59 Days Out.....

There are 59 days until the Wine and Dine Lumiere's Challenge begins. Or 59 days for my untrained butt to get back into shape depending on how you look at it.

Spending 45+ hours a week at the office has been killing me. I get home and curl up in bed, or I go right to the barn from work, meaning I have fallen extremely far behind on my training for any of the upcoming races I have. I'm either going to humiliate myself at the Wine and Dine, or I can get myself into shape and accept that this will be a race for the experience and not for the time.

So this morning I got up and ran a solid 4 miles at Crane's Roost in Altamonte Springs.

This place is always under construction

While I'm not happy that it took me 50 minutes to complete 4 miles, I am happy that I completed those 4 miles and restarted my half marathon training!

I not only forgot to him the start button after stopping at a water fountain, but I also have an extremely interesting running playlist. 

The goal from here is to keep up with the training program, and build my endurance as much as I can. The plan was always to take the 10K slow and enjoy the experience, but if I have to take the half marathon slow then I can accept that.

It was hot out and I got extremely gross, extremely fast

To be completely honest, I seem to have really screwed up my training for all of the Disney half marathons. Since I left Running Depot I have found it hard to stick to a program, and extremely lonely. But, my life is far too busy at the moment to find a running group down here. So far I've got the pony, Florida Freewheelers, dance classes, work, and learning how to sew eating up my time. Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to manage my time better and find a club to run with.

Bailey was a bit confused about why I was laying on the floor and what the heck this thing is

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Speaking of sewing.....

I had planned to share a sewing project with you tonight! But this happened......

I still don't know how I pulled this one off

For the next three hours...... After a few hours of screwing around with the machine, and basically having a major hissy fit, I managed to figure out what I was doing wrong. Which is basically everything. 

Cali knew I was getting pissed and decided to cuddle to make me feel better!

So, now I'm extremely pissed with the project and taking a break until tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy a preview of the fabric! Hopefully tomorrow goes by quickly and I can get this finished! It is supposed to be a simple beginner project after all! 

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Hurricane Hermine

As most Chicagoans will know, hearing "This is Jerry Taft from the National Weather Center" emit from your phone usually means a fun bout of weather is approaching. Last night I forgot that I had the ABC 7 Weather app set up for alerts and may have flipped my dinner all over the dining room. Whoops. Thanks Jerry.

While hauling the cats to the bathroom, I may have discovered that I am sorely under prepared for any type of severe weather. As a perfect example, the cats got locked in the bathroom but when I realized I don't have a battery powered radio I might have hung out in the living room watching the weather updates. (And then possibly stood on my patio during a period of creepy silence)

Some of the items I realized that I might need for the next storm include:

1) A flashlight that isn't my phone and isn't pocket size. My phone has the potential to die, and probably will because I'm awful at charging it. Plus, my pocket size flashlight spends more time lost than my keys do. 

2) A radio. Not having power means no laptop, and no tv for updates. Plus, my phone is a constant state of dead.

3) A second cat cage. Despite getting the cats almost 6 months ago, I still only have one cage. They love each other but I'm sure they'd rather not be squashed together if we have to evacuate.

Despite not having those three, somewhat major, items, I think I did pretty well for my preparations! The cats and I had plenty of food, and I was totally prepared to not have work today! But alas, I did have work and we got to pie a manager in the face and fill another manager's cube with balloons so I guess it all worked out!

So fellow transplants, what are some things you realized might be necessary during a major storm?