April Half Marathon

So, if you haven't noticed, I've done a half marathon each month so far this year. Today, we ran in Jonesboro, AR for the Doc Rock and Run Half Marathon. It was about 47 degrees with wind gusts well above 20mph...horrible. It was bound to happen. I had 3 beautiful races (weather-wise) in a row. I just didn't think it would be this miserable in the middle of April.

But on the bright side, it was another PR! I don't know how. I've kept my mileage up, I but haven't been trying to incorporate speed work or other workouts that would lead to another PR. So, I was excited to shave about another minute off my PR. Today's time was 1:54:and some seconds. My official time hasn't been posted yet. I think I was just in a hurry to get back inside!

Here's a few pictures. It was too cold and windy to take pictures outside, so in front of the women's restroom inside the Convocation Center was the next best place.

A Shiny New PR

Yesterday, I ran another half marathon.

...and so did Ryan
...and a couple of our friends.

Ryan's friend, Jonathan, came along for his first half marathon and my friend and coworker, Sarah, came along for her first 5K...or so she thought.

Saturday, when we arrived in Germantown, TN, we headed directly to pick up our packets. To make a long story short, we talked Sarah into upgrading her registration to the half-marathon. She decided to run with Jonathan and Ryan who were a bit under-trained for this one and would be alternating walking/jogging.

I wanted a PR. A Personal Record. I was getting close with my last race at 2:04. My personal record for the half marathon was 1:59:58, which was set with my very first half marathon...7 years ago. It was time to break it.

I ran 15 miles the week before the race. My 13.1 split was 1:56. I could do it. I knew I could. This was going to be the race to prove myself to...well, just to myself, but I still wanted to do it. And to make another long (13.1 miles long) story, short. I did it! I pushed myself, my hip felt fine, I stayed well hydrated, the weather was great, the planets aligned, I pushed myself, and I did it! 1:55:53 was the magic number that broke my 7 year-old PR by 4 minutes and beat my most recent race, just 3 weeks ago by 9 minutes.

I'm super excited about my own accomplishment, but I'm equally, if not more so, excited that Ryan also beat his old time by more than 15 minutes, and Sarah and Jonathan ran their very first race...a half marathon! That's huge!



Come on now, why the look of pain and exhaustion?

That's a little better.

Here we are (left to right: Sarah, Ryan, Me, Jonathan).

After some showers (there are a lot of horse statues in Germantown).

We are already looking for our next race. We have our eyes on a mud-run just 3 weeks away. Sounds like a ton of fun. Any suggestions for other spring races?

Cowtown 1/2 Marathon

Last weekend, I ran another half marathon in Fort Worth, TX. I went with my friend, Laura, and her sister, Becca. We had a great time!

This Laura (on the left) and me after the race. She ran the FULL marathon and did awesome!

Here is Laura and her beautiful sisters..and her precious little niece.



Here's our whole group. Becca had a group of friends running the half marathon also, so there was a great turnout!

I ran this half in 2:04:01 which puts me back to to where I was prior to my injury! I have been hesitant on looking for another marathon to work toward, but I feel almost confident enough to put it back on my goal list for this year.

I'll keep you posted...


As for now, I have another half marathon scheduled. You may remember we ran the Germantown, TN 5K last spring. Well, this spring we are running the half marathon. I'm really looking forward to this one. It's a relatively small race, and it should have a pretty scenic course through Germantown. It's only a little over two weeks away!

The Overdue Orlando Post

I know, I know...the suspense has been killing you. I promised an Orlando post, and we've been back for two weeks, and still no post.

Well, your wait is finally over. We had a wonderful time. This year, we drove and took our time traveling down to Orlando. We visited family along the way. During our time in Orlando, we spent a day at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure to see the new Harry Potter park. We also spent a day at Sea World.

The whole week led up to the long awaited Disney Half Marathon (which will have its own post). It was my favorite part of the trip. The only downside was that we had to get in a car after the race and drive 9 hours to Birmingham, then 7.5 hours the next day to get home in time to get back to work on Monday. The driving ultramarathon is something I could've done without.

Anyway, click here for a sampling of photos from the trip.

Fresh Florida Oranges

Fresh Florida Oranges...

and Grapefruit....

and Tangerines...

Ryan's Aunt Teddie has a wide variety of citrus trees, and during our visit on Monday and Tuesday, we had the opportunity to pick our weight in oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, and lemon.

We took the oranges straight from the tree to the juicer.

There is absolutely no comparison to fresh squeezed OJ and grapefruit juice.

We are enjoying our time here in Florida and have a few fun things planned to finish out the week. I'll have lots of pictures to share by the time we are done here!

A Week in Review

I'm back!!

Ryan and I visited his family in Dothan, Alabama for the week of Thanksgiving. We had a great time, and I wanted to share a few points of interest for the week.

1. I am running again, slower than before, but I am running again! In the past few weeks, I've gradually started alternating walking with some jogging. At the end of the week prior to leaving for Alabama, I jogged 3 miles without any pain! While in Dothan, we went to the local park which had a 3.3 mile walking/jogging trail. The first day, I walked/jogged the trail. Day 2, I did more jogging and wanted to go a little further. By mile 4, I began to feel a slight ache in my hip, so we walked back to the car (about 5 miles total that day). Day 3, we went to the gym and had a great workout on the spinning bikes and gave my hip a break from any impact. Day 4, Thanksgiving day, we started from the house and walked/jogged to the park, jogged the 3.3 mile trail, then walked/jogged home...a total of about 5.5 miles with no hip pain! I earned my Turkey that day! Day 5, we went to the gym again and had a good workout on the bikes. Finally, yesterday, after a 10 hour drive, we walked 2 miles at the park to stretch our legs. Today is a day of rest! I am thrilled, and very thankful, to have made it through an active week with almost no trouble with my hip.

2. Auburn came from 24 points behind to beat Alabama!

3. The weather in Dothan was beautiful! Temperatures were in the upper 70's to lower 80's the whole time we were there. The only problem was my allergies went haywire with all the leaves still on the trees and flowers still blooming, it was like driving from winter to spring in one day. My sinuses still haven't fully recovered.

4. 2 hours or less of a car ride with the dogs is fun for them and easy for us. 4 hours is beginning to push it. 7 hours is a bit more difficult but still manageable (we used to do it all the time between Birmingham and Mountain Home). 10 hours is stressful, for them, for us. Let's just say we won't be doing it again anytime soon.

5. Black Friday is way more fun when you have more places to shop than Walmart. We aren't typically big Black Friday shoppers, but we did venture out around 10am (after making and eating homemade doughnuts) and found a couple good deals on things we needed.

Did you do anything fun over the holiday weekend?

Washington D.C.

I have way more pictures from D.C. than anyone would care to see, but I did add an album to Facebook to share a bit of what we saw. Rose Marie and I had a great time sight-seeing...I saw everything I had hoped to see even though we only had 2 full days of sight-seeing. Needless to say our feet were tired at the end of everyday! Here is the link to the album...click here. Enjoy!

2 Years

I can't believe it has been 2 years since we stood on the beach and said, "I do." We have come a long way since then, and I'm thankful for everyday we have together.

Ryan surprised me at work yesterday (I'm a day late on this anniversary post) with a beautiful bouquet. Getting flowers never gets old...I would have fresh bouquets all around the house if I could!

We are headed to Birmingham tomorrow to meet up with Ryan's family. From there, I will be headed to Washington D.C.! Ryan's mom is coming and his sister will be joining us on Saturday. I will be attending a conference on Friday and Saturday, then we'll have a little time for some sight-seeing before we head back on Tuesday. I've never been to D.C., so I'm sure I'll be posting lots of pictures next week!

Happy Anniversary to us...and here's to many more!

Another Cold Race

Last Saturday we arrived in the Memphis area to meet Ryan's parents for a visit and a 5K. We were greeted with sunny skies and 70-degree weather. Sunday morning, when we woke for the race, it was 49 degrees and pouring rain. Of course, this just seems to be our luck...if you'll remember...in Disney World, it was sleeting, then raining as the temperature rose just above freezing, last spring we ran through the rain at Oak Mountain...This just is just par for the course.


Pre-race

I crossed the finish-line in just over 29 minutes. Turns out I was second place in my age group, but don't get too excited, it was a small race...very little competition...most real runners would have left me in the dust.

Here comes Ryan: for someone who doesn't run on a regular basis, he did pretty good!

And Bobby...My running partner through it all! (I think I just about have him talked into a full marathon someday)

After...all wet...

P.S. By the time we got home on Monday, the temperature was back in the upper 60's, sun was shining without a cloud in site....You can shed a tear for me now if you'd like.

The Only Pics from Disney World

We got back from Orlando one week ago today, and jumped straight into work and school on Monday morning, so I've been absent from the blogging world for long enough, thank you. We had a great time..even though it was probably Orlando's coldest week in recorded history.

Thursday and Friday were spent in Disney World, and since I had never been, I was perfectly content just taking it all in for the short time we were there. We went to the Magic Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom, and I have to say..it really is a MAGICAL place.

I took lots of pictures and videos on my new camcorder, but much to my dismay, it stopped working about midday on Friday. We have finally fixed the camera (turns out it was something wrong with the memory card), but the following are the only pictures I have from my first time at Disney World...tear...sniffle, sniffle...

Here we are at the condo. It was a great place to stay, and it was only a short drive to Disney.

Here's a picture of us runners after the race...and after some hot showers. It was so cold the morning of the race (25 degrees and sleeting at the start of the race, just over freezing and raining by the end of it) that we didn't get any pictures while we were there. You may say, "25 degrees for January isn't too bad, wimps." But remember, we were in ORLANDO...it just isn't fair.

We got some really cool loot at the race...Here are the finisher's medal and race shirt.

Here is a link to a few pictures we could purchase from race day, from the professional photograpers that were scattered all over.

We had so much fun that we hope to do it again next year...even Ryan wants to try to do the half-marathon...even if he has to walk some...I know he can if he puts his mind to it!

Anniversary Trip

As promised, here is a summary of the events from our anniversary trip to Gulf Shores. It was so great to finally get to go after not being there since our wedding! I just got my computer back last night, it is working great, and I didn't have to lose any of my files...thank you Justin (he saved my computer)!

First of all, anyone who knows Shakes Frozen Custard will know how excited I was to find a brand new location within WALKING DISTANCE from the condo!! Okay, so it's about a mile away, but we did walk there and it almost makes you not feel as bad for treating yourself to the famous Bopper (caramel, hot fudge, pecans, and a cherry on top)...thankfully there is a mini- sized version of this sunday, so I didn't go too overboard ;).

On Saturday (May 2nd...the night before our anniversary), we went to check out the house where we got married, and sure enough, there was a wedding in process! So we tried to take some pictures at the entrance to the subdivision, and we were attacked by flies...the biting kind! So this is all we got...

Back at the condo...much better:

I have to say, the cake was just as good as it was a year ago! Delicious! Here is a picture of us with the groom cake top. We ate some of it in Gulf Shores, but we didn't eat the other one until we were back at home on the night of our actual anniversary.

We did some fishing on the peer. The little fish were biting like crazy. Soon enough we noticed someone was on to us...This bird came right up to us wanting our fish!! We finally surrendered one out of fear of being attacked! You can kind of see it in his mouth here as he is turning to fly away.

Ahh..relaxing in the sunset...



What would a trip to Gulf Shores be without a night at LuLu's. Here we are after dinner.

Ryan and Bobby took the Kayaks out to the beach. Here they are crossing over to the lagoon to head back to the condo.

We had a great time and wish we could have stayed longer. Hopefully we'll make it back before another year passes!

-Melissa