Secrets...
I'll get the workout stats out of the way first:
Friday - rest
Saturday - 65 minutes cross-training on bike (program 7)
Sunday - 9 miles (9:1 run/walk ratio)
Now, onto the good stuff. Do you know how hard it is to keep a secret? for months? Well, I've managed to do it! I have kept a secret from my mom and son since July. We spilled the beans tonight. We leave for Orlando tomorrow!! We're flying down to spend a few days at Disneyworld while there are school "holidays" for the students so DS won't miss school.
Why did we keep this a secret? So my mom wouldn't freak out about flying. She gets a little nervous if she has too much time to think about it. She's still in shock at this point but I think she's excited about the trip. DS is bouncing-off-the-walls excited. That should calm her nerves (or least make the effort worthwhile lol).
So, I'm off to double-check my packing. I've managed to fit all of DS's and my clothes into one carry-on bag with an additional small carry-on bag for airport/plane entertainment for DS. I'm almost certain we'll miss our connection on the way down because we only have 35 minutes... so fingers crossed that the next flight isn't too long after :)
Last day of Course 1...
What a sad, sad day. Tonight was my last cake decorating class (awwwwwww). I can't believe that 4 weeks have passed so quickly. I loved it. It was so much fun to get out for an evening each week. However, it was a lot of work to prepare for that evening each week, so there's no way I'd even attempt Course 2 this close to Christmas. It was also very tough each Thursday to pick up DS and rush home to cook supper, do homework, get class stuff ready and be out the door by 6:00.
As you can see from the pic, the grand finale involved making the "Wilton Rose" and decorating a cake. I'm not a fan of cakes with roses (or roses in general for that matter)... but I had fun making the cake, so maybe I'll rethink my view of icing roses. We'll see. I had a lot of problems with crumbs in my icing, so my cake this week is rather "speckled". The bottom layer is chocolate and the top layer is white with a layer of pudding between the two cake layers. I actually can't wait to try a piece for dessert tomorrow night.
In workout news, my legs have finally started feeling like they're coming back to life. I think the experts might be onto something, it may in fact take 3-4 weeks to recover from a marathon, I assumed that only applied to the fast people and not to me :)
Monday - rest
Tuesday - 4.5 miles
Wednesday - 4.0 miles
Thursday - traded a rest day with Friday
Friday - plan to do an easy 3.0 miles
Saturday - plan to do 9.0 miles
We don't have a lot planned for the weekend. I hope to get caught up on a little laundry and perhaps, maybe, I might even put it away (but I doubt it).
Trick or Treat... part deux
Let's get the workout stats out of the way first:
Saturday - my long slow run for the week was scheduled to be an 8-miler, so naturally, that's what I did! It felt looooong. How could that be? My legs felt so heavy. I was doing a loop, so the wind was strong and in my face every time I ran the back half of my loop. I was very happy to be done (although the wind at my back pushing me up the hills in my route was nice).
Sunday - cross training for 60 minutes. I did program 7 on the bike and logged 24 km. (I watched coverage of the NYC marathon being broadcast over the internet while I cycled today... I was really rooting for Paula Radcliffe and felt so bad when she dropped back.)
Weekend RecapFriday night started off nicely enough. I went to pick up Trevor from the rental car place since he was away all last week. We came home and picked up my mom and DS and headed out for dinner. Yummy. After stuffing ourselves, we decided to venture to a vaccination clinic to get DS's H1N1 vaccine since he is in one of the priority groups to receive a shot sooner than later. The waits have been ridiculously long (several hours outside in the cold). We lucked out. We got there at 7:15 and DS was having his shot less than 35 minutes later. What a relief. I hope we are equally lucky when Trevor and I have to get ours in a few weeks time.
Saturday morning, after my long run, we headed out for a "regular" flu shot clinic. I had the regular flu shot at my office but the guys in my household did not have theirs yet. The clinics did not have hours that met our schedule to get DS's done prior to this one. I think we waited longer there than the night before! We got it done though. I also had my final pumpkin pie blizzard of the season afterwards.
DS and I rushed off to meet my cousin and her little boy after lunch to go trick-or-treating at my aunt's house. It's a tradition for us to take the boys "pre" trick-or-treating each year at family homes where they are spoiled rotten lol.
Trevor stayed home to hand out treats and we had a grand total of 6 this year lol. Here are Darth Vadar and I all ready to go out trick or treating that evening... we lucked out... it was actually 18 degrees Celsius on Halloween night... no jackets required!!
Trick or Treat
Today was DS's big trick or treating session. After work, I came home and we got dressed up in our costumes (him - Darth Vader, me - fairy witch) and went back to my office for the children's Halloween party. It's a fantastic way to trick or treat! Two floors of the office are decorated to the max and nearly every office has treat bags, chocolate bars, candy, chips, or other treats for the children. There are 4 activity stations (games, cupcake decorating) a room with carved pumpkins, "smoke" machines and a haunted house type area. The children love it.
What's not to love? It's like trick-or-treating at 50 houses without tramping around in the cold, worrying about vehicles or unsafe treats and the whole thing takes under an hour. Fabulous. On Halloween, I doubt we'll go to more than a dozen homes (if that).
Of course tomorrow my coworkers and I will have to un-decorate the office and that's not the most fun task! (It really looks like a few dollar store Halloween aisles exploded in there.)
Training News
Tuesday - 4 miles in 40:00. This was my first post-marathon run. I got the worst stitch in my side at about the 12 minute mark. I slowed to a walk for a minute and it would not go away. So I hopped on the bike (I had been on the treadmill since Trevor is away this week for work). After a minute on the bike, the stitch finally vanished so I hopped back on the treadmill to finish out my 4 miles. My hip was definitely bothering me and I hope that goes away soon.
Wednesday - 16.2 km on the bike in 40:00 (Program 7)
My Recovery sock order FINALLY arrived!! They're ACTUALLY here!! I tried them on and they feel fine. However, I really won't get to give them a real test for a while as I don't have any long-long runs for a few weeks. I'm just glad that they made it and I never have to try to get an email response from them again. Phew :)
Houston in 12 weeks...
Thanks for the cake comments! Both cakes were very well received today :)
My Houston training program started yesterday! It looks soooo much easier than my marathon training plan. I'm following the same general schedule (because I'm a creature of habit and I refuse to change). I also find that my feet bother me if I attempt to run more than 3 days a week or if I run 2 days consecutively.
My plan is therefore the same
3-runs-per-week approach I used for the marathon:
Monday - REST
Tuesday - Easy run or hills
Wednesday - Cross train
Thursday - Intervals
Friday - REST
Saturday - long run
Sunday - Cross train
Differences between my training plans:
Marathon cross-training sessions maxed at 90 minutes
Half marathon cross-training maxes at at 75 minutes
Marathon long runs maxed at 20 miles (had 2 of them)
Half marathon long runs max at 14 miles (only 1 of that distance)
Marathon weekday runs regularly hit 9 and 10 miles
Half marathon weekday runs max at 6 miles and Thursday runs never surpass 5 miles
Marathon runs did not focus on speed work, only endurance
Half marathon training will include speed work
I'm looking forward to following this plan (as closely as life allows!).
Good service / Bad serviceJust as there are differences between plans, there are also differences between online ordering sites. I mentioned a few orders that I placed before our marathon. I placed two orders. One for a new running belt from Spibelt.com and another order for recovery socks from Recoverysock.com.
When I placed the order for the Spibelt, I received an order confirmation as soon as I placed the order. The following day I received an email saying that it had been shipped. It cleared customs and found its way to my mailbox soon after.
Great service!
When I placed the order for recovery socks (a few days *before* the Spiebelt), I paid via paypal immediately. I didn't receive an order confirmation at all, so I waited 4 days and then sent an email to see if my order was received. (It seems strange not to receive an order number or any email acknowledging the order.) I received the following reply:
"Orders are processsed within 48 hours of being received by the warehouse. You should receive shipping confirmation shortly."I did not receive shipping confirmation "shortly", so I waited 9 days and sent an email to ask if my order had been processed if there was a problem with it. No reply. I'm a pretty patient person and *rarely* email to ask about order status unless the wait becomes excessive.
So I waited 8 more days and sent another email to ask if my order had been processed/shipped. At this point (3 weeks after my initial order), I was getting very close to notifying paypal and requesting intervention to get my money back. Today (3 days later), I finally got a reply that my order was shipped on Oct 15. Hmmmm, I wonder where my shipping confirmation email went? Not my spam folder, nor my regular email address, that's for sure. If I had received some sort of email, I wouldn't have been worried about my $100 order going missing.
I don't care how "great" these socks are, I will NEVER place an online order from this company again and I do NOT recommend it. If you can buy them in person at an Expo, go for it. I assume some people have received good service since these things seem to be pretty popular items. Perhaps everyone buys them from Expos... or has had better luck than me. If I ever receive them, I'll let you know if I actually like them! If they were in fact shipped on the 15th, they should be here any day now...
Cakes, cakes, cakes!
Same Pan... Two Cakes...
I decorated Cake A last night... Mr Scarecrow:
Cake B was decorated this afternoon... Mr Jack O' Lantern:
The pictures aren't great, I should have used my DSLR to take them but was too lazy to get it. It's so much easier to upload pics from my Elph. Anyway, the cakes were certainly good practice and I have LOTS of room for improvement. I'm sure my recipients won't care much though. DS has decided that Mr Scarecrow should go to my office and the pumpkin will go to school for his class.
Now... time to check on supper...
Just because I can't relive it enough...
It has been six days since I became a marathon finisher. I still can't believe that I did it. It seems quite surreal actually.
I had decided quite some time ago that this week would be a complete week of rest for me and I stuck with that plan (easily). No workouts whatsoever. Putting your body through something that extreme takes its toll. My hip is still bothering me but everything else feels good now so I'll be hitting the bike later today. I had planned on a short run but think my hip needs a longer break. I don't want to risk injury since Houston is only 12 weeks away.
Trevor and I purchased our race photos in digital format. There were several photographers throughout the course and I was quite impressed to see that they selected vantage points that would actually provide some scenery that we ran by.
Starting point for the full marathon (approx 250 runners):
I wish my eyes weren't closed!
Sand dunes in the background:
Still running through the national park:
I believe this photo was taken several km after the park but a few km before reaching the trail system:
My husband has been making fun of me for this one because I'm actually smiling... he says that most people don't use a marathon for a photo op... I can't help it... this picture was taken somewhere in the last 4-5km of the event and we're so close to finishing!
Almost there... just a couple more steps to the first mat:
Look at that burst of speed at the end!
Have you ever seen such a look of RELIEF? It's finally over!
The very last mat... at long last:
In other news (like there is any other news?)...
I had so much fun at my second cake decorating class! We actually got to decorate a cake. I designed a little happy face candy corn to decorate and overall I'm pleased with the end result. I just wish I'd had more time in the class to darken my icing colours. Next week I'll be better prepared.
I had sooooo much fun at that class that I immediately bought a few cake pans and a couple of more tips so that I can bake and decorate a couple of cakes this weekend! I'm going to bake a cake for DS's class and for my office with a Halloween design. I'll post pics... hopefully...
Now, off to get dressed, do some laundry, get the cakes in the oven so they can cool and enjoy this cold, rainy Saturday!
