…..GRADUATION DAY!!! A big congrats to Teal and her husband, Michael, who will both be walking the stage at the University of North Texas today!!
Teal has been like a super woman the last few years being a full time teacher, attending grad school and working part time for her dad at Mower Medic! Enjoy the day, Teal!! Congrats!! 🙂
Does that make sense? It does in our minds! Ha, this weekend is full of busy, so we are ready for the weekend break from our busy weekend. Now does it make sense? 🙂 But keep in mind most of the busy is all stuff we will have a lot of fun doing!
You might know that we are kind of taking a break or maybe more accurately a step back from doing SO many races right now. Summer will be here in no time and everyone knows that summer is always busy, right? Teal is about to be graduating from grad school then wrapping up another school year with her students and this summer brings about a wedding for one of her best friends. Which means there are wedding events to attend!
Beth is still trucking along at work, basically has a side job doing social media for a small local business and is trying to plan her wedding! There are so many things to be doing!
What does that mean for us this weekend?
Teal will be Bachelorette Partyin’ it up! See how that warrants a recovery weekend from the weekend?
Beth will be participating in the Dallas Running Club‘s White Rock ‘n’ Roll 10 mile race on Saturday! Need to burn those calories before she and Brent are off to do a cake tasting! Neither one of us have ever done a 10 mile race and honestly it’s starting to get HOT in Texas! Hopefully White Rock Lake can provide some sort of a breeze!
So there is no pre-existing goal for this race, but maybe one will be set out on the course! Otherwise hopefully there will be fun and happy running going on! 🙂 Oh, and should you be running White Rock ‘n’ Roll tomorrow and are still needing to pick up your race packet – Beth is working the 4-7pm packet pickup shift at Luke’s Locker Plano today! So be sure and say hi! Or you know if you need some new running gear stop by that time and say hi!
We said this last month too, but seriously…May? How?
Ok, enough with that here’s how we did in April –
Teal:
1. Successfully complete the BluePrint Cleanse. This will start Monday April 2nd and end Tuesday April 10th. A+: This went very very well and I want to do it again. You can check out the recap here for more information. I honestly felt wonderful and I wish I could do if for life because I had almost no knee pain! I also managed to keep a total of 5lbs off this month which if you have been following is a huge success for me!
2. Complete one hill and one speed training per week, in place of regular runs or cardio. B+: I did 3 hill workouts, missed one week for some reason I can’t remember and also did speed intervals on the treadmill in the mornings! Other cardio included stairs and cardio classes at the gym (I’ve totally branched out!!)
3. I have one paper left for Grad School that is technically not due until the middle of May but I want to finish it and not procrastinate. Also I would like to finish up with all of my hours before the end of the month so I can order, submit, and file everything early to be ready for graduation! A++: DONE and DONE!! I actually submitted my paper on the 30th but it is done! T-minus 11 days until Graduation. I can’t wait!!
4. Earn my 75th class yoga band. F: Hey something has to give right?? I only went to yoga 5 times! Whoops.
Beth:
1. Please don’t hate me, but I’m going for lose 5lbs again. Third time is a charm right? F, I trimmed down the length of the goal this time around for the recapping. 🙂 But I was going to do the advocare cleanse. I did not do the advocare cleanse. I realized I had not factored in a wedding I would be at during the only Saturday of the month where the cleanse fit. You might be thinking, well, Beth just suck it up and eat clean at the wedding. Have you ever been to Babe’s? If not then think chicken fried steak, fried chicken, etc and that’s what we had. Anyways as to the weight lose…yah, I’m still at the same weight. Oops? At least it’s consistent?
2. Save the Dates – have them printed, addressed (myself) and sent off to wedding guests before this month is over! B- Ok, so I’ve only seen Save the Dates as a PDF, BUT I was at the mercy of couple other people’s time that are just giving me their free time. I had all my parts done (how I wanted them to look a.k.a. my own design and samples of my handwriting) and hopefully I will have them very, very soon! I can’t wait for people to see them!!!
3. Stadium workouts once a week. B+ I did 3 out 4 weeks of stadium workouts! I missed last week due to going out of town and trying to fit everything into my schedule before my long weekend out of Dallas. Excuse? Haha, yah…..
4. Prepare food for each week on Sunday nights this month. I’ll have to do this for at least the 10 day cleanse, but to help me get serious with my food and losing weight this has to be done every week! B+ This is another where I did 3 out of 4 weeks of this. Two of the weeks I made these tasty enchiladas which I’ll share with you in another post!
the colorful veggies for my latest pre-made food!
As far as the extra monthly goals (weekly hill runs & read two books a month) I have going on for myself! I attend the hill workouts every week in April with the NTX Runners! Makes them soo much better to run with company! As far as books I had some makeup work to do for my reading in March and I didn’t quite catch up! I did read The Paris Wife byPaula McLain and The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks. I’m not ashamed – sometimes you gotta mix up the serious with some cheese! And I’m currently three-fourths of the way through The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow by Krystyna Chiger.
Ok, and let’s look forward to our May goals –
Teal:
1. Lose 5 more lbs. I have tons of motivation right now because I will be on the beach June 6-11 for one of my best friend’s weddings in the Dominican Republic!
2. Ok, I’m just going to change this yoga goal. The goal is to go 3 times per week. After looking back on the last 2 months I think this is doable and still a stretch. I had a 6 time month and a 5 time month so hopefully just 3 a week will be a big enough push that is actually time possible!
3. Stop skipping my morning workouts. My gym buddy and I got a little off track due to crazy lives and schedules. The goal is to go all 5 mornings. I had done this for over a year so it’s doable, just need to get back in the routine! I have been going at night more, but it’s not as easy to do and gets in the way of my yoga goal! Domino effect-boooo!!
4. Be nicer! I am not evil, but stress has taken over this month with preparing for graduation, looking and interviewing for counseling jobs, planning showers and events, tax season at my dad’s, state testing for schools, blah blah blah. I have NOT been the picture of niceness at all and have become way more annoyed at things than normal. I am not sure how I am going to actually do this or prove it, but I’ll come up with something and let you know how it goes at the end of May!
Beth:
1. I’m still chasing those 5 pounds to lose! Ha, one day…one. freakin’. day. I will be able to say I did it so. This goal is sticking!
2. Survive my first 10 mile race! I’m currently freaked out by this distance since I’ve never raced it and it is getting hotter down here in Texas!
3. My wedding related goal is super vague, but the goal is to have at least 3 items on my checklist marked off and report back to you what I’ve accomplished them!
4. I want to continue on with my preparing food for the week on Sunday’s goal, but to make it different the goal here is to find two new recipes this month and make them! Must add variety to what I’ve been doing!
Joint Goal:
We will be participating in #runchat’s May challenge which is pretty much to run a different route, a new trail or try a race you have never done before. For more information please visit the #runchat site.
Y’all, how is it already April?! Good Lord, time flies! Well, here is how we measured up for March’s report card! Hope we aren’t grounded!
Teal
1. Paint Bedroom and guest room for real this time. Spring break should make this possible! A+: Done! I did this all by myself from 8-1am one day during spring break! So glad that is done. Every room in my house is now painted! Wahoo.
2. Survive my 2 week break from running and cardio by not cheating. I am going to give my body a true rest. I think it is overworked and is partially to blame for the plateau of weight-loss, my injury and that it is not fully gone, and from being tired from having 2 jobs and grad school. The break will be hard because rest is really not part of my vocabulary but it’s a needed part of life. Must get better.
A: I survived this and technically started cardio back one day early. I am happy to say that I have no foot pain, well minus our run from Saturday, but it feels great! I think my body feels better, but is ready to get back into training. Running has not been what I want but I am glad I did this. I really only ran 2 times last month outside of the 3 races we did. So it really was a good well needed break!
3. Yoga 12 times this month. This will be how I survive the “rest” from running/cardio. Low impact, restorative, and a good way to focus on flexibility.
C: I only went 6 times. I think my break went to my head because I really didn’t want to do anything. I was, however able to earn new Yoga bling for my 50th class this month.
4. Finish Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes F: Not only did I not finish this book I A) can’t find it and B) I read the Hunger Games instead! Whoops.
Beth
1. Run a sub 2:00 hour half marathon at Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas! A+: I did it! In case you need the proof here it is 🙂
2. Lose 5 pounds. Seriously, y’all!! I need to get SERIOUS about take some pounds off for my wedding! F: Pretty sure I gained a pound. Womp! Womp!
3. Get a caterer for the wedding. You thought this one went away didn’t you? Well, I was all on track, got one approved by my venue and haven’t heard back from him after our initial phone call about my homes and dreams of wedding food. I’ve chosen to take that as a sign and look elsewhere just need to setup tastings! B: Brent and I are going to a tasting Thursday and Saturday of this week! Never thought it would take THIS LONG to get to that stage of getting a caterer! Holy geez!
4. Attend 3 to 4 yoga classes a week. You’re probably like whaa?? You yoga all the time! Well, technically I don’t totally have yoga goals like I did for all of 2011 and I took 2 weeks off when I hit my 200 and let me tell you my body knew it! So I want to see how I do with 3-4 times a week for a month where this blog holds me accountable! B+: I did this every week with the exception of the last week of April! So pretty darn proud of myself!
5. Update my handwriting/calligraphy website. It needs a MAJOR change starting with a new theme that allows for a real blog inside the website. Change is a coming! D: It still looks the same. Part of this I need my sister’s help on and we thought she’d uploaded a new theme for my website but it didn’t go through. AND she got to work on self-publishing her first ever book, Creative Chaos, so she got a little tied up which I don’t blame her!
As far as hills went in March I did a hill workout in 3 out of the 4 weeks of March. And I’m totally behind on my two books a month goal and only got through Mile Makers by Kristin Armstrong in March.
And now for April’s goals….
Teal:
1. Successfully complete the BluePrint Cleanse. This will start Monday April 2nd and end Tuesday April 10th.
2. Complete one hill and one speed training per week, in place of regular runs or cardio.
3. I have one paper left for Grad School that is technically not due until the middle of May but I want to finish it and not procrastinate. Also I would like to finish up with all of my hours before the end of the month so I can order, submit, and file everything early to be ready for graduation!
4. Earn my 75th class yoga band.
Beth:
1. Please don’t hate me, but I’m going for lose 5lbs again. Third time is a charm right? I plan on doing the Advocare 10 day cleanse again this month and take a two week supply of the Advocare MNS Max 3, so all of that alone should guarantee I lose more than 5lbs we’ll just have to see how I do keeping it off the rest of the month! 🙂
2. Save the Dates – have them printed, addressed (myself) and sent off to wedding guests before this month is over!
3. Stadium workouts once a week. This week sometime I should be meeting Johnny to do a stadium workout the way he wants me to do them and should that happen I would like to complete them once a week!
4. Prepare food for each week on Sunday nights this month. I’ll have to do this for at least the 10 day cleanse, but to help me get serious with my food and losing weight this has to be done every week!
So time for us to get busy! What do you have in store for the month of April? Personal goals you are trying to accomplish, running goals or both?
1. Two weeks from today we leave for Florida for the Princess Half. Tired of this countdown yet? 🙂
2. Beth did her first ever tempo run on the treadmill Wednesday night. Check it out:
3. Unfortunately Teal isn’t going to be able to do the Hot Chocolate Run on Saturday. 🙁
4. Because she’ll be busy taking her certification test for counseling! Yah, another big thing with grad school that will be out of the way!
5. Disneyland Half – we are officially REGISTERED! Coast to Coast medal we are coming for you!
(source)
6.1 Last night Teal participated in her first ever social run at Luke’s Locker! Got in 4 miles with the group and can’t wait to go again!
6.2 Last but NOT least! Beth finalized all of her Bridesmaids by asking her longest friend in life this past weekend over dinner! They’ve known each other since they were 6 years old.
What was a highlight to your week – running or non-running related?
In honor of Friday the 13th here are our thirteen things:
1. Today is our LAST day of the Advocare cleanse! YAY!! Look for a recap next week.
2. Two weeks from today we leave for Austin for our weekend of volunteering for the 3M Half Marathon. Our first volunteering experience together AND we can’t wait to meet Courtney & Luke…you know IRL!
3. Tomorrow night we have a wine dinner at Beth’s house with friends both old and new – we can’t wait!
(source)
4. This week Beth put a big check mark next to “pick Bridesmaid dresses” on her wedding to do list. Extra bonus that the 4 BMs so far are happy with the dresses!
5. In 4 weeks, Teal & Michael will be living alone for the first time in the history of their marriage. 🙂 No more roommates!
6. Six weeks until we leave for our next big race weekend – Princess Half at Disney World!!!
7. Since this month started Teal has attended 5 yoga classes and Beth has attended 10 yoga classes. Will we meet our goals??
8. Teal’s last semester of grad school starts Monday.
9. We received some Celliant samples in the mail this week that we are anxious to try out!
10. Teal is going to the doctor on Monday for her foot! Keep your fingers crossed for her pleeease!
11. We got another NEW button on our blog! You can now buy Go Sport ID’s through us just by clicking the link on the right hand side of our blogy blog!
12. We each have a secret goal of learning to swim in 2012 – you know as in be better swimmers because we know the absolute basics of swimming i.e. doggie paddling 😉
13. We are not really superstitious.
13.1 Are you superstitious? What race superstitions do you have?
So based on Beth’s post yesterday you have probably gathered that Beth and I ran our long runs separately this week, but no fear, our running duo is still together! Thank God! Also if you have been following for a while you might have known that I am still in grad school- 3 yrs to be exact, and I have become really good friends with my fellow grad student, Susan. She had a milestone birthday this year- 40 – she really does not look or act a day over 30! After long deliberations in our ridiculous drives together to and from Denton during the week we settled to travel to wine country and San Fran to celebrate, so Thursday we headed out. I was of course nervous to fly as usual and have never flown with Susan before. We lived!! I also worried about how I would fit the long run it as it was going to take at least 2 hours, but based on our plans for the weekend I decided the best day to do it would be Friday morning before we got into anything in wine country.
Friday I woke up and checked the weather – 46 and heavy fog. Had I been in Texas I would have wanted to stay in bed, but nevertheless I got up and got going. Here is a shot of what I first saw across the street.
I headed down not knowing anything about the area and was just hoping to find a route. I ran all through the town of Windsor which is gorgeous! The streets are lined with farms and wine vineyards. Here are just a few shots from my run. It was probably the prettiest run I have ever taken and am so glad I decided to get up and brave the fog!
I have had a lot of pain and a lot of trouble running for the past few weeks. I have had to change shoes, alter my stride, walk, and just overall beat myself up about how bad I had been running. This run kind of made me feel a lot better! I ended up running 12.71 which was close to a mile more than planned- I really wanted 14, but worried about how long everyone on the trip had been awake and didn’t want people to have to keep waiting for me. I was glad to get it over with and also proud of the fact that I made it that far alone – that does not happen very often.
The rest of the day was dedicated to WINE!! We traveled about 15 minutes to Healdsburg and decided to stay there for the day. We went to 4 tasting rooms and a champagne bar. The first was by far our favorite so I will give them a little shout out. We went to Williamson Wines which gave a complimentary wine tasting with complementary food pairings, which was unheard of anywhere else, and they were awesome people. They had an Australian accent so for me I could have listened to them all day! I ended up buying there Meritage Red – SOOO GOOD!
After literally 5 hours of tasting we made our last stop at the Champagne bar for big cheers to 40! One of the girls on the trip ended up becoming a member there so we had free champagne for the morning and of course had to have mimosas!
Saturday we headed back to San Fran and for the sake of your time and reading pleasure I will just show you some pictures and leave you with the fact that I have NO CLUE how anyone runs the San Fran Marathon! San Francisco is INSANE with the hills and I was literally winded walking around. We did make it down Lombard (the crooked road) which was probably my favorite part! I was the driver for the weekend and am so glad I got to drive down that road! I have always wanted to!
Overall this trip was awesome! I am glad my run went well and am excited/nervous for us to run our 20 miles this coming weekend.
Do you have a scenic run you’ve done that you’ll never forget? Where was it?