Florida running

It has been a little while since I posted anything, but I have a really good excuse. Besides the (always hectic) holidays, my husband and I just returned from a well-earned and well-enjoyed vacation in sunny Florida. We stayed at a house my in-laws are renting, and although it was a wonderful place it did not have internet access. The local library had internet but specifically stated that they did NOT have outlets for laptop plug in, so my battery life was spent simply trying to keep up on e-mails. You never realize how "popular" you are until you can only check e-mail once every couple of days. My current record was 63 e-mails at a check, not counting the inevitable spam. And of course my husband wanted to check his as well. A 5 year old laptop leaves a bit to be desired in the battery life under those conditions...

Let me tell you, 10 days sounds like a long vacation until you are there, then suddenly the days fly by! But it was nice to run in a place that wasn't covered in ice and snow, if only for a little while. The rental was in a gated retirement community in Fort Myers, so other than avoiding the occasional golf cart it was a safe and well maintained place to run. I loved being able to see all the birds and palm trees while running, really gave me a pick-me-up. It was easy to get in my proper distance runs because it was almost 4 miles exactly if I did a loop around the community from the house. So when I did go for a run it was the right length. Biggest problem was the inevitable "non-running" days when we had other activities planned. We only planned a few things, but they were intense and I needed time to recover.

We spent our 4-year wedding anniversary at Walt Disney World, which was great! I've never been there and since we only had 2 days we did the "do and die" rush tour of the Magic Kingdom on day 1 and Epcot on day 2. 8 am to 9 pm walking 2 days in a row leaves a mark! We did get to see almost everything that we wanted, though, so that was good. I determined that I could have easily spent another 2 or 3 days at Epcot and still been enjoying myself (assuming they provided some sort of ground transportation between attractions, my feet would have rebelled). So when we got back we spent an entire day just lounging. I did got for an 8-mile run that weekend, though. We also did a full-day tour of the Everglades, which is a place I've always wanted to see. We hiked through the Cypress swamps, boated around the mangrove islands in the gulf, toured the sawgrass lake edges, and drove through Alligator Alley. I got to see lots of different birds, alligators, and learned a lot of interesting tidbits about Florida and the Everglades ecosystems. This was another place I could easily have spent days, but unfortunately we eventually had to return to (not so warm and sunny) Wisconsin.

I've only got 42 days before the Mardi Gras Half-Marathon at this point, and training is going great. I can easily run 7-8 miles (doing Coach Art's 8-minute run, 2-minute walk training method) and am on pace to do my event in approximately 2 hours 40 minutes. I have to send a bit Thank You out to the Anytime Fitness here in Monona (http://www.anytimefitness.com/en-us/clubs/689/Monona-WI-health-club) and Manager Jess for helping me stay on track during the Winter Break from school. I contacted them to ask if I could pay some sort of per-diem to come in and run on their treadmills when the weather was too cold for outdoor running, explained that I was training for an event with Team in Training, and they quickly said that I could come in and use their equipment for free! Jess said that they love to support people for things like that. There were several days when I would not have gotten a run in had it not been for their generosity. And it's a really nice little fitness club, great equipment (each treadmill had its own TV, which let me also catch up on my CSI while running) and easy for me to get to as it was only a half-mile from my house. I'm sure my training would have fallen behind schedule if not for them.

They've posted the official route for Mardi Gras and it looks like I'll get a nice tour of New Orleans (http://mardi-gras.competitor.com/course-map/). It starts at the Mardi Gras World Expo, then heads down St. Charles Street and the Garden District, into the French Quarter past St. Louis Cathedral, and then ends (for the half-marathon) just inside of City Park. They haven't posted any elevation (aka hill) information yet, but people tell me that New Orleans is fairly flat so hopefully there won't be any major climbs. Temperatures are supposed to be in the 50s and 60s, which is perfect running weather (as long as it's not raining). There will be bands and music every mile of the way, so that's great to keep you motivated and moving. All in all, shaping up to be a great event.

Fundraising is going a little slow, but I'm hoping that now that the holidays are over and people are anticipating tax refunds that things will pick up. I didn't have any luck finding a florist to help with that fundraising idea I had, they all basically said "great idea and cause, but we're not able to help right now". I've still got some ideas in the works, and we're selling concessions at a couple of upcoming events that should bring in some cash, so fingers crossed.

Well, as school starts in a couple days, I've got some reading to do. See you on the road!