Susan G. Komen 3 day to the cure

Susan G. Komen 3 days to the cure

I heard about this event on the radio today after we got back from my run. I came home and went on the website and i'm itching to do this walk. Incase you haven't gone to the website yet its a 60miles walk in 3 days. The walk is in Tampa The proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen foundation. Each walker is responsible for raising $2300- this is a bit intimidating, but I REALLY want to do this walk.

I have no family members, that I know of, that have or had breast cancer. I "know" two people who have breast cancer. One was a women I worked with at a previous employer, and the second is the mother of someone I went to school with.

I just think this is a great organization to support. I haven't decided for sure if I'm going to do it. Chris said he would do it with me. That would be totally awesome if we could do it together.If Chris decides he doesn't want to do it with me then I can find a team to join, or I could do it by myself (not ideal).. 

So I will be comtemplating on this for a few days. I am signed up to go to an informational meeting on Jan 11 in Lakeland. 

Raising $2300 really makes me nervous. I don't even know where to begin. I have started writing some things down. & If Chris decides to do it with me then we will be responsible for $4600...plus $90 registration fee each. $4600 REALLY  makes me nervous!  
If you have any ideas let me know. I'm so not creative so i'm going to need help! 

Saturday & Sunday runs..

I had two good days of running.

Saturday: Chris & I got up and went to the Teco trail in Auburndale. Chris rides his bike while I run. Running is to much impact on his ankle, but bike riding is perfect for his ankle. So I am training for a 10k, and I need to start upping my mileage. Yesterday was my first 5mi run. I felt great the whole time. It was about 43degrees when we set out on the trail. I was layered. I had yoga pants on, a long sleeve C9 shirt from Target, an underarmour hoodie. I had on a beanie, gloves, and i also had the hood of my hoodie up. I made it to about 3mi before i started taking stuff off. i started with my gloves and worked my way through what I had on till I got to my sports bra and my pants. Lol. I was so hot. When we got back to the parking lot there were 2 ladies on bikes and one of them made a big ol' fuss about the fact that I only had on a sports bra.

Sunday:  Today Chris & I got up and went to a trail in Winter Haven and goes into Lake Alfred. We parked in downtown Winter Haven and headed out. I was only going to do 4-5 miles. Then Chris said "c'mon babe you can do 6 miles, whats one more mile".... so the stupid competitiveness in me kicked in and I had to complete the 6 miles. It actually wasn't bad. Again it was 42 degrees when we left. Today i only wore pants, a tank top and my underarmour hoodie. i also wore gloves and beanie.. I took my sweatshirt and beanie off at 4 miles. It was a good run. I felt really good. I know its not recommended to up mileage that quickly...  Afterwards we went to tropical smoothie and i got a delish low cal Hawaiian Breeze smoothie, yum yum!!!

I found another 10k i might want to register for in February. This one is in Christmas, FL and its a trail run, not on paved roads. I think it will be fun, i'm leaning more towards that one then then the 10k in Melbourne!

I also found a race in January that I am going to run. It's the Citrus Classic in Auburndale. i'm excited! I love races!

Hello 2010!!

2010 is here. It's a new year full of changes and new things. 

This year will be full of running for me: I have three running goals for 2010:  

1. Run 1000 miles = about 20mi/wk. 
2. Run a race every month
3. Run at least 1 half-marathon

I also have some cooking goals for this year: Finding new things to cook seems to be a challenge. I have a few cook books, and unlimited access to the internet, and food blogs galore.. Food goals:

1. Make a new dish once a week
2. Use the crock pot at least once a week.
3. Eat less beef
4. Eat more chicken & turkey (Chris doesn't LOVE chicken, so finding chicken dishes that he loves is going    to be a challenge in itself)

This year is going to be full of challenges. I'm excited to go further with running. I'm excited to cook new things. Ready! Set! Gooooo!!!!

2009 in Review.

I saw this on someone else blog and I'm totally stealing the idea! This is my year in review- pictures and everything =)

January 2009- I lied. I don't have any pictures for January. I can barely remember January. I know it was busy busy busy with wedding stuff. We were finishing up the final touches for our Feb 7 wedding. Oh, I have some pictures... My bachelorette party was in January. My sister Stacey threw it for me. We went to Houlihans for dinner (I don't recommed it. The service was slow, and the food was half assed for how expensive it was)



February 2009- Our wedding of course. Amazing day! We got married at Sand Key Park in Clearwater Florida. The week before our wedding was "Freezing" by Florida standards. I was a little worried that we would be cold standing out on the beach on our wedding day. The weather turned out to be perfect! It was a beautiful day. The sky was clear, the water was calm. It was amazing! We could not have asked for a better day!

 March 2009: Ohh March. In March we went to Georgia a few times to visit our friends Kelly & Casey.. We liked it to much we thought about moving. We looked at rental houses, and looked for jobs. We were in GA the first wknd of March and it snowed, hard. The first snow they'd had in quite a few years. It was really fun, and pretty exciting. But really cold....We decided to stay in FL. Ha Ha Ha!

JK, the snow is not what made us decide to stay in FL. We went fishing one weekend over in Ft. Desoto- we were driving across the causeway and we just looked at each other and decided we couldn't leave the beach. We are beach bums. We love the ocean & the beach. We were meant to Florida.

April 2009 : Hmm, April. What was exciting about April? Well, it was Kailyn's 5th birthday. It was the 4 year anniversary of Chris' breaking his ankle. We went on our 2nd "mini-moon" .... Due to the economy taking a crap and Chris' job not being all that busy we weren't able to go on our original honeymoon to Costa Rica. We stayed in Orlando at a hotel after our wedding. Then we took a few days off the week of our original honeymoon. We went camping on Shell Key in Ft Desoto, FL. It was actually really fun. The island has nothing on it. We loaded up our jon boat with everything that we thought we would need and headed to the island for a 3 day camping adventure. http://harneytoadsprincess.blogspot.com/2009/05/camping-at-shell-key-preserve.html (see that post for a recap of our adventure)

May 2009:  We fished alot in May. We went on our first fishing charter, and on the same day we drove to the other side of the state and fished the other coast. We clearly love to fish. http://harneytoadsprincess.blogspot.com/2009/05/for-love-of-fishing.html


My friend Sherry & I also started walking/jogging/bike riding this month to get ready for our July vacation. We also laid out every chance we got to work on our tans for vacation! =)

June 2009:  Aidyn turned 1!! Stacey turned 22!! & Chris turned 28!!!  It rained alot in June. We also got the newest edition to our family in June. Meet Wyatt!






July 2009: I changed my hair color from blonde to light brown to dark dark brown...  We went on a week long fishing trip in Englewood with some friends of ours. We had a great time. We stayed in a hotel right on the beach. We fished every day. We slept on the beach more then we did our hotel room- literally. We fished all night and slept very little during the day in our room. Sherry & I had sleeping on the beach down to a science by the end of the week. We knew exactly what to take to be "comfortable" staying on the beach all night. It was alot of fun!

August 2009:  I can't think of anything about August. My Mom's bday is in August- I won't tell you how old she turned, she'll kill me. My dad's bday is in August, my step moms bday is in August, My step dad's bday, and my Grandma Bonnie's bday is in August.. That gets alot of b-days out of the way huh? I really can't think of anything exciting about August.

September 2009:  In September we took Carly on her first fishing extravaganza for Labor Day Weekend! She also got married the next weekend! Exciting month!

October 2009:  This was a big month for me. I signed up, trained for, and completed my first 5k.  I ran in the Community In Pink 5k . My time was 31:07, which i was pretty pleased with considering it was my very first race.

November 2009:  I ran my second 5k. I ran in the Bartow Turkey Chase. It was alot of fun. I PR'd. My finish time was 26:30, and I placed first in my age group!

We also decided to start looking for a house to buy. The time is right for us. We encountered a set back, but we got it all cleared up and we are on the go for a house.







December 2009:  December was a busy month for us. We are still house hunting. We have some stuff in the works. I will update on that later when I have some more permanent information.

I also ran my 3rd 5k in December. I ran in the Santa Sprint 5k. It was a good race. It was cold. The course was in a shopping plaza, not my favorite, nothing to look at, and pretty boring, but all in all it was a good race. I PR'd, 25:40. I placed first in my age group.

I decided that I am going to start training for a 10k & a half-marathon. Happy New Year!

RoadID- I NEED one!

When I worked in the ER- Downtown ORlando- We saw WAY to many people come in with out any ID on them. The one that I most remember was a young 20something year old male (20-22) that was in a motorcycle accident. No helmet. No ID that we were able to find immediatly. As a registration person for the ER/Trauma center we were responsible for looking for Id's when a patient comes in that is unable to talk to us... The only thing the man had was his cell phone...that kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing. He died before we ever found out what his name was. The Chaplain handles phone calls like this... the chaplain answered the man phone and told who was calling that she needed to contact the patients parents and have them call our chaplain.

I NEVER want my family to have to go through that! I was there when the coroner came and wheeled the body bag to the medical examiner. I don't want to die on a table a nameless person.

My point for this blog is that as a runner there are ways we can protect our selves from becoming a nameless body, or a nameless patient in a ER somewhere.

While I mostly run on sidewalks, or a track around the local college i can still get hit by a car. We all know that people do not pay attention when they drive. There is nothing stopping someone from driving up on the sidewalk that I am running on.

I am not a morbid person and I hate talking, or even thinking about death. I refuse to talk about it with Chris. I just can't stand the thought. But let's be real, it's always a possiblity.

RoadID is a perfect way to save ourselves from being a nameless somebody. I am entereing a give-away for a RoadID. If you are a runner/cyclist/walker....etc. You could also enter to win a RoadID.

http://thefitbride.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/roadid-review-and-giveaway/#comment-1008- enter here.

http://roadid.com/Common/default.aspx - learn more about RoadID here.

Katelyn's Black Bean Soup-

I got this recipe from my "Fix it and Forget it Cookbook".

It was a last minute thing. I was going to make something else, but realized I wasn't going to have enough time. So I started flipping through this cook book and found this delish recipe.

Katelyn's Black Bean Soup:

1/3 cup chopped onions
1 garlic clove, minced
1-2 Tbsp. oil
(2) 15.5 oz cans of black beans undrained
(1) chicken bouillon cube
1/2 cup diced, cooked, smoked ham
1/2 cup diced carrots
1 dash, or more cayenne pepper
1-2 drops, o more, Tabasco sauce
sour cream

Instructions:

1. Saute onion and garlic in oil in sauce pan (i didn't have fresh garlic, but I did have minced garlic in the fridge so i just used some of that, it turned out fine)

2. Puree or mash contents of one can of black beans (i put the beans in my food processor and mashed them till they were in liquid form)

3. Combine all ingredients expect sour cream in slow cooker.

4. Cover. Cook on Low 6-8 hrs.

5. Add dollop of sour cream to each individual bowl before serving.

This turned out to be a really easy and yummy soup. I added light red kidney beans (drained) as well to this soup, just one can. Next time I plan on adding some turkey sausage. I think it needed some more meat.

Embracing my scardey-catness.

I went running yesterday when I got off work at 5. I started out at Lake Silver in Winter Haven and then ran down First Street. I ran down first street to Ave K, hung a right on Ave K and ran back up 6th street towards downtown. I ran the trail through downtown back to my car. When I was passing the bus station a guy on a bike started to ride next to me. Normally this would scare me, it was dark, and i was by myself. Instead I embraced the opportunity and started a conversation with the guy. Starting with the weather, and how it was perfect for a run, not to hot, not to cold once you got moving. He said he rides his bike 15-20 miles a day (i'm going to guess that he is homeless, and stays in a shelter at night somewhere). He told me he used to be in the Marines and he used to run but old age got to him- he wasn't really *that* old. It was pretty neat. --- I am not the type of person that will strike up a conversation with someone I do not know. It is an awkward experience, what do you say? The quiet when the conversation runs out is just awkward, it's just not something I do.