All of that being said I started making them “The Smoothie”.  This smoothie I just kind of made up and it has been a great way to get fruits, veggies, and protein into my boys especially before baseball games or Karate practice.  I start with two containers and Greek yogurt.  Some Greek yogurt only have 5 grams of protein so I try to buy only the ones that have over 10 grams.  (Lucerne, Trader Joe’s, Chobani all seem to be a good choice.)  I use blueberry flavored yogurt but you can use vanilla or plain too.

I add 1 whole banana…

And about 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups of Orange juice.  (Apple juice works as well.)

I got these frozen berries at Costco.  I like this mix because I can get my kids to eat strawberries all the time and this mix has some different options for berries.

Then comes my favorite ingredient…fresh Spinach.  I buy the already washed spinach and just grab a BIG handful and just add it to the blender.

After blending it up the kids can’t even taste the spinach.  The finished smoothie doesn’t have a green or funny color to it so they drink it right down.

This makes enough for my three boys to share a cup full each and it is a great snack!

They even know that I put Spinach into it now and they still love it!

Race Time Ready

We passed a winery and they gave us Powerade in plastic wine glasses and we passed a dairy farm and they had samples of milk…(I think)…I wasn’t going to drink that for sure, especially at mile 2.    There were cows on the street routing us on. Most of the first 6 miles was uneventful other than the fact that we were basically running a slight incline the whole way.  At mile 6 we entered the park and…

The Hill...I like to say "Mountain"

Yes, the first of three hills I was told were on this course.

I really had no idea what I was in store for, but I kept telling myself by the end of the song I was listening to I would be at the top.  The ground was a loose gravel and I lost the running battle about 2/3 of the way up…I walked.  It seemed to go up forever.  I was also afraid that we wouldn’t be going directly down the  hill on the other side because I have never run this area before.   At the top of the hill…mountain there were some drummers (and medical…thank goodness they looked bored….always a good sign for the runners.)

The view from the top was awesome…and we did get to run down the other side!

Inside Safari Park

The one-man-band

Passing the outside of the park

We also passed a camel on the hill, but I couldn’t get a good picture.  After the last hill I was in the home stretch and luckily the last mile was pretty much down hill so I was able to basically sprint the end.  At the finish line, as we waited there was some pretty good people watching…

Guy with a video camera on his head

After the race over looking the mountain we conquered

You can see the dirt road we ran in the upper right hand corner

Bling

Another race in the books…

1:56:06

I got to run this race with Maureen and Jeanette so it was great to have another friend to run with.

The parking lot was decorated with so much fun stuff that getting back was easy.

The best part of the race of course was at the finish line there is….YES… chocolate!

A Marshmellow tree and cookie jars filled with Chocolate.

Chocolate fondue pouring our melted chocolate

A plate of food to dip in your chocolate

At the finish line

25:45 Finish time!

Carlsbad 5000 here I come!

We had so much food which was awesome and I think I ate my share for sure.  We played drinking games and had money riding on that square game with the number?! 

I am happy I actually got to sit for about 12 minutes and watch Madonna perform, which was ok for me, but I just don’t understand why they don’t just play the tried and true best songs.  I think I watched a total of 0 minutes of football and let’s see 0 minutes of commercials, but overall I had a ton of fun just hanging out with the kids and chatting with the girls!

 At the end of the race they handed out the medals and T-shirts so that you didn’t have to be bothered with that before the race.  We hit no traffic and parking was easy.  It is a great feeling to have run 6.2 miles the morning of the SuperBowl and then able to eat and drink away the afternoon.

This race was along the coast and the town of Cardiff.

It was so fun to just see the regulars at their morning coffee spots drinking coffee, eating pastries and watching all the hustle and bustle around them.  There were many people in costume, which just added to the fun race it was. 

Girls with Flamingo hats

Angry birds

Morph Suits on Unicycles

Even people in wigs

It was an out and back race so on the way back I loved being able to people watch as costumes were cruising by.

The only back part of a costume is that some people take it too the extreme, and unluckily for me this man ended up being about the same pace as me meaning that I followed him for about 3/4 of the race!

It was funny because another racer that I was keeping pace with is this gal in the Hawaiian outfit.

I followed her almost the entire way until the last mile and she took off in front of me.  After the race was over I saw her again and was surprised that she was older than I thought.  I looked up her time and number afterward and found out that she is 57 years old!  Seriously, she kicked my butt! (Note to self:  speed work this week!)

Overall a great race and a PR 50:58 Pace 8:13

I had a plan on where I was going to run but when I got to my parents house they gave me a better route and I had a great run.  The only bad part about the run was that there was a lot of concrete and I really try to run the track or streets just to save my legs!  I was able to run on the grass and street part of the way so that helped a lot!  One of my favorite parts of the run was the convention center stairs.  Yes, I loved it so much that after running the stairs in the front of the convention center, I ran the ones in the back too!

Running downtown is just beautiful.

The weather could not have been any better for running and I just loved looking out over the water to see the Coronado Bridge!

I ran all the way down to the midway and I am always surprised at how big it is when you are actually standing underneath it.  From the street it just isn’t so intimidating.

I rounded the corner and realized that I was near a statue that was placed downtown in 2007. (I can’t believe I haven’t been down to see it before now.) It was  really only supposed to stay for a short time but as remained there until now.  It is 25 feet tall and neat to be able to walk right up to it.

As I was appoaching the 4th mile of my journey I came across a man sitting on a park bench playing his saxaphone.  He looked at he didn’t have a care in the world and was just lost in his music. 

Although I love running the hills near my house.  I also loved running in downtown.

4.23 miles

40 minutes 9:30 pace

Last night we decided to go a little crazy and venture off into North Park for a new restaurant in a different part of town. 

West Coast Tavern

At first I was a little skeptical only because I like the restaurants around here and they are close to home and easy, but taking the 7.36 mile trek out a bit further was really fun.  I decided that I wanted to document our evening by taking a few casual pictures, but immediately everyone was making fun of me and getting mad at the obnoxious flash on my phone…but who care right?  I have some fun pictures to share now!

We had some drinks…

Beer for the boys...of course

and wine for the girls...

The food was well good, but a little different too…We kind of got a bunch of different things to share just to get a taste of everything…

Bacon and Bleu Cheese Flatbread and Wings

Mac'n Cheese with chicken and shallots?!

We also had Angus Beef Sliders, which were my favorite part of the dinner and artichoke and spinach dip that tasted more like a cream cheese with artichoke oil in it that was not good at all.  They even made me try a mussel…yuck!

Overall we had a really fun time!

Just the Girls

Family dinner is also a difficult task because Tuesdays and Thursdays we have karate until 5, which means we don’t get home until 5:30.  And by the time I get anything out for dinner, it is past 6 and the kids are cranky and ready to just be done for the evening.  The other problem with family dinner is that my kids eat nothing…no really nothing!  Their meals literally consists of mac n’ cheese, hots dogs (Druw eats ketchup on a bun) pizza, pasta, and chicken nuggets…that’s it! 

Tonight was a family dinner.  We had green mac n cheese…PESTO.  It is all in the name though.  If I had said we were eating pesto guaranteed no one would have even come to the bar.  Yes, we ate at the bar.  Now that Cole is sitting in a booster seat at the bar Barret and I both have to stand at dinner.  Not ideal but then again a family dinner is necessary sometimes.  After we were all together the crying, fighting, “I don’t want anymores,” ”the how much more do I have to eats” come out,  “Cole is poking me with a fork”,  “Can I finish watching my show”  well you get the picture…a lovely dinner time hour.  Then we decide to go around and tell each other about our days.  Druw always has to be the director of this.  He always determines the order we can talk it and who can talk and when that person has said enough.  There is arguing and fighting, tears and laughter, very little eating, a few inappropriate noises…all in all even though it is a little painful and long to have a family dinner I love them when we have them!

The end of a family dinner!

Well the weekend started a bit slow.  I really wanted to get up to Anaheim midday and have time to look at the expo and not be too stressed…well didn’t didn’t exactly happen.  Jake’s baseball try-outs that had been rained out the week before so of course that throws off everything for me.  Barret took Jake to the field at 9:30AM and I stayed home to catch up on cleaning, laundry and packing just so that the second the try outs were over we could be on our way to the race.  (And I had to figure out the perfect outfit for the race). 

What do you think of this?

Well that being said I didn’t pick them you until after 12 noon so we actually didn’t even get an the road until 12:30…

But 12:30 hit and I was trying to keep my stress to a minimum and we were off for a night with no kiddos and a fun race.  All in all the timing actually could not have worked out better.  (I just need to not sweat the small stuff).  We got to the expo at around 3:00 and it seemed to not be quite as busy as I had anticipated.  I was able to get my goodie bag, which wasn’t much of a goodie bag.  It was a shirt with some pins in it.

TinkerBell Shirt

Barret was great and walked around to every booth with me and didn’t even complain too much.  This expo wasn’t as good as the Disneyland 1/2 but still we got some free yogurt and a bunch of samples of protein/carb bars.  We didn’t wait in line for any of the wheels, which was fine with me because I usually just win some dumb pen that doesn’t even work.  I did end up buying a timer from the Jeff Galloway booth and a new glowing ring from another booth.  ( The one I wore for Las Vegas was blue and I had to represent Tinkerbell so I needed a green one.)

Green Glow Ring

New Timer

Before leaving the Expo I ran into an old friend from high school who was running her first half marathon.  She was there with her two sisters and mom so they were making a girls weekend of it.  Then I went to the Grand California Hotel and said hello to my cousin, who just happened to be visiting Disneyland for a family vacation.    As we approached the dinner hour Barret and I decided to hit the ESPN Zone for a drink and some dinner.

The official start time for the race was 5:45AM so an early night for us and a 4:00AM wake call. 

5:45AM...ugh

 Maureen and I decided to try out the Jeff Galloway method of run walk run and actually did it at 4 minutes running and then 1 minute walking.   I am not sold on the method and I think I need to practice it a little more, but I was glad to try it and maybe try it again on a few of the shorter races.  After taking off from the start line the first 4 miles move very slow because you are in and out of the park dodging people and it was super dark, so I kind of felt like I was playing catch up for the the last 2/3 of the race to make up time.  I was very excited to see Barret along the way at mile 11.   He gave me the last push I need to make it to the end.

Do my feet really go out like that?!

Thanks for coming out, Honey!

..over all my splits looked like this…

Me and Maureen at the finish line

Finishers Medal

And the weekend would not be complete without lunch in Laguna Beach and a Bloody Mary…

After race...

Jeff Galloway is one of these people who can just fire you up about running.  He is so passionate and it almost feels like he wants you, individually,  to run well and without injury.   His whole philosophy is a run-walk-run strategy.  At first I was not buying it.  I really love to run and telling me that I will run faster if I walk part really didn’t make sense to me.   He started the talk with just the basics of his program and where he came from.  (He was an Olympic runner, so he must know something about running, and running fast?!)  Then after only about 10 or 15 minutes he just took questions from the audience.  Luckily it was a smallish group of us and the questions that were presented were all pretty relevant to everyone, with the except of a couple people asking very specific questions about themselves.

A couple of weeks ago Maureen and I decided to kind of try out his method before we actually went to hear him talk.  So we ran 10 miles and stopped and walked every 10 minutes to walk for 1 minute.  For Maureen we actually ran the 10 miles in the fastest amount of time she has ever run it.  And we ran it and really didn’t feel quite as tired as usual…interesting?! 

Ok, so back to the method.  Jeff says that if you want to keep a 9 minute pace you should use a 4 to 1 ratio…run 4 minutes and then walk just 1 minute.  By doing this you are keeping your muscles fresh each time you start again after the 1 minute walk break.  It should make you feel less tired and able to finish the last 1/3 of the race without stopping and finish fast!  Ok so I am still a bit skeptical, but I really think it will be interesting to try out.

My main goal for Tinkerbell and every race is also to finish, but along with that I really would love to run in under 2 hours.  Las Vegas was 2:01 so TinkerBell watch out…hope I can do it!