida when we went to surprise my grandfather for his 80th birthday in January, just days after my birthday!!!

My mom's parents. Gram, Pop and the kids. He is 80 and she will be 78 in June. Love them!

Monday, March 5, 2012

Fixer Upper

So, not only am I still screwing up blogger, I am trying to get used to this new computer. Here is what I wrote, so you don't have to try to figure it out...You have no idea what I went through to figure out how to cut and paste a picture when there is NO right click on the mac mouse!




*Pretend Picture of Ms. Cannon here*


She is my new BFF. I have wanted a DSL camera for years and my wonderful hubby said, go get it. I ran to Costco to snag it! I have a Cannon Rebel Xsi from college when I took a photography class in 1996...it uses FILM! I used it the whole first year of the Kid's life (2004) and realized I was spending a lot of money on film and developing. Since then I have owned 2 little point and shoot waterproof cameras over the years. My latest is starting to show it's age. It never takes a nice picture with the flash inside anymore. It's takes wonderful pics at the beach and water parks and anywhere else outside where I will never take Ms. Cannon.

Also on our plate is the need for a new computer. Our old PC has been running very spastically lately, sometimes it wouldn't even turn on and just mock me with it's awful beeping. I was almost ready to cry. I have years of pictures on there of the kids. We backed it all up on an external hard drive, but I have no clue how to get them out. We went to Best Buy last week and have been mulling the idea of switching over to the iMac. After very careful consideration, we went to get our new pretty Apple today.



*Pretend Picture of Mr. iMac here*


I feel like we are just living like the other half live. LOL!! To be honest, we paid about half price for the camera...with the cash back awards and the reason we went to Best Buy for the iMac was because they offered the credit card with 18 months of no interest!

I am so thrilled to be taking real nice photos again. I've been using my droid phone for the past year and all 2500+ photos are still sitting in the phone, and no where else. Tomorrow I am going to figure out how to transfer them to the new mac. Plus I have a year of photos sitting in my little Pentax waterproof camera that I have been afraid to download on the old computer for fear it would crash and I'd lose them all. Our old computer lasted 6.5 years old...a dinosaur in the PC world. I am told Apples should last 10 years...well, in our world that will probably stretch to 20, hopefully! 

New Toys!

I got a couple new toys this week. OK, get your mind out of the gutter. We got electronics...oh wait, that still sounds dirty. Teehee.

It's still very surreal. Yesterday I went to Costco with our 'free' money from the cash back awards from our Costco card AmEx and got this beautiful new addition to our family.

Costco.com
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Canon EOS Rebel T2i DSLR Camera with 2 Lenses, 8GB SD Card, Gadget Bag, DVD, & Mini HDMI

She is my new BFF. I have wanted a DSL camera for years and my wonderful hubby said, go get it. I ran to Costco to snag it! I have a Cannon Rebel Xsi from college when I took a photography class in 1996...it uses FILM! I used it the whole first year of the Kid's life (2004) and realized I was spending a lot of money on film and developing. Since then I have owned 2 little point and shoot waterproof cameras over the years. My latest is starting to show it's age. It never takes a nice picture with the flash inside anymore. It's takes wonderful pics at the beach and water parks and anywhere else outside where I will never take Ms. Cannon.

Also on our plate is the need for a new computer. Our old PC has been running very spastically lately, sometimes it wouldn't even turn on and just mock me with it's awful beeping. I was almost ready to cry. I have years of pictures on there of the kids. We backed it all up on an external hard drive, but I have no clue how to get them out. We went to Best Buy last week and have been mulling the idea of switching over to the iMac. After very careful consideration, we went to get our new pretty Apple today.






2658077 Larger Front

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I feel like we are just living like the other half live. LOL!! To be honest, we paid about half price for the camera...with the cash back awards and the reason we went to Best Buy for the iMac was because they offered the credit card with 18 months of no interest!

I am so thrilled to be taking real nice photos again. I've been using my droid phone for the past year and all 2500+ photos are still sitting in the phone, and no where else. Tomorrow I am going to figure out how to transfer them to the new mac. Plus I have a year of photos sitting in my little Pentax waterproof camera that I have been afraid to download on the old computer for fear it would crash and I'd lose them all. Our old computer lasted 6.5 years old...a dinosaur in the PC world. I am told Apples should last 10 years...well, in our world that will probably stretch to 20, hopefully!