Disneyland Half Week 1

We ran a little last week, but officially started the SmartCoach plan this week. I upgraded my SmartCoach to the paid version (whoo big spender!) to give me more flexibility with the plan.
Until last week we were running Monday and Wednesday afternoons. But something happened over weekend...

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It got freaking hot. Hello, summer. If you think that 84 and 90 are basically the same, you are wrong. Those 6 degrees are a massive difference between comfortably sweaty and wanting to die. So we have moved our runs to the mornings.

Tuesday- 6:20 am wakeup call. 3 mile run.
It was actually too hot for this. By the end of the second mile the sun was above the house roofs and we were running in the sun. Vowed to wake up earlier the next time.

Tuesday pm- Yoga DVD. My foot has been hurting (return of the plantar fasciitis- boo!) so I did a yoga DVD hoping to stretch out those muscles. However this was my first time doing Yogalosophy and it wasn't a calm stretchy yoga, it was a real workout. My buns were burning the next day!

Thursday- 5:45am wakeup call. 3.6 mile run with 2 tempo (12:08 pace)

1.23 mi warm up jog (forgot to start the Garmin when we started running.. oops!)
2 mi tempo (11:40 pace- I set the Garmin for 11:30 to 12:30 range for the run, and it seems we were going a little faster than our goal pace)
0.4 mi cool down walk
Was supposed to be 4 but Dan had to be into work at 7:30. We got up at 5:45 but were moving a little slow to get out the door. When I saw it was 6:45 we turned back the short way and headed for home, cutting it about a half mile short.

Saturday- 6am wakeup call. 4 mile "long" run. Since the plan is just getting started the long run is the same length as the midweek run, which is good because we are still easing our way into morning workouts.
After the run, we made pancakes, then headed to Home Depot. I had yard work to do, and so does Dan in his own yard so we decided to work together.. mine today, his tomorrow. One day maybe we'll only have one yard and then we could be done already!

 A couple hours of weed and feed-ing, weeding, mulching, and pruning. Then we took a dip in the neighborhood pool to cool off. "Good day!" I said. "I still haven't gotten my nap," said Dan, so I guess it's naptime now!

It's a New World

Early Tuesday morning (2:44 am Central) the private company SpaceX launched an unmanned spacecraft full of cargo to the ISS. SpaceX was given seed money from the government as part of a program to develop commercial spaceflight capabilities. It was a long road for them, including several scrubs over the past few weeks. Spaceflight is not easy, as we seem to have to keep learning, and I am happy to see them finally get off the pad. Read more about their launch here.

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This morning the Dragon capsule was grappled (plucked out of empty space, amazingly, while both Dragon and ISS were traveling 17,000 mph, 220 miles above the earth) by the station's robotic arm (read a semi-live-blog from Houston Chronicle here and official NASA coverage here) and will be berthed (attached to another module) in order to allow the astronauts to open it up and take all the cargo out.
From now on we live in a world where a commercial company flies to the ISS. Amazing.

By far my favorite picture of the week:

Dragon launches over Mission Space in Epcot. Source

I do love the confluence of Disney World and space! It's a whole new world. Update: check out video of capture if you missed it live. Truly amazing... http://t.co/GzvQpKzZ

Dress Shopping and a Party!

So I headed back home last Friday night for dress shopping. My dad has a friend who custom makes wedding dresses. She had actually offered to make mine for me, but we started by going to a store owned by a friend of hers to get an idea of what I liked.

First I had to do my homework. She told me to tear pages out of magazines, of styles I liked. She said that tearing stuff out of magazines is fun, and would keep me from freaking out. She must know me? Or maybe all brides are like that!
So I bought a couple magazines and tore the pages out. Here's a sample:

I actually tore this dress out twice, it's that awesome!

Seeing a pattern?

We headed to Florida late Friday, after work. Saturday Dan got to be lazy by the pool all day, while my mom, dad, sister, and I went dress shopping. I know it's a little unorthodox that my dad came. But it was his friend... and his money... and I don't really care besides. In fact, I would have brought Dan if he had wanted to come. But he didn't, because there was a pool calling his name. He'll see it before the ceremony anyways, because I plan to take pictures before the ceremony starts to take advantage of the daylight.

Not the dress I'll be wearing.

I tried on 4 dresses, and the one I picked was actually #2. It had a lot of elements I expected to like, but also some surprises. For instance, I really didn't want a sweetheart neck... until I put one on. The dress I picked ended up being on the way cheap end for that store, and my dad's friend said she couldn't even replicate the dress for that price. So we bought it.
I also explored veil options. I really liked the idea of a wrap-around blusher but when I put this one on it was too close to my face. See, that's me tugging it to keep it from strangling my nose. (Can you strangle a nose?)

Then I tried on this other one and liked it alot- its just one comb at the top of the bun which makes it easy to flip forward for the walk down the aisle and back for the rest of it. So I ordered it, but am getting it custom made in the fishnet material like the first one, instead of the teeny netting in the picture.

My dad's dress-lady friend and I are going to work on custom accessories- a flower for my hair (I liked the idea of a flower but not that particular flower) and  maybe a colored belt (my dress comes with a matching ivory one with a crazy flower on it- not really my thing) or some removable long sleeves since it might be cold out that weekend.

So that was a big thing off the to-do list. Then it was time to PARTY!

 My parents planned an engagement party for us Saturday. Since we planned to be out dress shopping all day, my mom invited the local wedding guest list to a dessert party to give us time to prepare.

My mom made just about everything from scratch, including baklava, 2 pecan pies, the brownie pops, s'mores brownies and dipping chocolate for the fondue in back. It was all delicious!

Who knew I'd find a wedding dress in 2 hours?! We even had time to go out to my favorite restaurant for lunch and then take a nap before the party!

Toasts from my dad and grandfather.

Delicious brownie pops. Mom is so cute!

My bff Ali. She's getting married 3 weeks before me.

Presents. Actually all the bags are empty, gifts are being shipped.
Good thing, because I didn't want to carry all that home in a suitcase.

It was an awesome party with friends and family. I talked to everyone, but feel like I never had a chance to talk to anyone. Of course, the wedding will be just like that but 10x worse. Still, it was great to see and celebrate with everyone. And, I got a wedding dress!

Disneyland Half Training Kickoff

A few months back, Dan and I signed up for the Disneyland Half, which will take place on my 26th birthday, September 2nd, 2012.

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 Up until now, 6.2 miles is the farthest I have ever run. To be honest, even that is rather shocking... when we started training for the 10k I was reasonably sure 3 miles is where I would max out. But I've doubled that distance, and now its time to more than double my distance again!

I don't have lofty goals for this half. I plan to walk some, but run most. I plan to stop and get some good pictures with my favorite characters. I plan to have a good time. I plan to finish side by side with my fiancé. I plan not to die. I plan to get one of these babies and proudly wear it for days:

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That's about it. Training over the summer in Houston, I know it will be a miracle if I survive to race day. A lot of early, sweaty mornings await (starting with today-yuck). We are primarily using a smart coach plan, with help from the Galloway official Disney plan. Once a week I'll bring you updates here, for the next 15 weeks!

What I ate Wednesday: Business Trip Eats

Man, am I getting tired of restaurants! Between being out of town two weekends ago for the Illinois 10k and out of town last week for work, and not really doing much grocery shopping in the middle because I was leaving in 6 days, I haven't eaten many meals at home. And I'm heading out of town again Friday night for dress shopping back home.
As you might recall, I brought a ton of food with me to California, lest I be caught hungry. What I left with:

Almost every day for breakfast, I made myself a breakfast in the room. Either a bagel or coffee maker oatmeal. 2 packets of oatmeal, hot water from the coffee maker:

What I came home with:

Wait a minute? How did that pile get bigger? A trip to Trader Joe's! We don't have Trader Joe's in Houston (although, rumor has it, one is on it's way!) so I went on a small shopping spree. The haul?
A salad for dinner that night- I was so tired of restaurants I opted to eat a salad on my hotel bed instead of go out again!

Love the included fork, since I didn't have any in my room!

Wine (sophisticated-ly sipped from a coffee mug).

Also in that pile were cookie butter, pita chips, KIND bars, and candied ginger. These were for home, although I did break into that cookie butter the very next day for breakfast! Cookie butter is this amazing (but not exactly healthy) spread that tastes like Biscoff, the cookies they used to give out on Delta flights. I had heard about this stuff, and I knew I had to try it. But it really is SO good, that I think people have been underselling it. All I can say is... get yourself some cookie butter. And a spoon. Yum!

In-n-out burger: I heard all manner of things about this place, which apparently has a divisive rivalry with Whataburger (which I hate) for the fast food burger throne.

This burger was awesome. As soon as it was gone I wished I had another. Or had at least ordered a double. Their special sauce... oh man! Another awesome thing? You can order your fries to your desired doneness- lite (slightly underdone), regular, lite well (slightly overdone/crispier), well done. I ordered regular, but I think lite well sounds brilliant. Also you can order fries with the special sauce on top. Sign me right up for that next time!

Ghirardelli! Yes I am reusing this photo, because I am THAT excited about this hot chocolate. Which I only drank 2/3s of before the trolley captain made me throw it away. Sad. But the part I had was oh-so-delicious!

Giant bagel. Our hosts at Ames brought us some delicious bagels on Friday. It's bigger than my hand!


Beer flight- Thursday night, our last there, our hosts joined us for happy hour at a place which brews it's own beer. So, of course, we tried them all! We passed the cups around so everyone could taste and pick their favorite to order in full size. Also, these little 6oz beer glasses are SO cute!

It was a good, productive, fun trip, but I'm happy to be home!