5K PR and Age Group Winner

The church that I grew up going to was having a 5K race and I thought it would be fun to do. I don't run a ton of races and the ones that I do are big ones, so I am usually not in the running for top in my age group. I thought this would be fun since it was the first time they were putting on a race and since it would be a small race, I had a good chance of doing well. It ended up that Adam didn't have tennis on Saturday morning so I made him run with me. He has been so busy with work that he has not had time to work out much at all. He wasn't happy about running with me but he got over it. Overall, a very hilly race, but fun, and end the end, I was the 18th finisher and the winner of my age group (first time for me). And I had a PR, 23:41. I finally broke 24 minutes. Yeah!!! I can't wait for next year's race.

After the race, we picked Hope up and went home to make breakfast sandwiches and coffee for brunch. Yum!

VO2 Max Testing

I am back from my trip to south FL and will post some pictures soon. We had a really great time and was sad to come back, but we have a lot to do before we move.

The Saturday before I left for the beach, I was a participant in a study at Georgia State University in the Physiology Lab. I had my V02 Max tested. I heard about it from another blogger in the ATL, and was eligible for the study.

I went down to GSU on Saturday, and I have to say I was very nervous. I hadn't been running as much as I had wanted to and while your V02 Max is largely genetic, you can improve it through training.

The test was really cool. We started out with a walk for 3 minutes, then they increased the speed to 4.6. From there, every 3 minutes they increased the incline 3.0%. Finally after walking at 13.0% incline, they increased the speed so I was running finally. After 26 minutes, I was done. I hit the top of the treadmill twice to signal that I was done. I was pretty sweaty, and I am not a sweaty person. My mouth was so dry come breathing through a tube the whole time.

It was cool to have it done and in the end my V02 Max was 49. According to the testers, that is in the 70 percentile. Not bad, but not as good as I would have liked it. I was hoping for at least 50 and wonder if I could have gone longer. I know I haven't been running for all that long, but it's my personality to want to be the best when I do something. I did some searching on the internet and according to one site, I was in the Excellent category, so that made me feel a little better.

It was cool to get some more information on my running. I am running a local 5K tomorrow. It's the first year and I do to run the inaugerals. :) I will let you know how it goes.

Easter 2010

Easter was a great day but for us, Easter started a day earlier. I read that some good activities for young toddlers is getting them to help in the cooking process. For someone as young as Hope, being in charge of sprinkles is a perfect job. I have started to collect cut outs for different holidays to start a tradition for Hope and I to make cookies. I have Christmas ones, but they did not turn out very well. I was having trouble finding Easter cut outs when my mother-in-law found some pancake cut outs at William Sonoma. She got them for us and they are great but they are big. So we had some big cookies.



I made the dough from scratch, following a similar recipe from Allrecipes. From there, Hope and I started to make the shapes.





Here is the duck shape and one of the bunny shapes (there were 2 bunny shapes). Here they are before they went into the oven.

I also made some cream cheese icing from scratch, and then added some food coloring to make some pastel colored icing. Here we have the next step.

Lastly, Hope was in charge of sprinkles. She enjoyed putting sprinkles on the first 3 cookies and then she was over it. Not quite as successful as I would have thought, but we will keep trying. They cookies are delicious though.

Next, we dyed eggs for Hope's Easter basket.

Hope was helping here too.

Easter Sunday - after church, trying to get our pictures taken.

Here is Hope in her Easter dress.

The family.

My dad did an Easter Egg Hunt for Hope in his yard. Aunt Val helped Hope find the eggs and get them in her basket. I was surprised at how well she did.

Running to the next egg.

She was very good and finding them all!

Traveling with toddler, HELP

So Adam's company is sending him to South FL for a couple of days and Hope and I are going with him to soak up some rays. We have been pretty lucky when it comes to traveling with Hope. We usually stay in places where we have plenty of room and she has only been on an airplane twice (once good, once not so good). The flight will only be 1.5 hours long at most so that is good, but now that she is a toddler, what do I need to bring to help her? Also, can I bring milk for her through security or not? No, not breast milk, just regular milk for her?

The airport is 18 miles away (Fort Myers airport, FYI), so I guess we will be renting a car. According to Delta's website, we can check her car seat at no charge. Is that true?

Any tips or advice with all of us staying in one hotel room? Nap time? I was thinking of just taking her on a walk during her afternoon nap but she probably won't sleep very well. I won't have my jogging stroller with me (too big and doesn't fold well) so I will be sporting my McClaren on the trip.

I am very excited about getting away for a couple of days and going to the beach. Should be a lot of fun! I just want to make it as smooth as possible for Hope so she has as much fun as we do!

Race Pictures - ING Half marathon

I finally got the pictures uploaded from the ING a couple of weeks ago. It was cool and rainy so major props to my family for coming out to support me.

Here is Hope in her stroller, blanket and her new raincoat waiting for mommy around mile 9.

Hope thinking she sees me. She got so excited!

That is me in the pink top and green shorts. Adam bought me that outfit for my Oct. race as a way of being supportive but then it's easier to pick me out of the crowd.

After the race at home with mom and her medal. It was a pretty good race overall. I was not a huge fan of the rain, but it did help keep the temperature down, which is good when you are running 13 miles.

Now I am working on speed as distance running season is coming to an end and shorter races are coming up. I have 2 5k's in my future. One is the Race for the Cure which is a huge race, but also one of my favs. It is a great atmosphere and we always run it for my mom. If you are an Atlantan, I highly recommend this race. It has a lot of personality and jogging stroller are allowed. Yeah! Register here.

My fastest 5k time is currently 24:25, so I am hoping to break 24:00. Wish me luck!