Wedding Update!

The countdown is also on until the BIG wedding day! Only 172 more days until I'm a married woman.  Wow, that seems so soon.  Thankfully I've been using Wedding Wire to keep me on track as far as what needs to be done in what order.  (You can also check out our wedding website HERE).  

Thankfully my honey is super talented in PhotoShop, so we designed our own Save the Date cards (pictured below):  Most of the inspiration for the photos came from PINTEREST!, but the idea to do the back side as a racing bib was totally mine!  Can you believe it?  They turned out much better than I anticipated and since we did all the labor ourselves we saved some $$$ too!

Front

Back

Photo credit for the Save the Dates goes to the talented Mrs. Rebecca Dodson.  You can see her website HERE , but sadly (for us, not her) she has moved to Nashville, Tennessee (and is expecting her first BABY!!!!).  She has done several photo shoots for us in the past, and is AWESOME.  Here is a link to our engagement shoot and Rebecca was also able to capture our engagement on film.

Here are some of the other vendors that we have chosen:

Accommodations - Brooksville Holiday Inn Express.  You can find their website HERE

Photography - Ms. Harmony Blackwell.  When it came to booking a photographer for the wedding, we were a little lost.  (As we are on a lot of wedding things).  Luckily, Ben went to college with fellow architect, Harmony Blackwell who has recently gotten in to photography.  Check out her website HERE!  We are very excited that Harmony has agreed to take part in our day

Flowers - Ms. Pamela Verschuere.  Pam is admittedly bad at internet and e-mail, but her telephone number is 813-505-6043.  Pam actually did the flowers for my sister's wedding in 2005.  She is very knowledgeable about flowers (which helps because I'm totally ignorant in regards to flowers) and very competitive with her pricing.

Catering - Luis Rovira of L & L Events.  You can contact Luis via his website.  Luis is super flexible and very nice.

Wedding Dress - Patricia's Boutique.  If you grew up in or around Pasco or Hernando counties, they you know Patricia.  I actually got my Senior prom dress at Patricia's.  They were really friendly, and I'm totally in love with my dress (which will remain a secret to most until April 13th).  The only downside of Patricia's is that they are really heavy in to pageants and suggested that I get my alterations done on my dress in November.  For an April wedding.  Dislike. So, if you know of a good seamstress in the area, please let me know!

And that's pretty much all we have done so far.  I've also been using my Bridal Bargins books (that I bought on Amazon to save money, but you can also find it HERE!)  The book has some really good ideas that I would have never thought of.  That's pretty much where are are at, it seems like a lot of work but it's pretty fun and exciting to research and learn more about weddings.

It's on, again

Marathon Training, that is!

I'm currently starting Week #6 for the Disney World Marathon. This time around I am going to try the Hansons Plan.  The longest run is 16 miles, but there is a 8 or 10 miler the day before. The schedules are based on the philosophy that no one workout is more important than another, not putting too much emphasis on one workout, and not doing 40% of your weekly mileage on one day.  Simply, teaching you to run/race on tired legs.

You can find a Runner's World article on the Hanson's Plan HERE. I actually read this article back in January 2011 when it was published and I photocopied it and but it on my fridge. The bottom line, there are many training philosophies that runners and coaches recommend for the marathon (and other distances). My goal is to find the right one that works for me.  I felt as if my training for Space Coast went really well, but race day was the pits.

I feel as though the training has been going really well so far.  Here is a glimpse of what I've been up to, the actual totals are in parentheses:

Week #1:

Monday: off (1.35 in Jenny's bootcamp)

Tuesday: off (5)

Wednesday: off (5)

Thursday: 3 miles (off)

Friday: off (5)

Saturday: 3 miles (6)

Sunday: off (0) 

Total: 6 (actual total 22.35)

Week #2:

Monday: off (4)

Tuesday: 2 (3.5)

Wednesday: off (3)

Thursday: 3 (4)

Friday: 3 (2)

Saturday 3 (3)

Sunday 4 (4)

Total: 15 (actual total 23.5)

Week #3:

Monday: off (0)

Tuesday: 4 (4)

Wednesday: off (0)

Thursday: 4 (4)

Friday: 4 (4)

Saturday: 4 (5)

Sunday off  (7.5) 

Suggested total: 20 (actual total 24.5)

Week #4:

Monday: off (0)

Tuesday: 5 (5)

Wednesday: off (0)

Thursday: 3 (6)

Friday: 3 (4)

Saturday 5 (6.3)

Sunday 5 (12)

Suggested total: 21 (actual total 33.3)

Week #5:

Monday: off (0)

Tuesday: 5 (5)

Wednesday: off (0)

Thursday: 4 (6)

Friday: 5 (5)

Saturday: 4 (8)

Sunday: 5 (10)

Suggested total: 23 (actual total 34)

There are a few things that I have learned so far.  Number one, doing yoga on my off days feel amazing on my legs!  Number two, my compression sleeves are my new BFF!  Number three, I can pretty much kiss any other physical activities good-bye for the remainder of this training plan.

There are also quite a few races coming up on my race calendar:

Sunday, October 21st: PHCC 5k (one of my favorite races because it benefit's the PHCC's Women's Cross Country team that I just have to be the advisor for)

Saturday, October 27th: Bride of Frankenfooter 5k

Sunday, October 28th: Frankenfooter Half Marathon (combined to be the Living Dead Challenge) (No idea why I signed up for this, but it should be fun?)

Friday, November 2nd: Richard's Run for Life (Always a favorite, the BEST post-race party in Tampa!)

Sunday, November 4th: Wildhorse Half Marathon (Very first trail half marathon - yikes!

In other running-related news since my last post...I ran the First Annual Cheval Cares 5k and somehow landed up in the Top Ten females: (with Kat, Melissa, Tracey, and Jena who were all much faster!)

Saw my very first water moccasin on the trails.  And it just so happened to be a part of a whole water moccasin family.  

Ben and I traveled to Utah for the very first time and had a blast.  Ben totally rocked his Xterra National Companionship trail half marathon, the people were super nice, and the scenery was breath-taking (this picture is from Snowbasin above the valley).