This past weekend I was in Denver for a college reunion. In college, me and my 3 BFFs called ourselves the Core Four. We haven't seen each other in years all together so we decided to plan a trip somewhere and chose Denver as Karen just moved there in July. 

Myself, Erin and Allie flew in and landed Thursday night in Denver. We somehow all found flights landing within 15 min of each other. We waited for my luggage then went off to get our rental car for the weekend. 
TIP: Denver's airport is far from downtown and in the middle of nowhere. It will take you almost an hour from the time you get off the plane, take the train to baggage claim, take the shuttle to the rental car place, get your car and get on the main highway. 

We used Enterprise and it was so simple. We had a kiosk and everything was done electronically. It was the easiest and most painless rental car pickup I've ever had and everyone was so polite. We even got to pick our car: a red Kio soul. We headed to Karen's and spent an hour or so catching up before heading to bed. 

As you may know, I'm not the biggest outdoorsy person and have been skiing only once and almost broke my leg doing it. But I'm always looking for new experiences and figured snow shoeing would be a good one. We had a guy tell us we wouldn't need our snow shoes-glad we didn't listen to him because we definitely did! We saw people all around us in regular shoes (even a dude in Sandals!!) sinking into the snow everywhere. 

The views were spectacular and I've never seen a frozen lake before. It was also a good workout with the heavy boots on our feet and also the elevation. We started at about 9450 feet and went up to 9950 feet (it's crazy to think that 50 more feet and we would be at the height of when you are on an airplane you can turn on portable electronic devices) and even though it was just 509 feet we started off with no precipitation and in the middle had a gorgeous snowfall and at the end before we came back down were in a snowstorm! 

I would highly recommend snow shoeing as it was active but not too strenuous. 

Have you ever gone snow shoeing before? 

Hi all! Linkup Friday!! Thanks to our amazing hostesses: the DC Trifecta Bloggers (Courtney from Eat Pray Run DC, Mar from Mar on the Run, and Cynthia from You Signed Up For What?!). 

I love to travel but there are a few places I have always wanted to go and here they are!

1. Paris
Oh France-I have always wanted to go and it looks like it is in the cards for Sept 2016! yay rundisney Paris Half! 

2. Italy
I took Italian in college for 2 years but never went to visit. We are planning to fix that on our trip to Paris with a side trip to Rome.

3. Maldives
It just looks so gorgeous! Huts on the water? YES I AM SO IN!

4. A true beach vacation
I have never taken a vacation where you are a beach bum and I would love to do it either in the Caribbean or Mexico. We may be going to Mexico in Summer 2016 so that may happen sooner rather than later

5. A cruise
I have never taken a cruise! I think I would love the food and the drinks and the shore excursions. 

So how about you? Where would you like to travel to? 

Another Tuesday on the Run hosted by: April from Run the Great Wide Somewhere, Erika from MCM Mama Runs, and Patty from No-Guilt Life. This week's topic is Reviewing the Year in Pictures. 

It's that time of year again, to review the greatness of the year! Instead of having a very long post like last year, I will put the slideshows on the bottom of here and divide them into 4 slideshows-2-3 months long each so one will not be too long. 

Top things:

• Traveled to WDW 3 times
  
• ran my first full marathon!
  
• ran 7 rundisney races for 11 medals
  
• got a sub-3 5k, sub 1:00 10k and sub 2:15 half marathon
  
• traveled twice for work (Fort Worth and Denver)
  
• got my appendix out
  
• started a new job
• started a doctoral program 

WINE AND DINE HALF RECAP
HOW TO MAKE A BACCHUS COSTUME



The wine and dine Expo was at the usual place-ESPN Wide World of Sports. I have only been there for the Princess Expo and even just waiting for the bus, it was easy to tell that it was a much smaller Expo.

We caught the bus from All-Star Music and were the only people on it. We picked up a few more at All-Star movies and off we went. It only took about 10 minutes to get there. The bus drop off was much closer than at Princess and we were picking up our bibs in no time.

Bib pickup was uneventful except for the fact I was not listed as Coast to Coast! I had to go to Runner Relations. They were so kind and got me squared away quickly. The guy thought it might be because I already have the pink coast to coast that things may have gotten mixed up.

All I wanted was a wine glass and some ears-well the Expo was very expensive this year!! The wine glass was 18 and the ears were 24. I had already bought a wine glass from the Food and wine festival for 50% off so I decided to not get another one and also to get the ears 50% off as well! I ended up buying a wine and dine headband for 14.95 (way too expensive). I also wanted a coast to coast shirt but they never had my size (Women’s size small). I definitely want a coast to coast shirt as this is the year that I have run 5 rundisney races and I am not sure I will do that again so it looks like I will try again at Avengers and if I can’t get one there, I will order it off online and just not get my AP discount.

The expo itself was pretty uneventful. I was sad they did not have a Clif booth as I wanted my friend who was running his first race, to try out the different flavors of Clif Shots that will be on the course. Even the New Balance booth looked calm!

We also were able to get right back on another bus to go back to our hotel. Only 5 people on it.

Overall, the expo was speedy and nice. It had some good photo opps and was not too crowded.


To learn more about the actual race, read my recap here. CLIFFNOTES:  crazy rain!! 

Did you go to the wine and dine expo? What do you usually do at Race Expos?

Hi all!
Crazy week and it is finally Friday! I am trying to get in a run this morning as well as a run tomorrow and work and homework and everything else. I am trying to just stay calm!

Anyways, onto my 5 favorite Fall activities! 
1. Running
I have a lot of races coming up in the Fall and I love to run while it is still cool in the morning!

2. Pumpkins
I love decorations and I love carving pumpkins! Last year I made a Jack Skellington one and I want to make one again this year. I will probably wait and do that closer to Halloween.

3. Holiday drinks!
As you know, I love my PSL (Pumpkin Spice Lattes) but I also looking forward to peppermint lattes around Christmas, the christmas starbucks cups and the greatest of them all: christmas tree gin and mulled wine!! 

4. TV shows!
I am sitting here watching Scandal as one of the first shows I am catching up on from this week of premieres. I enjoy watching television shows when I come home to wind down and I am excited start watching some new shows. Everything I have seen so far has been so good-can't wait until next week!

5. Football!

Denver was awesome and I had a great time at the Conference. I will write more about the food (such a good gluten free city!!) later as well as my presentations but I wanted to go over the fun things I did.

State capitol-I love Capitols so I knew I had to go to this one. I went and took a selfie on the 13th step as it is exactly 5,280 (1 mile) above Sea Level. Another cool thing-you can enter the capitol and tour it for free! It was so gorgeous inside and I would have loved to take an organized tour but did not have time.

Molly brown’s house-I have always liked Molly Brown so I was excited to go to her house. Karen and I toured it and it was SO AWESOME. Molly Brown was a great activist and her home was gorgeous. Highly recommend it to everyone.

Red rock amphitheater- I love watching Extreme Weight Loss with Chris and Heidi Powell and they always take the contestants there and it looks so gorgeous and it was! We did a nice hike around the red rocks and then went to the amphitheater which is just mindblowing. Also mindblowing, watching all of the people work out and do crazy things. We were both winded from doing the stairs up so I can’t imagine doing a full workout there.

16th street mall- so many great restaurants and bars. I was surprised that many places closed around 10PM, which was much different than Nashville last year. I would recommend doing some Yelp reviews as there are a lot of chains but all of the food I had was great. Also, so interesting because much of the food was cheap and good. Also, almost every place sold alcohol-a very chill vibe in a chill city.

Coors Field- I remember when the Rockies were expanded and I love going to baseball stadiums. I was very impressed with this one! We were seated right below the Rooftop which was essentially chill areas and many bars. We all had a great time. Afterwards, we went to Howl at the Moon and partied the night away!

Traveling to Denver? Here are some tips I wish I had known before going there

Tips:

• Airport is far-Just so you know, it is about 45-60 minutes WITHOUT TRAFFIC to get to Downtown. I am so glad I knew that as it helped booking my flights. 
• Drink water-I have never been so dehydrated in my life. I was chugging water and I always felt dehydrated. I thought I was dehydrated after running, nope
• Altitude issues-dehydration, trouble sleeping, hard to breathe-yup, I had all of them. I thought all the hype about altitude was bs, I was sorely wrong. 
• Working out is difficult-I was so excited for a 57 degree run until I got outside and could barely breathe. Training in altitude is hard so make sure to be aware of that and cut yourself a break. 
• Alcohol will hit you differently-I was a bit concerned as I feeling the effects after 2 glasses of wine, which is not normal for me. You know how when you drink on a plane, it hits you faster-yup, same thing. Just keep that in mind. 
• Compression clothes are your friend-I always wear them on planes and I wore them every night to bed. It helped a lot with any swelling. 
• Green chile-it seems to be there signature food. Try it often as every type of green chile I had was very different. 
  

That is it for now? Have you ever visited Denver before? 

So sorry I did not recap this last week but here we go for this week!


EAT WELL
9/1/2014: so much food! I will be writing reviews of a few restaurants in Denver but thought it would be a good idea to write about what I ate each day.
MON: leftover food for all meals (got rid of a lot of leftovers)
TUES: egg scramble, coffee on the plane, blueberries and grapefruit on the plane, great soup and salad, enchiladas and beans and rice and margaritas
WEDS: Einstein bagels (I got to use my free bday coupon!), another great soup and salad, bison burger
THURS: fruit and a pastry (boo no gluten free pastry), chicken, broccolini, and salad, frito pie and green chili
FRI: fruit, stuffed bell pepper, amazing burger and fries at the rocky game
SAT: not much :/ I was very hungover but eventually got Sierra Mist and a burrito bowl and felt much better
SUN: eggs, coffee and an apple, a great sandwich and chips, yogurt and my leftover burrito bowl


9/8/2014: Having food when I got back was great but I also had to do some crazy grocery shopping!
I was able to get a crock pot meal done (which also was my lunch for most days) and get good groceries. I feel like I am finally back in my normal routine. I ate a lot of snack food (Disneyland bbq and snacks, burgers at the game party, nachos and pizza at the pool party) so my stomach has been a bit wonky but I feel I have handled it well since then. 

THIS WEEK: Stay on track. There is food in the crockpot already at home for dinner. I am going to try not to go grocery shopping this week so I can hit up the farmer's market on Thursday as well as use more food from my pantry. My secondary goal this week is to organize my pantry a bit better. I started throwing things out there were old so I am hoping to finish it all by the end of the week. 

SLEEP WELL

9/1: WOW-I really burnt the candles at both ends. I will write more about Denver and all I did (and how I felt) soon but I was really lacking sleep. Most nights I slept 6-7 hours from going out so late at night. However, I would not trade it for anything, as I loved how much fun I had. 
9/8: just HORRIBLE! ugh. between my busy schedule and the heat, I never made it over 7 hours of sleep. I am hoping that this week will be better but the heat is staying around until at least Thursday :( I think I have worked out a schedule for my life so let's hope that it works this week! 

THIS WEEK: going to really work on trying to get as close to 8 hours as possible. I will need to get in bed early since it is so hot, I waste so much time tossing and turning. Last night was the first night I woke up not exhausted in about 2 weeks. let's hope it can continue! 

EXERCISE WELL

9/1:
MON: Rest Day!
TUES: walking around Denver
WEDS: 2.5 miles (10:48 pace) ALTITUDE IS NO JOKE
THURS: rest day but walked around Denver
FRI: rest day again but walked around Denver and went out dancing
SAT: rest day for real but I still hit my 5+ miles walking around
SUN: Hiking at red rock ampitheatre and more walking. I hit 13,000 steps!


9/8: 
MON: Rest Day! so tired from traveling
TUES: 2.2 miles. still exhausted
WEDS: PiYo Strength Intervals
THURS: none :( my house was a disaster so I decided to clean instead
FRI:  walking around Disneyland for the start of Halloween! 12.14 miles
SAT: PiYo Upper Body
SUN: tried for 10, but ended up doing 5.3 miles. it was just too hot! 

THIS WEEK:
MON: PiYo Core
TUES: 3 miles
WEDS: PiYo Drench
THURS: 3 miles
FRI:  PiYo Buns
SAT: Rest Day
SUN: Dodger 5k-so excited for this race! I will write more about it later in the week

BE WELL

LAST WEEK:
The conference was awesome. I promise I will blog about my presentations soon. I had a great time in Denver and can’t wait to go back!

9/8: so much with everything but the highlight was my weekend. DL on Friday, game watching party on sautrday and pool party on Sunday. it was great to see so many friends and I had such a good time. sadly, that means my paper did not get finished! I will finish it today though

THIS WEEK:
I need to really work on getting a schedule down for work, school, blog, etc. I have an idea this week so let's see if I can execute it! 
I am looking forward to the Katy Perry concert on Friday!! 
Dodger5k on Sunday

So for you, how was your week?

Hi all!

I'm writing this from Denver! Full recap will come after I'm home (including some great gluten free food reviews!) but I wanted to just give a few hints of how to stay healthy while traveling for work.

PACK FOOD FOR PLANE

I always pack food to eat on the plane so I won't be hungry and won't have to spend a ton of money in the airport.

This time for breakfast I packed a grapefruit, blueberries, kiwi and half a pbj sandwich (I had eggs at home before I left). This food held me over until I got to the hotel and had lunch (which wasn't until 1PM).

PACK FOOD FOR SNACKS

you never know what you'll find and it's better to be safe than sorry.

This trip I packed:

Chia seeds (hoping they have yogurt!)

Apples

Bananas

Clif bars

Fruit leather

This way I'm not tempted to go and spend money on silly things.

RESEARCH THE HOTEL

Does it have a gym? Is it close to a park? Is it walking distance to tourist stuff?

It's important to know what's around so you can get your workouts in whether in a gym or park or walking around. Gotta keep the fitness up!

RESEARCH THE AREA

are there restaurants around? Are they chains? do they have healthy options?

My goal for this trip is to have at least part of a salad for lunch and then splurge a bit on lunch. I also want to limit my gluten, which can be hard to do while traveling, so wish me luck.

What are some tips you have for when you travel?

30 days to go and Final Race Instructions are a go!! Click on the PDF to access them.

Don't forget the goodie bag too!

Here is my last post on the times and locations of all events as well as course maps.

The main thing is WAIVERS. You will want to print your waiver before getting to the Expo-it will save you time.

More importantly, on your waiver is your bib number and you can then look up your corrals!

This year the corrals go up to J for the half.

Few notes:

They don't seem to post 10k corrals which is a bummer. I want to know if they will do the split corral like they did for Glass Slipper Challenge where I was B for the 10k but G for the half or last DDD were I was D both times. Only time will tell!

There is 5 min difference between the first few corrals and then 45 MINUTES between G and H. Does that seem weird to anyone else?

This year my bib is number 22959 which puts me in corral G.

I am happy with this. With my PR time I submitted, I was sub 2:30 (I think disney has me at 2:17 finishing time) for the first time in a Disney race.

Last year my finishing time was around 2:35 so I have moved up.

So let's compare:

Last year-corral D bib number 22646 (sub 2:45)

This year-corral G and a 22959 bib number (sub 2:30)

I know last year Corral D was the super big corral so it looks like that will be H this year.

According to bib numbers, there will be about:

2900 people in my corral (WOW!)

6300 people starting in front of me

10,400 starting behind me

However with a corral that large, we will plan on getting in our corrals early so we won't be too crowded. Hopefully we will get some good pics!!

What corral are you in? Any other thoughts on final instructions?

I always bring food with me when I travel. It is healthier and also cheaper! 

Vegas from my house is about 4 hour drive. There is so much to see and do in Las Vegas and it is also expensive, especially when it comes to alcohol and food. 

A great way to save money and eat a bit healthier when in Vegas, is to bring some food with you. 

Here is all of the things I brought with us to Vegas and all cost less than 100 dollars total:

ALCOHOL/DRINKS

• cups-4.99
• club soda-99 cents (no carbs, no calories)
• 2 cranberry juices-2.50
• 6 powerades-69 cents (gotta recover!)
• 4 cokes-diet coke, coke, cherry coke-1.25 each
• red bull-2.50 each
• abolsut vodka-8.99 each
• jack daniels- 9.99
• 2.5 gallons of water-2.50 

SNACKS

• Lays chips-2.66
• salsa-2.50
• tortilla chips-2.20
• cookies-2.99
• pea crisps-1.36
  
  BREAKFAST
• bananas-59 cents/lb
• grapefruit-55 cents each
• apples- 99 cents
  
  Yes, the snacks arent too healthy but we are on a mini-vacation and it is much cheaper than eating at restaurants the whole time! Also, we save a lot of money when we go out as well.
  
  What do you bring with you on vacation?