Running Goals

My running goals can be summed up as following:

1) Stay free of injury
2) Have a good time
3) Finish with a smile

Let the training continue through this muggy summer until I cross the finish line in California.

My race calendar is as follows:

August 31: 10K at DisneyLand
September 1: Half Marathon at DisneyLand
October 13: 10 miler in Mercer County Park ("The Perfect 10 Miler")
November 2: Beauty and the Beach 5 miler
November 3: Princeton Half Marathon
November 9: Trenton Half Marathon

November 10: putting up my feet and taking a break from running (we'll see how long that lasts)

D3 training

With over two months still to go until the Dumbo Double Dare (D3), I hit my hardest training weekend to date, with at least one more super challenging weekend to survive before the big race.

I chose a training schedule that looked reasonable on paper -- with the exception of these four back to back long runs. Why would one do that to oneself? You see the D3 is like half of a "Goofy" -- a 10K on Saturday (6.2 miles) followed by a half marathon (13.1 miles) on Sunday. Crazy, huh?

This weekend called for 5 miles on Friday and 10 on Saturday. Tropical Storm Andrea is coming through? Too bad, get out there and do it (or not, I'm not overly serious about running if you hadn't noticed from my other posts). 

Well, I did it! I stuck to my neighborhood and did lots and lots of laps. In the end I was thrilled with my time (11:15 mile) and happy I did it. I felt better running in the non-stop gentle rain than I did a week earlier in the sticky, hot and utterly draining yet dry weather. 

Today's turn. Legs felt good for the start. The first mile felt fabulous. From there I kept slowing down. Sure some of my miles were faster than others, but I just wanted this to be over! My pace was nearly two minutes slower than yesterday (13:11 pace), but overall I felt more beat. 

On a good note, I know I can do the D3! Disney requires a 16 minute per mile pace. Even with photo ops, and water stops, I'm good to go. With God's help, and lots of training, I'll only get stronger over the next two and a half months. And as a bonus ... California is not exactly famous for their super humid days, so that should help, too.

I have to remind myself to stay hydrated and fueled. I can do this!

Oh and tomorrow I rest!

Run, Run, Run

This year I earned my first running medal. On May 1^st I ran Philadelphia’s 10-mile Broad Street Run. While I went from one end of Broad St to the other, Don, Ashley and friends, Kevin Gruenfeld and Trish Bennett, handed Gatorade to thousands of runners at mile 7.8.

My big race this year was Disneyland’s Half Marathon on September 4^th – also known as “The Happiest Race on Earth.” This was the focus behind my training. It was wonderful! Disney really knows how to organize a race.

I trained bi-coastally with my honorary aunt, Joanie Morris. We emailed each other encouragement. On the big day we stayed together until the finish line. The experience was so amazing I kept forgetting we were going 13.1 miles.

I took 200 pictures during the race. There are pictures of us with Disney characters, plus action shots of us running through the castle, Disney’s back stage area, Anaheim Angels stadium and the streets of Anaheim. In the end, we earned our medals and had smiles on our faces.

After the race we walked a mile back to our hotel, where we checked out and celebrated at Mimi’s Café. Don, Ashley and I spent the rest of the day at Disneyland before catching our red-eye flight home.

November 5^th I ran a women’s-only race in Long Branch, NJ called Beauty and the Beach. In just under an hour I ran 5 miles. It was a lot of fun! The "medal" awarded for the event was a beautiful shoe necklace.

Disneyland

Anaheim, CA. Visiting Disneyland is like a reunion for us. We make plans to catch-up with old friends and make new ones, too.

This year we timed our trip to overlap with Masumi Tsukamato’s visit. The best we could arrange was starting our trip as hers ended. Hurricane Irene nearly cancelled those plans, but thanks to a wonderful JetBlue agent, we met Masumi as planned. (You can read about that in our blog.) Masumi was sad because her flight home to Tokyo was the next morning, but happy to see us.

For Ashley, no trip to Disney is complete without seeing Brianna Garcia. Brianna is an extremely talented artist who is also very encouraging of Ashley’s artwork. Brianna and Ashley are kindred souls. It is always fun to see them play together in Disneyland.

Hurricane Irene also affected the travel plans of friends Patti and Neil Burd. They were stuck on the West Coast after their cruise. As luck would have it, they went to Disneyland during our vacation. Miss Patti, as Ashley calls her, is a docent at the Lenape Village at the Churchville Nature Center, where Ashley spends many nice Sunday afternoons. When Ashley saw Miss Patti at Disney her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Also on this trip we reconnected with Kimberly Fero, a cast member who always has a bright smile and warm heart no matter the situation. Kimberly spent her day off with us playing in the Magic Kingdom.

A highlight of any trip is sitting around the piano at Coke Corner, listening to Robert Glenn serenade the crowd, and catching up with friends. No matter how long it has been since our last Disneyland vacation, and in this case it had been a full year, the group welcomes us back and fills us in on what we missed.        Jacquie

Disneyland Half Marathon

I did it!

I finished a Half Marathon with a smile on my face!

 Joanie Morris and I at the start of the run. Believe it or not, she is still speaking to me! We gathered at 4:30 AM for a 6AM start time. Our corral didn't get to start until almost 6:30. Yes, I was tired before we even started.

Somehow we noticed Don and Ashley at the start of the race. We also saw them about mile 2.5 when we were leaving California Adventure and heading over to Disneyland.

Running through the castle. The parts of the race that took place through California Adventure and Disneyland were definitely a lot more fun than running through the streets of Anaheim. They were also the slowest parts because we were all having a lot of fun sightseeing and taking pictures. I took about 200 pictures during the run.

Stopping to pose for characters also slowed me down a bit. At least we finished before the giant broom swept us away. Joanie was a great sport with indulging my photography interests.

Another really cool highlight was running through Anaheim Angels stadium. We were on the warning track between the dugout and the field. For a baseball fan like me it was AMAZING! Though we walked most of this mile (sighseeing, narrow passageways) it also felt like the fastest mile because it was so much fun! 

 Getting my medal! It was well earned!

Ashley is my biggest cheerleader. She made this sign while I was sleeping the night before the race. Love the mouse ears on Mom.

Since I saw Mary Poppins and Bert during the race, it was only fitting that I took a post race picture with them, too.

Between "running" 13.1 miles, and walking around Disneyland for 5 hours, I logged 48,430 steps on my pedometer that day. A new record.

My time was about 3:24 -- yes, about a 16-minute mile, and only 6 minutes faster than their allowed time, but I had fun and that's what really matters.

Escaping Hurricane Irene

You, my few faithful readers, know me. You know I like to plan my life in advance. I don't adapt well to surprises and last minute changes in plans. In other words, I am a Virgo.

As is typical with one of our trips, I booked the airline tickets months in advance. We were all set -- leave Sunday morning on the first flight out of JFK. Land in Long Beach, California at 1 PM. Pick up luggage. Pick up car rental. Check into HoJo's Anaheim. Walk to the Main Gate. Arrive in time for Musical Chairs at 2:30. It is a system and it works for us.

What doesn't work is having a major monkey wrench tossed in to make us scramble. That monkey wrench would be Hurricane Irene.

Since this trip will become a distant memory soon, I want to take a few moments to record a few thoughts. These are more reminders for me, than a story for my blog readers, so be warned, this does ramble.

That Tuesday the East Coast was shaken by a 5.9 earthquake -- the first earthquake I ever remember feeling. While not causing any damage, it did rock things a bit. (pun intended) That week Ashley had Lenape Camp each morning. Afternoons were a bit busy, too, as it was our last week of being home before our trip, before the half marathon, and before school started. I also had a lot of extra articles to write for the Lawrenceville Patch, and a job interview to become a Youth Services Librarian (sadly, I learned on vacation I did not get the job) in a local library.

Then we learned about Hurricane Irene. Being an organized person, I called Jet Blue on Wednesday to change our Sunday flight. They were not ready to offer free changes yet.

I called back on Thursday when they said we could make a change. Fine. We were set to leave on Saturday night at 6, rather than Sunday morning at 11. The storm was not supposed to make it to our area until Sunday at noon, we would be getting out of Dodge!

Still feeling smug, Friday night at 6 we go to the Jet Blue website to check into our flight. Uh oh! The message says to call Jet Blue as there has been a change with our flight.

This can't be good.

JFK decided to shut down their airport at noon on Saturday in anticipation of Sunday's storm. Even if we had gotten on the 1PM Saturday morning flight, we'd still be stuck. (We later learned the 1PM flight left at 11 AM, presumably fairly empty, but that was not an option.)

Now what?

Another call to Jet Blue. This one lasting nearly an hour. We talked about leaving on Wednesday instead of Sunday. That meant missing out on seeing Masumi (a friend from Japan who was returning home on Monday morning). It also made us debate about returning later (would the hotel have availability? we prepaid for the car rental, would we have to forgo that? how did I feel about Ashley missing the first couple of days of school? could Don change his vacation time?).

Suddenly Leah (a Jet Blue manager called in to cover the flood of phone calls) said the magic phrase: "what do you think about flying out of Dulles?"

All of the sudden a light bulb went off and we jumped on the chance to fly out of Dulles (confirming she meant the airport in Virginia and not the one in Texas that sounded very similar). We made the necessary changes to both ends of the flight (must pick up car at the end, you know) and hung up grinning.

Then reality set in.

Wasn't the hurricane coming from the South? How were we supposed to get from New Jersey to Washington, DC while a pre-hurricane was coming from the opposite direction? Wouldn't Dulles be closed because of the same storm?

We went to a play on Friday night. Ashley slept over my parents' house. We bought a few supplies (we thought we were leaving the next day on vacation and the cupboards were bare) and made plans.

How are we going to get there?

We looked at a map and decided to drive an hour out of our way, in-land, to avoid the path of the hurricane.

What time should we leave for an 11 AM flight?

How about 3 AM? Well, that's right when the hurricane is supposed to be hitting our area. How about now? Sounds good to me! About 8PM, an hour after deciding to leave, we hopped in the car and drove to Sterling, VA. We had the roads to ourselves. Yes, it was raining, and at times a bit windy, but much better than it would have been at 3 PM.

We spent the night at the Country Inn and Suites. We had a great breakfast in the morning. We left our car at the hotel (the hotel+parking was less than we pay to park at JFK) and hung out at Dulles. We were the only ones at the airport. We had to wait behind one person at security.

It is a wonderful airport. We had lunch at Max and Erma's and browsed the Smithsonian gift shop. As we passed the chapel, Ashley commented they had a chapel so you could get married and go right on your honeymoon.

Our flight was two hours late -- not bad all things considering. A friend from high school is a Jet Blue pilot. She was able to keep us updated on changes.

We smiled all the way to Long Beach, California.

Next time we plan to fly to California, we'll look flights out of JFK and Dulles. Still sticking with Jet Blue, though, because they are the best.

Disneyland

Bummed I accidentally deleted a blog post about Disneyland. I know in the post I wrote about how much I enjoy catching up with friends, such as Kimberly, Marilyn, and Ragtime Robert. 

I also probably wrote about how much we enjoy watching Ashley play musical chairs at 2:30 each afternoon.

Perhaps I also wrote about how our Disney experience has changed over the years.

Unfortunately as I did not make a back up for 2011 (though I have one for 2012), we'll never know the full extent of what I wrote.

Disneyland

Anaheim, CA. Visiting with friends on the West Coast is always the highlight of going to Disneyland.

No trip to Anaheim would be complete without catching up with Dave, Lisa and Siena (13 months) Porcelli. It has been fun watching Siena grow from an infant to taking her first Disneyland steps. Ashley is very sweet with her. She introduced Siena to the princesses and fairies. Perhaps on our next trip she will help her play musical chairs with Alice and the Mad Hatter.

This year we connected with the Smith family relatives. While not blood relatives, we really enjoyed getting to know Joanie Morris and her brother, Sterling and his son, Daniel (8) Smith. Joanie and Sterling gave us the insiders’ tour of Hollywood and shared some ice cream with us at Mickey’s Soda Shop.

Over the trips we have gotten to know Brianna Garcia, a local artist. She drew an amazing picture of Ashley with Alice in Wonderland. It hangs in Ashley’s room.

We tend to spend our evenings huddled around Ragtime Robert’s piano. His regulars have accepted us into his fan club. They even allow us a front row seat so we can watch his fingers as he plays. This past year he released two CDs. It is nice to now be able to listen to his magical touch between visits.

Kimberly Fero is another cast member we visit with after she is done with work. Kimberly has an autograph book of children dressed in costumes. She has them sign as their characters. Ashley has signed it as Tiger Lily, Jane Banks, Mary Poppins, Wendy Darling, and Alice in Wonderland. Kimberly is the embodiment of Disney magic.

Over time we have gotten to know some of the guests and bump into them on our trips. We bumped into the Quibell family from Arizona, Masumi from Tokyo, and others. It feels like home when we see so many familiar faces.