Glass Slipper Challenge Weekend

This year, Disney introduced a new race to their Princess race weekend. They created this thing called the Glass Slipper Challenge where you run a 10k on Saturday and then do the half on Sunday. Of course its crazy, but we still signed up. I didn't train at all. I hadn't ran more than 3 miles since August :/ But it was still tons of fun. The night before the race, we went to the expo and to Magic Kingdom for their new light show. 

Picking up our packets

I did actually run the 10k and only stopped for like 3 minutes. This was my slowest 10k but I felt good about it. It was a lot of fun. You ran through Epcot's World Showcase and Disney's Boardwalk. It was a lot less crowded than the half. Next year, I think I'll just run the 10k. You get the magic of Disney without the ridiculessness of waiting 30+ minutes for pictures with characters.  And of course, Blaine didn't run even though we all tried really hard to convince him. Maybe next year :) 

Running towards the finish line 

Woody, Little Bo Peep, Little Green woMan :), Jessie and Buzz

After the race, we ate breakfast at Keke's (so good), took a nap and then went to Animal Kingdom, sore and all. It was pretty rainy and the park was decently empty so we got to do most of the rides and even got a picture with Mickey and Minnie. 

Obviously, we were dead tired the next day. But this year's half wasn't as bad as last years. Last year I "cared" about my time and was anxious to finish and didn't really enjoy the Disney aspect of the race. Knowing what to expect, this year we took our time, took pictures with as many characters as we could and had tons of fun. Also, the weather was a bazillion times better than last year. It was extremely hot. This year there was a breeze, some fog and it was just cool, especially for Florida. 

Before we began - I don't even remember being fully awake for this picture

I wish I would've gotten a better picture of my cape. It was beautiful. My mom did a great job on our costumes. 

This was the cutest photo op but the line was crazy long
- like as long as a Disney ride type of line

storming the castle :) 

We were looking down at the photographer there 

With Woody in Frontier Land

Last year, I really wanted to take this picture but didn't want to wait in line. So glad we did this year. 

At the halfway mark they played "Let it Go" 

This crazy basically forced me to run this thing - love her for it. 

Kim got the most attention for her costume. Kids and adults along the sidelines were shouting things like "I like warm hugs too!" or "Don't melt!" at her the entire time.  

19.3 completed!

It was a lot of fun. I really don't think I'll do the half again. But that's what I said last year. Anyway, it was a great weekend! 

Thanksgiving Point Half

So this was absolutely insane of me to do, but I signed up for a half the day after graduation. I really don't know what I was thinking when I signed up! I was only able to run twice in  April before the half. I was so busy with packing and studying for finals that it was impossible to train. Even then, I was keeping up my pace so I wasn't too scared. But I did no distance training whatsoever. I wanted to finish under 2:20 for sure. But it didn't end up that way at all! 

At the start of the race

My sister also ran this half and even though we didn't plan on running it together, we met up halfway during the race. She was sick the day of and also didn't train much because she was super busy working full-time and studying 30+ hours a week for her CPA exam that she took the day before flying to Utah. Yeah, we're a bunch of crazies. But anyway, I was worried that she was going to have a hard time being sick and dealing with the elevation change, but she did great! The first 6 miles were great for me, I kept at 9:00 minute-mile pace easily minus taking several unexpected bathroom breaks due to an upset stomach (my luck). But once we entered the golf course area, it was hell. The vertical changes were ridiculous. It was all super steep hills from then on. It killed me! But the run was really nice in the sense that it was super peaceful (running through beautiful gardens in gorgeous weather) and it was a relatively small race (nothing compared to the craziness during the Disney princess half). It was quiet and serene. So I'm glad that I did it even though I finished way after what I wanted (2:47 - yah). Anyway, it was better than the princess half so I guess I have a new PR :) Now I just have to beat this one and meet my goal of under 2:20 by the end of this year. My sister finished 1 minute after me so she has a new PR too! And it was really nice to run half of the race together. Also, I really wanted to get a medal from a Utah race before moving. That was my greatest motivation to run!

Almost at the finish line - thank goodness

With our medals

Our biggest supporter

My mom was our only spectator since Blaine stayed at home with his parents to pack the rest of our place (I felt bad leaving them working! :[ ) But I'm really grateful for their help! I couldn't have ran without them packing so much for me! After the race, we had free passes to Tulip Festival so we did that for a little bit before leaving. We were exhausted so we didn't walk all of it (since Damaris and I already saw it during our run) but it was really fun and beautiful!

Lazyman Ironman

Last semester, I failed at completing the Lazyman Ironman...and was so bummed about it. So I was ecstatic when I heard that they would be doing it again this semester. I signed up and had much support from Kailyn who signed up as well. If it weren't for her motivation, I don't know if I would've finished it! The Lazyman Ironman is an event where you complete all the events of an Ironman, but in one month. It may not sound that challenging, but it really is! The hardest thing for me to do was the swimming portion. I was so bad! The biking wasn't too hard. But it was just a lot of miles...and I think biking can be pretty boring at times. But anyway, I'm so glad that I finished since this is probably the only form on an Ironman that I will ever do :)

 

The front and back of the shirt.

 

Sidenote, for those of you who wil be staying at BYU, they host an event called Run for Your Life that is awesome. I was seriously excited when I first heard about it and seriously bummed when I was too late to sign up. Anyway, you have an entire semester to run 150 miles...and the best part is that you can win an intramural shirt! Anyone who has attended BYU knows that those are highly coveted. Being that I am not an athletic girl, I never even dreamed of getting one. I was just proud enough when Blaine won one :) But gosh now that I realized I could've gotten one, I am so disappointed! So to save other people any disappointment, run for your life and get that intramural shirt!

Rex Lee Run

Last weekend, I ran the Rex Lee Run. Its a big tradition at BYU and probably the most popular race at BYU. Its in honor of Rex Lee, one of the presidents of BYU who died of cancer. All of the funds go to BYU's Cancer Research program. So I've been pretty excited to run it. First of all, I signed up for the 10k but was notified that due to construction, there would be no 10k course this year. I was bummed. But oh well. The 5k would be fun either way. As I was getting dressed the morning of, Blaine looks out the window and says "I don't think you'll be running today." There was a TON of snow on the ground and much more was coming down. I called BYU and, sure enough, the race was still on. Blaine tried to convince me not to run, but was unsuccessful. And like a crazy person, I ran it.


What we woke up to

 

Where the race began

This probably was one of my least enjoyable races. As you can imagine, running through snow and running while its snowing, isn't fun. It really took a toll on me. Where there wasn't snow, there was a ton of slush. I felt like I was about to fall the whole time! It was driving me insane. I didn't know running in that kind of condition was possible. The snow coming down on my face was really annoying and I'd occassionally get some in my mouth. My toes were absolutely frozen, which made running really uncomfortable. I've ran in cold weather before, but never in snow. In other cold races, I warm up and wish I hadn't worn my long sleeve running shirt. I never warmed up in this race. I drank a protein shake after, but what I really wanted was a huge mug of hot chocolate! Anyway, I've gotten to average an 9:08 mile for 4 miles. So I was hoping to finish in around 28 minutes. But with the snow factor, I finished in 33:11, which I was happy with considering that I didn't fall like so many people around me did. I was really looking forward to this 5k to beat my PR, but I guess I have a new PR for running in the snow...
 

After the race, my shoes were covered in snow.

After running in the snow, Blaine tells me that he had planned for us to go snowmobiling with Uncle Dave, Aunt Cathy, Devin, Bryce, Sarah, Dayna, Tim and Ryan. You can understand why I wasn't really motivated to go, being that I just froze my behind off for half an hour. But I had never been snowmobiling before, Blaine enjoys it, and I wanted to see the kids. So we bundled up and went. Needless to say, I froze for another 4 hours while we snowmobiled. But it was fun. It isn't my favorite thing to do, but I'm glad we went. Sunday came around and I wasn't so glad that we went anymore. I've been sick ever since! Thankfully, the weather is warming up again. But in Utah, you never know if its going to snow again in April, May or even June.

Due to not wanting to freeze our fingers, this was the only picture we managed to get.

With Sarah and Dayna. And yesm they were almost my size.

What We've Been Up to

A couple of weeks ago, we had dinner with Erik and Whitney at their place. We had a great time and Whitney made an amazing chicken pot pie and fruit salad. We're so grateful for the friendship we have with them. 

We also went to Mainstreet Park City for the first time with Mechaella, Steve, her brother and sister-in-law. We've been to Park City before to snowboard and to go to the outlets, but hadn't  been to Mainstreet. We had pizza, tried Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for the first time (so good...why did we wait this long?) and went to the outlets.

Devin turned 29 and we went to his birthday party. Devin danced, rapped with Randy, did some skits, opened presents and blew out trick candles on his birthday cake. He was one happy guy.

On the day that Chavez died, we went to a new Venezuelan restaurant right by our house with Matt and Nina. We had arepas and empanadas the pabellon. So good! I know it seems horrible to celebrate the death of a person, but this guy was on his way to doing to Venezuela what Castro has done to Cuba. Anyway, we hope that Venezuela can recuperate from the damage that this guy has done.

After much tracking, we finally had dinner (we're all about breakfast for dinner) at the Waffle Love food truck. They change their location everyday, but tracking them down was so worth it. They had the best waffles and cream ever. Their hot chocolate was also out of this world. Blaine got their caramel apple cider and, for a person who hates warm apple cider, I think it was delicious.

We had the privilege of having dinner at one of Blaine's professor's homes. His name is Kim Smith and he's Blaine's Investments Academy teacher. Every year, he has a devotional-type of dinner at his home. The food was yummy and he and his wife talked to us about their experiences in the finance world and establishing a work-life balance. Kim Smith is highly respected on Wallstreet and is probably the reason why the business program at BYU is so prestigious. They talked a lot about the sacrifices one makes at the beginning of their life and how everything that is good requires hard work. It provided me with a lot of peace about our future.

Daylight savings killed us. We were off for days. But we are enjoying the extra hour of sunlight in the evenings.

We've been able to hang out with the Slaughs a couple time in this past month. We had them over for dinner one Sunday and watched Wreck-It-Ralph together (possibly my new favorite Disney movie). We also hung out with them this past weekend. We went to Station 22 for dinner and watched Perks of Being a Wallflower, mainly due to Ryan's liking of Indie films :) Joking. It was a well-made movie and we had a good time watching it with them. Station 22 was as yummy as always, but my soup was way too salty. So I gave it back, which I never do, and I had a cute dessert for free in addition to not being charged for the soup. And the waitress didn't charge Blaine and Ryan for their fancy rootbeers. It was a great night.

Dessert at Station 22 - The jar in the middle was for dunking :)

Luna Sophia Stevenson was born on 3/13/2013 - one day before her due date. I picked up Nina's mom from the airport on Wednesday and as soon as we got into Provo, Matt called saying that Nina was going into labor. The timing of it all was perfect. And so is Luna! She is so cute and has Nina's awesome hair and Asian eyes. She weighed 6 lbs 3 oz and measured 17 inches. She's a healthy baby and Matt and Nina are completely in love. I'm still in denial that they're parents!

On Pi Day, we celebrated by...making a pie. Making pies is one of those things that I'm not really great at and therefore, don't do it a lot. But on Pi Day, I always attempt to make one. Last year's was a disaster, but this year I succeeded! I made a German Chocolate Pie that was so good. It had a layer of coconut, caramel and pecans under the chocolate layer. I might be making this again before Pi Day comes around next year :)

Remember when I signed up for the Lazyman Ironman last semester? Well, I didn't complete it in time and was so bummed about it. Thankfully, BYU decided to have another one this semester. So I signed up and Kailyn did too. We have been encouraging each other and exercising together when we can. One thing that I've discovered while doing this is that I am an absolutely horrible swimmer. It is so hard for me. I feel like I don't control my movements or my air flow really well, and I just get anxious. But it has definitely worked me out and I think that with practice, I'll get better. 2 weeks left and I'll have 2.4 swimming miles, 26.2 running miles, and 112 biking miles completed in 1 month! How people can do all of that in one day is beyond me.

Of course, we've been working, studying (1 more midterm this week and all we have left is finals!), trying to figure out whether we're selling or moving our stuff, collecting boxes, packing, and all that fun stuff. There are only 6 weeks of school left. 6 more weeks of college and then we are DONE.

Princess Half Marathon

So remember that part about attempting to get a good night's rest? Didn't happen... We tried to prepare everything as much as possible for race day. We had dinner the night before at Sweet Tomatoes and carbo-loaded. When the time came to go to bed, Blaine and Bruce were cracking jokes and we all fell into episodes of laughing hysteria. I think we were nervous. Who knows. But after a while, I became anxious because I have so much trouble going to sleep! Anyway, sleep finally came and so did 3:00 AM. Yup. We had to be at the race by 5:00 AM. With our costumes, breakfast, and traffic, we needed as much time as possible to get ready.

We met with Kim and Jonathan in the morning. Gosh I was so nervous. But at least we looked great! My mom did an awesome job with our costumes and Kim did amazing on hers all by herself!

Waiting to start!

With the best sister ever!

We started the race a little before 6 AM. It started at Magic Kingdom and ended in Epcot. This race was a lot of fun. Each mile marker was really pretty and they had Disney characters along the entire course. At one point, I became so excited because I saw a line for Aurora and Prince Philip. Next thing you know, they switched them out for Cinderella and Prince Charming. FAIL. I was so disappointed. Anyway, at times, I tried to run ahead to get a head start on the lines for the pictures. I wish I would've done this since the very beginning. It would've saved us some time. There's always next year. Around mile 8, we saw Blaine, my mom, Bruce, Jonathan, and Kim's parents in the crowd. It was so much fun to have them cheering for us! Definitely pumped me up for the next 5 miles!

A little over halfway

With the villains!

Belle found Gaston!

Damaris definitely had the most photo ops.
Beauty & the Beast characters were everywhere. 

It was crazy packed.

In front of Cinderella's castle.

Almost done! Only a 5k to go...

Crossing the finish line! No princess left behind!

So this was definitely a fun race. It was a great experience. BUT it wasn't like a serious half marathon. Obviously, you can decide to beat your time and do your best, but then what's the point of doing a Disney race and not experiencing the Disney part of it? Since I wasn't going at my usual pace and wasn't running constantly, I wasn't that sore at all the next day. It was also a lot easier to run at a lower elevation. I was so surprised at how much of a difference it makes. Blaine would call me while I was on the course and he said that it sounded like I wasn't even jogging! I sweat a lot when I run. But running in humid weather made me sweat a ton more than usual! Damaris said that I was soaked by mile 3! By the end of the race, it felt like I had dumped a ton of water on my hair. Yuck.

Surprisingly, I was a little disappointed with how crowded it was. The course was pretty narrow and it was so hard to run around people who weren't running. It got pretty annoying, real fast. But the magic of Disney made up for it. RunDisney did do a great job at having water and Powerade stations quite frequently. They also had a ton of medical stations with Biofreeze and Tylenol (which fortunately, we didn't need to use). But I have heard of big races running out of water before. So I was so grateful that they were really organized!

Do I recommend this race? Yes. Do I want to do it again? Probably...yes. For sure yes. Dressing up as a princess and running is always fun. And now that we know how it works a little bit better, we can plan accordingly. This is a great race to run with friends/family. That's what made it the most fun! Also, my costume was surprisingly comfortable. I saw people tossing tutus, tiaras, and sleeves to the side. Not this girl! I was worried about my sleeves the most, but they didn't bother me one bit! I told my mom that she should seriously consider making and selling race costumes on Etsy! I've seen some go for $190!

Damaris was a trooper and took all the pictures with her phone during the race. She had to take it out of her case/holder each time. I didn't have the patience for it. Thank you Damaris! Also, she paid for me to run this half as part of my birthday present. Best present anybody could ask for! Thank you! I look forward to running many more races together!

With the queen!

Glittery shoelaces and crown charms were a must!

Yes, I made him wear that shirt :)

With our princes who put up with all our craziness leading up to the race and
 who slept nothing at all and waited for us to finish forever.

My first medal!

Love these girls!

P.S. That blob on my right arm isn't a bruise or birthmark. It was a princess tattoo that came with our race packets :) 

P.S.S. My sister and I registered for the Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon in April right after graduation. So we will be able to actually run and see what our real time is! I'm so excited! I think running is such a great tradition to have in families. I loved seeing grandmothers run with their daughters and granddaughters in this half. What a legacy of health and fitness! I really hope we can make running a tradition in our families!

P.S.S.S. (Last one I promise) I've decided that I want to run a full marathon by the time I'm 26. Yes. Call me crazy. But it is going to happen. I've grown to love running! It's amazing what you can train your body to do!