Black Cat-Post Race Report & PAR-TAY

Let me first start by saying: I HAD SO MUCH FUN!!!!

My hubs could come to this race, we were having a date night afterwards, Crane and her family were there running, and the crowd was amazing as usual. The only thing I didn't like was, I was running by myself, which is what I wanted, but man when it was time to slow down for a breather, there wasn't anyone to talk to! I just turned up the Ipod and kept going!
At mile two the timer set 17 mins. which ofcourse starts when the first runner crosses the line, and I knew I was a good minute behind the first runners, which meant I was about 16 mins. in the race! Now that couldn't have been correct by any means, that would mean 8 min. mile for this new runner, no way! :)
I took about a 2 min. walk, and a flight medic/nurse that I use to work with saw me and we chatted another min and she suggested we break out into a run, it was a lil sooner that I had planned, but now I'm glad we did it................................because I REACHED MY GOAL! Thanks Melissa! :)
When we ran thru the chute it said: 40:58, and my initial thought was "crap, I didn't make my time" but then realized that was start time, not chip time. I later learned my chip time was 39:35 and that was a 12:46 pace time. I lined up by the 12 minute pacer, and after that was walkers/strollers.

All in all I'm super happy with my time, I shaved off 4 mins from my 5K this past summer on the Cross Country track, and 5 mins from the same race last year! I wanted a sub 40 time, but thought it will most likely be around 41 mins. I'm still smiling! That's not super fast at all, but I will take it, and ofcourse gives me more motivation to keep getting faster!

There is another 5K here in town that supports the local high school basketball team, so I'm planning on doing that one, and possibly the one on Thanksgiving Day, so fingers crossed I can make both races! Those will probably be colder then last night's. It was around 40 degrees, I didn't layer too much and I was fine!

Here is a post race photo:

I have the cutest hubs for sure! He got a fresh new haircut, which I love :) I'm such a lucky girl!
We went to an awesome Halloween Costume Party, here is a pic of me and the hubs:

Thankfully in this picture, he didn't have his mask on, it was pretty scary looking. I told him to hide it from the kids. I don't need them to start having nightmares, LOL!
This party didn't disappoint, Jacque you are the best hostess! The food table was unbelievable, she is a great cook, but she went all out with the Halloween theme, check this stuff out!

That is a homemade coffin, that is full of Jell-O-shots! 600 to be exact! In syringes, which totally cracked me up! The coffin was lined to keep them cold!
The 2nd picture is a Skeleton with Taco dip in him, she also had her awesome cookies, and a cheese ball that was a "mummy"
If I had the money, I would pay her to do the food at our party, she did a fantastic job and I hope she post them on pinterest, because if you are hosting a party or going to one, you will for sure want to make these super cute things!

We had a lot of fun, and hope to make next year's! We didn't get to stay long at all, and it was after the 5K, and we had to get home to the kiddos!

JUST.KEEP.GOING.

I decided tonight that I should run outside in the 40-50 degree weather because that's what I will be running in on Friday for my next 5K, more like high 30's!

Not even going to lie! I'd RATHER be at the gym, (I think), the treadmill gets boring for sure, but I have a huge big screen TV in front of me, zero incline, and the perfect temperature, when running a 5K you have none of those luxuries, so I really wanted to have the same conditions as the race will be.

I love our new neighborhood, it has a huge circle so that is great, especially since I'm not a great out and back runner, hate to run 1.5 miles then turn around and come back, don't ask me why, I've been that way since high school, ha!
The run was nice, it was cold, but I dressed for it, and layered but not too much, even tried out my new headband to keep my bangs back and out of my way. There are inclines/hills either way I turn out of our driveway, so I took the smaller hill route, but has a huge downhill on the other side.
I ended up doing 2.31 miles tonight, which was great, I normally stop at 2  miles but when I passed our house I was only at 1.93, and just did another loop around!

I kept telling myself during my run to JUST.KEEP.GOING

Running for me is a mental game/battle with myself, when I'm done, I'm hot, sweaty, but feel great, like I could seriously have done that twice. Which I'm hoping means my endurance is building up for some longer runs.

My lowest 5K time was 42 mins, when I signed up for this race it asked my estimated finish time? WHAT? I've never had to "guess" that before, but I really want to finish in 40 mins or under! the 42 min. 5K was the Tiki Trot that was on the Cross Country Course, I figure if I can do that in 42 with hills, dirt, and grass, in the 90 degree weather, surely I can beat that time by 2 mins? WISH ME LUCK!!!!

After the race we are heading to an Adult Halloween Party, so maybe that will be motivation to run faster, so we can get to the Party! Remember me and the hubs never get a date night, so I'm excited, that we don't have to "rush" right home, we aren't staying long, but long enough to have some fun!

I'm VERY EXCITED to add another race bib to my running plaque that the hubs made for me!

I'm hoping this isn't my last race of the year, fingers crossed I can find another one in Nov to participate in!

Vacation and THE 911 call

Oh boy, where to start?

It was Fall Break this week for the kiddos, so we decided to take a 4 night/5 day stay in Pigeon Forge Area,  the boys had a great time, and so did the hubs and I! If you're kids love the pool and water, this is a great place to stay, you really don't have to leave the property for anything, 4 big slides, wave pool, indoor/outdoor hot tub, (hot tub was the biggest I've ever seen, I think it said it held 113 people?) It was half indoor and half outdoor, so cool! Also had a regular pool, again half inside half outdoor! An arcade, candy store, several snacky type food bars, and a restaurant or two, and a arcade, with laser tag, indoor black light putt putt golf, and etc!
It also had a "gym" it wasn't very luxurious and it closed at 11:00, I'm so spoiled when it comes to my gym here at home, everything is top of the line (just how I like it) when I went in to workout, there was a young girl in there on the elliptical, and I felt very sorry for her, she may have only been in there "playing" like kids do, but I was thinking to myself, she would much rather be out playing with kids her age, her brother was also in there working out too, I would guess them to be 14-16 years old. They were watching the Disney Chanel!
I didn't really "diet" while I was there, but everytime I ate something fattening or greasy I got sick! The first night there we ate at Logan's, the hubs and I split the appetizer that comes with 3 items, we got potato skins without bacon for me, cheese sticks, and wings, I ate one potato skin and one cheese stick, and had that "grease headache" I ate one roll, diet coke, and a bite of my mom's salad! That's really not alot of food, but guarantee it was well over 700 calories including the peanuts, which is crazy! So I tried to eat better stuff for me, kind of hard on vacation, but I did try! We really didn't have any food, that was over the top great!

It was fun, and oh the slides, yea you climb like 4 flights of stairs to get to them, so I definitely burned some calories, doing that over and over!

The room was huge, 2 queen size beds, a twin sleeper love seat, our room had all the normal stuff, plus bottled water (for a fee), 20 foot ceilings, table for 2, stove with 2 burners, so they had a few things that were nice and unexpected, very spacious for sure, but we did pay almost $200.00 a night to be there!

The hubs and EE got to go to the UT game on Sat., I bought the hubs tickets for his bday back in Sept. they had a great time, and got back safely! Daddy came back bearing gifts and Bre stayed with me! At 80 bucks a ticket we weren't taking him or myself, so we stayed and played at the water park!

Now onto this lil guy/story! Bre wants to be a Ninja Turtle for Halloween, so his costume is ready to go, he is so very into the Turtles now, clothes, movies, and etc. I didn't buy him any of the ninja stuff other then the costume, well he has begged for the nun-chucks (not sure how to spell that) and I've said no, because I know what will happen to big brother if we bought those! :) So the boys went to the arcade and racked up points, and they had to split their points so each had just enough for nun-chucks, (yay us) so this morning while I was out getting Dunkin' Donuts, Bre had hit his brother or dad one with them (they don't hurt, they are foam, but trying to teach a lesson about not hitting) so dad put them up, I kind of laughed, was sitting in the bed drinking my diet coke, he stomped off and said I'm mad at you, he picks up the phone, like he did 100 times prior to this morning, and says I'm calling the police! He starts punching numbers and says "yes, come get Brandon (middle name) (last name), he just put up my nun-chucks and he is a big meanie, we laughed, and about 2 mins. later the phone rang, it was the POLICE DEPT.
They said the got a 911 call from our room number, so he really did call 911, I didn't even know he knew how, he is only 4! Then after we said sorry, that was our pre-schooler, we get a knock on the hotel door, it's security, saying they were informed we had an accidental 911 call, and they needed to make sure we are all ok! Needless to say he learned a lesson today, it was kind of funny, but he did learn a lesson!

Never a dull moment at our house with either boy! I'm pretty sure we won't forget this vacation for many reasons, but the 911 call probably tops them all!

Gotta love these boys!

We are refreshed now and ready to get back to school and work (I guess)

I'm not weighing in on Tuesday this week, I'm waiting until Friday! ha! I need a few days to get the vacation pounds off! :)

The weigh-in & fire pit night

My second weigh-in went well, but I had only lost 4 ounces, the first week I had lost 4 lbs from the initial weigh-in! Not bad, but 4 ounces is nothing, really! I was somewhat bummed, but my body does hold the "weight" as long as it possibly can, then I have a nice drop, so I've been weighing everyday to see how it is fluctuating, and I've had a steady drop everyday since. I weigh-in on Tuesdays, that's when I lost the 4 ounces, but when I weighed in on Wed, I lost another pound, and again today another pound, so looks like it's around 2.4 lbs for the week, which doesn't count for this week, but will count for next week, so that's pretty awesome!

Running is becoming easier, I do 2 miles now, mostly running the whole 2 miles, I'd guess I walk a .5 miles during the whole time I'm on the treadmill! If I get a chance I try to get in 10 mins on the bike too, for an additional 4-5 miles!

After the gym on Monday, I came home to this:

There is NOTHING better then coming home to a fire pit and snuggling up by it, with my boys and the Hubs! We had mentioned we might light the fire pit, so I stopped by walmart to get Smore's stuff!
We all loved it!

Thanks B for making such a fun family night for all of us!

If it were up to me I'd be having a fire pit every night! :) I located a pile of wood that needs to be burned tonight behind our shed, so maybe, just maybe we can use that this weekend!

I'm now one pound away from being the smallest I've been in 13 years, and that's very exciting.

We are heading on vacation soon, and our hotel has a gym, so I plan to utilize that while we are there, I've worked way too hard to not keep it up, or lose it on vacation! The compression pants I have on in the above picture actually started sliding down on me during my run yesterday, not real bad, but enough that I noticed, and while they are expensive, I did smile about it!

Yesterday EE's class went on a field trip and I was able to wear my new jeans that I bought 2 weeks ago, that are a smaller size then I had been wearing, and they fit great! I got two compliments just in the drop off line at school, then several from mom's on the field trip, it does make all the hard work worth every minute!