Friday Musings #35: Nike Women's Half Recap

Last weekend I ran the Nike Women's Half Marathon in DC and it was wonderful! I know, I know. I'm as shocked as you are that I had such a good race considering I kinda half-assed my training towards the end. I think I finally found the balance of when to drink water/eat energy beans to keep me going through the whole race. I also wore a water bottle belt so I didn't have to stop at a water station until mile 11. 

I didn't actually make it to the expo because I waited until the last day to pick up my packet and the line was hella long. By the time I finally got my packet, I had to race over to Chinatown to meet my parents who were in town. But I did get to walk by the Nike store in Georgetown and found my name! I didn't even know they did this!

I'm famous!! 

Here I am with my lovely friends after the race. I finished in 2:36:01 which is practically 15 minutes faster than the 2:50:59 I ran the Rock n' Roll Half 5 weeks prior. I paced at 11:54 for Nike. Now that it's getting hotter outside I'm going to retire from running for the time being and try to tone up. I'll hit the treadmill every now and then to try and get my mile time down to 10 minutes. There were some fun signs at the race too. My favorite was "I know this is long and hard, but since when has that ever been a problem?" #ThatsWhatSheSaid. Now I know what you're DYING to see...

The little blue box! (Which I wont lie, I saw somebody holding up a sign about running towards the "little blue box" and my first thought was "ooh! another Doctor Who fan!" To be fair, my shirt was Doctor Who themed so I kinda had it on the mind.)

Me after the race!

The front of the shirt says "Companion Training Program" and the back reads "I run so when I meet The Doctor, I'm ready!" My brilliant friend Marissa made it. Best running shirt ever? or best running shirt ever?

Okay sorry, side-tracked. So instead of a medal, you got a Tiffany's necklace for finishing the race. I was a little nervous because there's a lot of Tiffany's stuff I don't like. But this necklace is AWESOME.

How cute is that!?

Backside

So yeah. That was pretty much the rundown (heh) of the race. The course was great (super flat) and the weather was great (sunny and cool) and the whole day was GREAT.

Sara, Marissa, and me showered and lookin' good after the race!

THERE IS NO TIME!

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed lately. There are so many things I want to do, and just not enough time to do them all! I haven't been crafting or baking in what seems like FOREVER. Mostly due to travelling a ton (seriously, this will be the first weekend I've stayed home all month and May is not looking any better) and having a busy social calendar.

I kid. I kid. But seriously - I need a week to catch up on all my TV and finally finish one of the 6 half knit projects I have going on. This weekend is the Nike Women's Half and I CANNOT WAIT for it to be over and to not have to train anymore. Not that I've been doing a fantastic job at it, but it's hard to find time to run for 2 hours on the weekend and I just about died running in the 80 degree weather we had a few weeks ago. WHAT WAS UP WITH THAT!?

I'm going to take the summer to lose weight and get my mile time back down to 10 minutes for long distance runs. We'll see how that goes. I do have the May the Fourth Be With You party next weekend. So I'm excited to plan for that. It has been probably about 15 years since I've seen any of the original Star Wars movies. I think we can all agree that that is extremely way too long.

Rock n' Roll Half and Stuff

I just downloaded the Pic Stitch app. EXCITING! This picture is my race in a nutshell. Lots of green. I don't think I drank enough water beforehand because miles 5-13 were a bit of a struggle. Oops. I always think the last thing I'd want after finishing a race is a beer... but they were free so I got one anyways. I drank half, but as it was Michelob Ultra I didn't feel too guilty throwing away the rest.

Up next is the Nike Women's Half on April 28th. I just got a t-shirt that I am UBER excited to wear on race day. My goal is to beat my time on the Rock n Roll (2:50 according to my Nike + app). I really need to buckle down with my training... but eating, drinking, and watching Doctor Who is just so much more fun! Which by the way, I am FINALLY caught up on. That's right, I watched seasons 3-7.1 in 3 months. NBD. I no longer have to avoid the internet like the plague because of spoilers. Four more days until the new season!!

Disney Princess Half: The Costumes

There were tons of great costumes at the race. A LOT of princesses, parent/kid combos, dudes dressed up as princes (and princesses). My favorite is definitely this Doctor Who/Disney cross-over I spotted at the 5K. She handmade it all (I NEED TO FIND THE TARDIS FABRIC!). The tshirt is iron on pictures of Doctor Who/Disney.

She also had a little Pascal (which I totally should have gotten for my costume!) with a sonic screw driver. 

One of my favorite things was seeing parents running with their children. (This was more the Family 5K than the half) 

Since I was running in these, all the pictures are the backs of people unfortunately, but you still get the idea. 

This picture is probably illegal to put up - but I just had to show how awesome this guys costume was! I took the crappy one from the back. FULL RED SUIT! in 80 degree weather!! Running 13 miles in that costume is what I call true love...or insanity.

One of my favorite memories from the Half was around mile 1. I ran past two men probably in their 30s wearing the floor length Snow White and Cinderella dresses. Lots of women were running past chuckling. Some yelled "Aren't you going to be hot!?" This was their response:

Snow White: The worst part about these costumes is the thong!
Cinderella: At least we didn't have to wear our heels.Snow White: What!?! You didn't tell me that! I'm wearing mine!

Seriously - comedy gold mine! I wanted to stay next to them the whole race! But alas, I got sidetracked by Capt. Jack Sparrow. It will be a little weird running the Rock n' Roll half this weekend and not seeing 99% of people in costume, but I'm still pretty excited for all of the GREEN. 

Disney Princess Half: The Look

The race was so much fun: fireworks, DJs, Disney Princesses and Princes at every mile, and 22,000 people running. It's hard to beat that!! Almost everybody ran in costumes. (Look out for a follow up post on those!) My Rapunzel outfit turned out really well! 

I bought a Team Sparkle purple skirt and a purple performance T from Target. Then I sewed on pink ribbon to make it look more princess-y. The ribbon frayed a lot on the ends after sewing it on. I'm sure there is something you can buy to keep it from doing that, but since I'm a procrastinator and waited until a few days before I flew to Orlando to finish my costume, I didn't have time to research. Instead I used the quick-fix of hot gluing the ends. It worked out really well and didn't even look that bad!

So Rapunzel. That girl must have some mad brushing skillz. I bought gold colored yarn to make a really long braid. I spread it out on my living room floor then divided it into 3 sections. 

When I divided it, all the hair got TANGLED. Touché Disney. 

It took me forever to braid it because of the constant tangling and having to move 1 strand at a time. I really needed a hoard of little girls to do it like she had in the movie. (If you're going to attempt this I recommend you bribe some friends to help.) I finally got it done and then used my trusty hot-glue gun to attach some flowers I bought at Michael's. 

To attach it to my head I put my hair in a bun, then wrapped the braid around my head and the bun and let the rest hang over my shoulder. I bobby pinned it in pretty well too and used a large flower clip to mask where I had tied a knot at the top. 

This was after my run, so the bun had fallen out, but you get the general idea. 

When I ran I draped the braid over my shoulder so it wouldn't drag on the ground. My neck got pretty sweaty holding it, but otherwise it was pretty easy to run with. 

The pièce de résistance of my costume was definitely the frying pan. I thought originally it would be the braid since it dragged on the floor, but I got the most comments on the pan. Luckily I found a plastic one in a Campfire Kid's Fish Fry set so I didn't have to lug around an extra 10lbs. (AND it makes a great fan for running in 80 degree weather!)

Flynn Rider also had a mini frying pan so right before I took this picture (which by the way, pretty much made my life) we fake battled with them. HOW AWESOME IS THAT!?!?!

So that was the race from my costume's POV! (Here's one more shot of me pre-race.) #canigobacknowplease

Tangled

FOUR DAYS!!! That's right - 4 days until the Disney Princess Half Marathon!! I have been doing a lot to prepare for the race - listening to the Tangled soundtrack on repeat, watching the movie a few times, and diligently working on my costume. Oh yeah, I guess I've been running too... which usually ends up with me feeling like this:

Anyways, I'm excited to have it all done and finally be in Disney. Look forward to posts next week about how the race went (amazing I'm sure!), my costume, and much, much more!! Until then - let's all dance around like pretty pretty princesses!!

Who is Your Favorite?

The Disney Princess line has exponentially grown over the past few years. The original 3 being created over 50 years ago in a span of 22 years. (Snow White in 1937, Cinderella in 1950, and Sleeping Beauty in 1959). The world had to wait another thirty years before little girls everywhere could splash around a pool pretending to be Ariel. Then Disney really got the steam engine going and started cranking out a new Princess movie almost every other year for a decade: Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Mulan all coming out in the 90's. We suffered another lull of about 11 years before getting our first African American and computer animated princesses. (Holla Tiana and Rapunzel!) The newest, Princess Merida, keeps the every-other-year trend going (and doubles the number of gingers!)

So why the run down on Disney Princesses? Well, I just signed up for the Disney Princess Half Marathon and obviously need to choose which one to dress up as! Running in a wig sounds miserable so that narrows the candidates to Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Rapunzel. Right now I'm leaning towards Rapunzel, but I do love pink so maybe Sleeping Beauty. I guess we'll just have to see which costume ends up being easier to put together!!

Bridal Showers and Cherry Blossoms

This weekend was my friend Kim's bridal shower. We had a blast! I LOVED the color scheme too - we did a spring brunch and our colors were pink, orange, yellow, and green. It's a wonderful color combination. The sun even decided to make an appearance long enough for us to take pictures outside!

I made yellow and pink heart sugar cookies with the bride and groom's name in them. Tomorrow I'll post about the other desserts I made. Yesterday I ran in the Cherry Blossom 10-miler. I PRd with a time of 1:44:39 (according to my phone). Here's me around mile 4:

Haha, I love the woman behind me. The fun things you can do when you have your smart phone with you on a run ;) The weather was a little chilly, but great for running. Afterwards we went to fill our calorie deficit at Cheesecake factory. What a GREAT weekend. 

I Ran and I Planned

Woohoo! I finished the half in 2:22! My goal was under 2:30 so I'm happy with my time. Not nearly as happy as I was with my outfit though. I don't even remember where I got the vest from - maybe Wal-Mart? I bought it right after last St. Patrick's Day when it was on clearance. BEST PURCHASE EVER. The skirt is from Team Sparkle. I want one in EVERY COLOR. 

Today I planned out the menu for my Hunger Games party - OMG - 3 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to make 3 recipes from the Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook and attempt a fondant cake. I also made these invitations:

There's a free template online courtesy of Living Locurto. The website also has a few other printouts that I may make use of on Thursday. Gotta head to Goodwill today after work and start working on my costume!! (PS - if you're in the DC area and want to come to the party and/or midnight showing, just let me know!)

Friday Musings #10

This is going to be me tomorrow. Except a LOT more green. I'm running my first ever 1/2 marathon (of the Rock n' Roll variety.) I've actually trained for it so hopefully it wont be too bad, but I'm still a little nervous thinking I have to run 13.1 miles 18 hours from now.

If you haven't seen Run Fatboy Run - you should go rent it immediately. Not only does it have a SUPERB cast (I LOVE YOU SIMON PEGG) it is hilarious and heart warming all at the same time. It's about a man who tries to run the London Marathon to win back his ex.Whenever I run I just think of this movie and it makes me laugh and forget how I'm dying slowly. At least I have this to look forward to afterwards:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!