Freezer Stockpile

Another guest blog from our favorite running buddy! I LOVE freezer cooking! Here's some great tips from Cindy on how to get the most out of great supermarket deals! :)

The day after Easter, I found a fresh organic turkey in the meat manager's special bin, marked down 50%.  The bird made it into my cart long before I remembered that 13 lbs of bird is a lot for one person to eat.  Oops.

Since the turkey was already approaching it's sell-by date, I decided to roast it that evening after I finished preparing dinner.  If they're not stuffed, turkeys really don't take that long to cook.  I don't really care about presentation, so my cooking method of choice is to sprinkle the turkey generously with dried herbs, salt, and pepper, then dump the thing breast-side down into a roasting bag.  With this method, you get super juicy breast-meat and a tender-throughout turkey in 2-3 hrs.  When the timer went off, I literally cut open the bag and disassembled the turkey by hand, 10 minutes before I went off to bed.

I knew I was going to have to freeze part of the turkey since there's no way I should be eating 13 lbs of turkey before it went bad :-) I also wanted to replenish my freezer with some quick go-to meals since I had recently eaten down my stock of those.  Here's what I ended up making.

1) Plain cooked turkey breast (freezer)- this will be great for sandwiches or quick dinners down the road.

2) Two quarts of turkey stock + shredded dark meat (freezer) .  You know it's a good stock when you cool it overnight in the fridge and it turns solid on you.  I put all of the bones and pan drippings into a pot with a few quarts of water, and a few bay leaves, then simmered for 4 hrs or so.  I tend to leave out salt and other spices until I decide what to use the stock for.  I've found you can also do this overnight in the crockpot!

3) Turkey bean burritos (1 dinner + 3 freezer lunches).  I mixed up shredded dark meat turkey, a can of re fried beans, diced onion, green chiles, vegan cheese, cumin, cayenne, salt, pepper, and some chipotle Tabasco sauce and used that to stuff a bunch of tortillas.  I rolled them up, then put them seam side down in a baking dish, and baked at 375 for 20-30 min.  The baking step seems to reinforce the tortilla a little bit so that they thaw from frozen a little better.

4) Turkey + farro deliciousness (2 dinner + 1 lunch).  I've had a bag of farro hiding in my pantry for the past few months, and this time I actually remembered to measure some out and put it in a bowl of water to soak before I went to work.  When I came home, I started googling recipes, and ended up falling for this smitten kitchen recipe (http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/07/one-pan-farro-with-tomatoes/) because 1) it looked easy, and 2) I had all of the ingredients on hand.  I topped it with shredded turkey and it was FANTASTIC.  Highly recommended.

5) Turkey salad (1 dinner + 3 lunches).  I am not a big fan of white meat for most applications, but when slathered in mayo, it does pretty well.  This version ended up having finely diced sweet onion, dried cranberries, quartered red grapes, tarragon, honey dijon mustard, and mayo.  Wrapped up in some remaining tortillas with some crisp romaine, it was delicious.

Needless to say, my kitchen was a disaster zone the first half of the week (at one point I had zero clean bowls of any shape or size).  In the end it wasn't actually that much work, considering how many delicious meals I got out of the bird and how well-stocked my freezer is again.  I will totally not hesitate to pick up another discount turkey next time I run across one (which I assume will be long after I eat up my frozen leftovers!).

Guest Blog!: Spice Rack

Another guest blog from our favorite fellow foodie and running buddy! Enjoy!!

Spice Rack

Some people are planners when it comes to home-cooked foods.  They like to sit down with cookbooks, decide what meals to prepare for each day of the week, then make up meticulous lists of ingredients to purchase at the store.

I am whatever is the complete opposite of being a food planner.  Most of the time, when I walk into a grocery store I have no idea what I will be buying.  I wander through the produce section picking out whatever looks tasty, is on sale, or I haven't bought in a while.  Then I'll wander through the meat and dairy section, grabbing enough quantity and variety to get me through the week.  If I have time, I'll then wander up and down the dry goods aisles looking for interesting new sauces, snacks, and treats. 

Usually during this process I come up with a couple general meal ideas, at least sufficient to round out one complete dish for the week.  I fortunately have a near perfect memory of my pantry and fridge contents, so I rarely forget essential items or buy too many duplicates (what can I say, I think about food a lot).

One of the big things that enables me to cook this way is having an arsenal of go-to flavor combinations.  I know that I can turn any piece of chicken into an Asian dish with some soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, and sriracha.  Likewise, I can go Italian (tomato, basil, oregano, balsamic or white wine vinegar), Mexican (cumin, chili powder, cayenne, oregano), Moroccan (see recipe below), Indian (berbere, curry powder, and coconut milk), or BBQ with spices and a small handful of other staple ingredients.

  

Spices and dried herbs make up a huge part of my cooking.  I am a huge fan of Penzey's spices because they are so much more flavorful (and sometimes more cost effective!) than the grocery store varieties.  My birthday present may have been a mini shopping spree at Penzey's... where I may have walked away with more than 10 different spices.  If you go there, buy the bags, not the glass jars for maximum cost effectiveness!  My favorites are the chipotle powder, Penzey's cinnamon blend, and the Galena Street bbq rub.  Yum.

Moroccan spice rub

This is the only spice blend I mix up ahead of time to keep on hand - it's fantastic on both meat and vegetables. 

3 TBSP Sugar

1 TBSP Salt

1 TBSP paprika

1 TBSP cumin

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cayenne pepper (spice wimps like Briana may want to cut this to 1/2 tsp)

1 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp coriander

dash of peri-peri / berbere (optional - very spicy!)

For maximum tastiness, use on meat that is naturally juicy (boneless skinless chicken thighs are excellent).  It's best when the rub has a bit of a chance to caramelize, but use caution because it burns easily!  I tend to saute the chicken on the stove top until mostly cooked, then add liberal amounts of spice rub for the last few minutes of cooking. 

Also great on baked chicken wings, grilled lamb chops, mixed into turkey burgers, and sprinkled on diced or mashed sweet potatoes!

- Cindy

Marshmallows! (And a little Running)

Well Friends, I have happy news! First I'm going to show you how to make amazing, homemade marshmallows today and second, I can run again! On an unhappy note, Blogger was stupid and didn't save my work so this is the second time I'm writing this and the pictures were being a jerk too so sorry for the odd formatting.


Let's start with the boring.... I can RUN!! I got the OK to try some some running from my physical therapist and honestly, it's feeling kind of great! Not something I ever thought I would say again.... But I'm pretty excited. I have just been doing some short running segments in a 30 minute treadmill session and was able to bump up the speed last night with minimal pain afterwards. I'll write more on my upcoming running plans but for now ColorRun in August here I come!!!!

NOW on to the fun part! I had every intention of writing this post over the holidays, took the pictures and everything and then promptly forgot about it, which is an offense of the highest magnitude. We're talking about homemade marshmallows, people. HOMEMADE MARSHMALLOWS. No one and I mean No One should have to go through life without making and tasting homemade marshmallows at least one time in their life. It is a Peterman/Smith holiday tradition. I make at least 2 batches of these, if not 3-4. They are the perfect gift for teachers, friends, daycare providers, that family member that is impossible to by for. Pretty much everyone will adore these. My favorite way to gift these is with a jar of homemade hot chocolate mix. Whomever receives it will be your BFF for life, so long as you continue to provide said marshmallows.

These delectable pillows of deliciousness are unlike any marshmallow you have tasted as of yet. You will never be able to eat a bland, oddly textured, store bought marshmallow again. Consider yourself warned my friends. Another warning, these do require time and a bit of "special equipment". Do not attempt to make these without a candy thermometer, a sturdy electric mixer (A hand mixer will not work) and a mesh sieve. The recipe is from Ina Garten, my other foodie crush and can be customized in so many ways. My favorite flavor is just good, old fashion good quality vanilla extract. Peppermint is also a great flavor but please learn from my mistake. Do not use the same amount of peppermint extract as you would vanilla extract. That resulted in some seriously overpoweringly peppermint marshmallows. A teaspoon of a stronger flavored extract would probably suffice. I have also seen Ina make a coconut version of these which sound scrumptious. You get the point, there's a lot of options to make these your own. Also don't be surprised when you get confectioners' sugar all over your kitchen. It will happen, embrace it.

So go home,stop at the store if you don't stock powdered gelatin in your cupboard like I do, and make these. I promise you won't be disappointed! I'm working on a couple fun posts that should be up soon and looking forward to being able to increase my running mileage and start getting into pre-injury condition! Let me know in the comments or on Facebook if you have any recipe questions. I'm telling you, MAKE THESE!!

Homemade Marshmallows
Ina Garten- From Barefoot Contessa: Family Style

Ingredients:
3 packages (Not boxes) of unflavored, powered gelatin (I prefer Knox brand)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract *
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting


Put the gelatin and 1/2 cup of cold water in the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment. Allow gelatin to bloom in bowl while you make the syrup.

Combine the sugar, corn syrup, salt and 1/2 cup of water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Raise the heat to high and cook until syrup reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. Stir occasionally to stop the syrup from bubbling over. Remove from heat.

With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the syrup into the gelatin. BE VERY CAREFUL, it is very hot. Put the mixer on high speed and whip until the mixture is very thick, about 15 minutes. Add vanilla (Or other flavoring) and mix thoroughly.

Using a mesh sieve, Very generously dust a nonmetal 8x12 or 9x13 baking dish with confectioners' sugar. Pour mixture into pan, smooth top and dust with more confectioners' sugar. Let stand 24 hours or until they dry out. Run a butter knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the marshmallows. Turn out onto a board and cut into squares. I find my biggest chef knife works well.  Dust cut edges in leftover confectioners' sugar. Store in airtight container.

Happy Day!

The sun is shining my friends! After a soul punching accumulating snow last Monday, I can not tell you how happy the sun and above freezing temperatures make me! Also making me happy is the OK from the physical therapist to start amping up the physical activity. Up until now I was ordered to only do non impact so lots of yoga, Pilates and elliptical-ling. I like doing all those but I was itching to do more. After two months of hard work we're at that point! Last night was my first time on the treadmill since before the race. I did 1.5 miles of fast walking and it wasn't bad! Definitely sore, definitely not healed all the way but the progress is encouraging!

Also making me happy right now is this.

I'm really trying to right the wrong that is so few chocolate recipes on here, especially since the hubby considers chocolate to be the other food group. Here, in all it's Dutch- processed cocoa powder glory, is Double Chocolate banana bread! I saw it on my favorite food blog, you know the one and couldn't help myself. I mean come on. It's CHOCOLATE! So the first free moment I had, which happened to be a friday I was staying home with MB, I made it! I had just bought some more dutch process which gives this "bread" it's dark, dark color and rich, intense chocolate flavor but didn't have any chocolate chunks. All I had was mini chocolate chips, figuring it would be the same dumped them in.

                            

I popped it in the oven and it smelled amazing the entire 55 minutes it cooked. I pulled it out when the tester came out clean, let it cook for 10 minutes and took it out of the the pan. Not being one to have any patience, shocking I know, I cut a slice while it was still quite hot. The flavor was good but the texture was off, It seemed under done somehow even though I knew it wasn't. Undeterred I thought "Oh, it's just to hot. I'm sure it will be great when it's cooled!". Well, it did not get better.... In fact it got worse as it cooled. It became a cold mass of mushy almost bread product.  I was crushed! It had smelled so great and I had such high hopes. I have never had a smitten kitchen recipe not turn out, never! I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I read and re-read and re-read the recipe trying to find the point that I screwed up but I couldn't. Finally the hubs came up with a theory I hadn't, maybe it was the chocolate chips. Hmm.... her recipe calls for chunks while I had used mini's. Of course! Our theory is the mini's had melted to much into the batter during the baking process and changed the consistency of the final product.

Reinvigorated, I left bananas to over ripen on the counter and tried this baby again. Just to be safe I didn't add any extra chocolate. Blasphemy I know, I wanted to make sure the cake part wasn't the issue. After smelling wonderful for another 55 minutes, I ripped that baby out of the oven, let it cool just until I could handle it without searing my fingers off and tried it again. YUM! First, let's not fool anyone here. This is a cake in a loaf form. There's no two ways about it. That given it is delicious! It's dense enough not to fall apart but not so dense that you feel like you've eaten a brick. The cocoa powder gives it a rich chocolaty taste that isn't to sweet. Honestly I would buy bananas just to make this....... and have. Twice. It's great. Make it, you won't regret it!

You'll find the recipe below. Check back soon because I finally completed a project that I found on Pintrest and it actually turned out pretty good! I'll also be talking about my future running plans! Any races I should consider?

Double Chocolate Banana Bread
(Originally from smittenkitchen.com)

3 medium- to- large very ripe bananas
1/2 cup butter- melted
3/4 cup brown sugar (dark or light will work)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chunks or chips (Optional, but then it's not double chocolate)

Preheat Oven to 350F and butter a loaf pan.

Mash bananas well in the bottom of a large bowl. (You should have a little more than a cup) Whisk melted butter into the bananas. Add sugar, egg and vanilla, mix well. Add flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder to a sifter or fine mesh strainer and sift over the dry ingredients. Stir wet and dry together until just combined and then stir in chocolate chunks.

Poor into prepared pan and bake for 55-65 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10-15 minutes then remove from pan and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or room temperature.

Banana bread will keep 4 days at room temperature.... not that it every does in my house.
Enjoy!!

To infinity and beyond!

Now that I've had time to reflect on the race, I thought I'd add my story and a bit of my perspective :-)

Getting up at 3:15 to head to the race was not really my idea of fun (especially since the time change from CA to FL was not working in my favor).  We managed to sleepwalk to the monorail, through bag checking, a portapotty stop, and make it to our starting corral.  That process easily tacked a mile or two of walking onto the race distance!  Since they were predicting hot weather, we all were drinking water to make sure that we were adequately hydrated.  Turns out that decision was a bit of a mistake: 1) We had to wait an hour after the race started to cross the starting line, 2) the lines for the portapotties were looooong, 3) there were plenty of hydration stations along the race, and 4) it was humid enough to drink the air.

Everyone was excited to cross the starting line and get moving!  We settled into our chosen walk/run ratio right from the start, and the first few miles went by pretty quickly.  Briana's janky joints started causing problems sometime in mile 3, and so we all slowed down to accommodate them.  The fog and humidity was pretty intense, but the loop through Magic Kingdom was just awesome to me - definitely one of the highlights of the race to run through Cinderella's castle and down main street!

Briana's ankle was obviously not doing well at that point, and she told me that she wanted me to finish the race no matter what.  My heart broke when she and Kyle fell behind the pacers, this was something she had trained so long and hard for, and it was so uncertain of whether she'd achieve that goal.  That was when I took off on my own to finish the race, trying to hold back tears of frustration and sadness.

I quickly settled into the walk/run ratio that I had done most of my training at, and found that I had to weave in and out of the crowd, which seemed to have given up on running entirely by that point.  The return to Epcot had a couple of long hills.  I am a bit of a strange person... when I see a hill, I see something that needs to be summitted, preferably as quickly as possible.  While the rest of the crowd groaned and muttered at the Toy Story drill sergeant, I kicked myself into high gear and practically flew out of earshot.

Heading into Epcot was bittersweet - I was so happy to be almost done, but I was also sad for Briana and the fact that her race wasn't going as planned.  Coming up to the giant Epcot ball was like coming home though.  Let's face it, for a nerdy engineer like me, Epcot is the coolest place in DisneyWorld.  The last 1.1 miles of the race seemed to stretch on forever, but the finish line eventually emerged.  I crossed it, smiling because I had accomplished my goal of finishing the race, but with tears streaming down my face because I was alone instead of by Briana's side.

I've always told myself that I can do anything once, and so far I've turned out to be right.  This race was my first half marathon, and I'm pretty certain that it was also my last.  I'm really glad that I joined Briana - I personally got a lot out of the training process.  In the midst of all my unpredictable life changes in the past year and a half, it was awesome to have this event to look forward to, and to force myself to stay physically active.  Unfortunately, my body really doesn't seem to appreciate running or endurance events; although I (surprisingly) didn't acquire any running related injuries, the process did affect some chronic conditions that I have in undesirable ways.

Although I'm hanging up my running shoes for the time being, I'll likely still contribute some food and fitness related posts as long as Briana will let me :-)  I'm so excited to see what goals she tackles next!

Cindy

Thoughts after....

Has it really been a month since the race?? To be honest, it still doesn't even seem real. It seems like one of those crazy epic dreams that you wake up and realize never happened.... But then I get a physical therapy bill and know, oh yea, that totally happened. :)

Thoughts on the race itself:
I expected nothing less but the runDisney event was phenomenal. I would highly, highly recommend any runDisney event to anyone looking for a great running event. They did a great job of adding that extra special "Disney Magic" to all the events. The staff and voluntEars (as they call them) were just plain amazing. They were just as excited to motivate us stragglers as they were the first runners. The entertainment along the course was such a good motivator and really broke up the monotony of the highways and Florida landscape for the whole distance. The pace requirement makes it hard to be able to stop and enjoy the characters if you are on the slower side but it's still fun to see as you go by.  The only downsides were the lines for the porta potties were CRAZY but I think that is to be expected of any large scale running event but I wouldn't complain if they added a few more to each stop. Having the pacers breathing down your neck also took away some of the magic but I totally understand why they can't keep the roads closed forever and in a more ideal circumstances I would be well ahead of them.  Overall I loved how Disney did the event. *IF* I ever heal and decide to tackle something this crazy again (I'm already thinking about it) I will most certainly choose a runDisney event!

Thoughts on my individual race:
Well, this one is tough. We all know that it didn't go as well as I had planned or prepared for but I did still complete a 13.1 course. However, in my overly critical mind, I don't deserve any accolades. Tom and Cindy certainly do, they ran almost all of it. Kyle does, he put up with me for whole time. To me, it feels like a lie to accept congratulations for running a half marathon because I didn't run hardly anything. I am still quite uncomfortable accepting praise but that's for me and my crazy to work out.
As I said before NONE of it would have been possible without Cindy, Tom and Deidre cheering me on and keeping me going. They were (and are) amazing, encouraging, supportive people and it was really special to be able to go through this experience with them. And of course, the real hero is my amazing husband. My best friend who stuck by my crazy, emotional and unstable side the whole time. Who would have been just as proud of my for stopping when I thought I couldn't go on as he was for me finishing. Sorry ladies but I'm seriously have the best husband ever. Period.


What's next?:
To be honest, I don't know! I know that I think I want to start running again. I am already signed up for The Color Run in August. That's just a 5K so not really any big deal. I was looking for an event that would restore the fun in running and I think this is just the right one. Of course that requires me to be able to run again. Right now I'm hard at work in physical therapy trying to repair whatever damage I did to my foot and calf muscle. I'm under strict orders from my PT to not do any running until we get some more healing. Which I'm honestly fine with. I have been kind of over running since we got back but I'm starting to get the itch. To be honest, I've taken pretty much the whole month of March off from any kind of work outs other than Pilates on Fridays and the occasional Just Dance 4 marathon. I'm ready to get back on the horse though. I'm feeling sluggish and not myself and I know adding back my regular work outs will go along way towards feeling better. It also could be the 2nd ice age Michigan has been in since October, but you know, whatever...  I won't say I'm ruling out another 1/2 marathon either. I see how amazing the runDisney experience could be if I was at my best and they have so many fun run opportunities that I'm certainly keeping that in the back of my mind.

As for the blog, I have no plans to stop! The support I've received from you all has been overwhelming and wonderful and I've finally gotten in the habit! (Kinda)  I'm for sure not at my final fitness goals and I still love to cook and share! My goal has always been to share real life and I hope you guys will stick around to see what kinds of crazy nonsense I get myself into. Including maybe another 1/2! :)

Stay tuned for a bunch of cooking posts, I've been saving them up!

The story

I've started and stopped writing this post about 10 times since the race, just because it's so hard to put the experience down in words but I'm going to do my darndest and apologize in advance for the length....

I never thought that moving in a forward direction for 13.1 miles was going to be easy. If it was, I wouldn't have set it as a goal. I wouldn't have started a blog to follow the process! I knew this body wasn't meant for endurance sports but it was just crazy enough that I wanted to do it. I wanted something that would completely challenge and wow, I just did not realize how much of a challenge it was going to be.

Unlike my first attempt at a distance run, I was fully invested in the training for this. That's not to say I didn't hit some rough patches, as you all read about on here but I always got back up and kept going on. If you are a somewhat regular reader of this blog you will also know about three weeks before the race I developed some serious pain in my right foot. Whenever I would run pain would radiate to up my calf, through my bad ankle and out my big toe. Not a good thing for sure. I started a pretty intense regime of NSAIDS and physical therapy in an attempt to get whatever it was taken care of. With rest, the hard lump of inflamed muscle/tendon/ligament seemed to soften a bit but my PT warned my it wouldn't go away without a serious, prolonged rest period so that it could heal. Well, you all know I'm stubborn and was not about to waste that much money because my body decided to revolt. So we came up with a stretching and pain med plan we hoped would help but it was made clear to me that it wouldn't be IF it started hurting, it would be WHEN it started hurting and would come down to how much pain I could stand. And that my friends is where our story begins....

The morning of the race we got up bright and early. Like seriously 3:15am. We had to be on the monorail by 4:00am to check in and make it to our corral on time so needless to say, it was an early morning. Combine that with the fact that the nervousness boiling up inside of me threatened to show itself as projectile vomit and I was a bit out of sorts. I had my support team there, Cindy, Tom and my amazing hubby were running with me and did there best to calm me down. The energy was amazing. It was one of those times when I was proud to be a human. People helping each other, sharing glitter and tiaras to make sure we were all decked out in our princess finery, letting each other cut in the bathroom (which if you've ever been at a large scale running event is a BIG DEAL) The first wave of runners crossed the start line at 5:35am and we started slowly working our way toward the start. It took us just under an hour to actually get to the start line and then the countdown started. Two minutes! One minute! 10,9,8.... GO!

The rush of adrenaline that came with actually getting over the start line and being able to start the journey propelled us along well for the first 3 miles. Aside from losing time in the lines for the porta potties (We may have drank a bit to much waiting to start and it's really hard to go with a tutu on, just saying) we set a fairly decent pace those first 3 miles. Then, it sort of started going downhill from there. I was able to ignore the foot pain up until that point but it started to get more and more intense. I had to start walking a lot more than I wanted to and the pacers began to creep up on us. (remember you have to keep a 16:00min/mile pace for all runDisney races) Around about mile 4.5 it was clear to me that I was going to have to walk most if not all the rest of the race. The pain was getting more and more intense with every step. As we came out on the other side of Magic Kingdom, I sent Cindy and Tom ahead. There was no way I was going to have them not finish because of me. They had worked just as hard training. The hubs stayed right by me, even though I wanted him to go on.

We made it to mile 7 right with the pacers but heading into mile 8,  I knew they were going to sweep the slow runners and my moral took a dive. I began convincing myself that I was a failure, that there was no way I was going to finish. I started crying. The low blood sugar, combined with the pain and the fear of being an utter failure in the one thing I had been working towards for over a year hit me all at once. Kyle stayed right with me. Never doing anything except telling me he was going to stay with me the whole time and no matter what happened he was so proud of how far I had come. (I mean seriously did I hit the man jackpot or what???) Anyway!

As we came into the stretch before mile 8, I could see the buses and the volunteers ready to cut off those who were to slow. The pacers were about 30 seconds ahead of us. Up until that point I had just resigned myself to the fact that I was going to get picked up and not finish. I had made up my mind that I couldn't go on and that I just needed to stop. But something happened that to this day I can't explain, I started running! I didn't say anything to Kyle, I just took off. Every step caused me to tear up from pain but I kept sprinting until we were ahead of the pacers enough to not get picked up. We had made it past the sweep. Kyle just smiled, told me to take a drink and we kept going. By this point we were walking the entire time. Any time I would release the tension on my calf muscle my foot would flop down as if I had no ligament or muscle tone at all... not good right? But we kept going. We didn't know if there was another pick up or not so we stayed as close to the pacers as possible. We passed the 9 mile mark still going. We passed the 10 mile mark slowing down a little but still going. At that point my mental game switched from "I can't do this" to "Huh it would be stupid to stop at this point, right?"

Mile 10-11 were really challenging for my poor foot as it was on a highway on- ramp with a very uncomfortable grade to it. There was also a solider from Toy Story at mile 10.5 yelling at people like a drill sergeant that I wanted to punch in the face but luckily for him I still had some self control that that point. But I digress... Mile 11 marked the runners being back on Epcot property, the start and finish of the race. The sun came out at the point which made it really hot and really humid. But we kept going. The pacers were still in our sights, albeit a bit in front of us, but we were still going. Mile 11 had Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" blaring and as cliche as it sounds, I so needed that at that moment. I was able to push out the pain and just focus on the words of the song for that little bit of time and it helped a lot. At mile 12 we were in the actual park area of Epcot. 1.1 to go, 1.1 to go I kept thinking. We went past the "Epcot Ball", past a Starbucks. OMG How I wanted to stop for a drink. Tall, non fat iced mocha please!! Everyone kept saying "you're almost there, you're doing great!" Which was really nice, up until about 14th person said "you're almost there!" To which I replied "EVERYONE KEEPS SAYING THAT!" Made Kyle laugh but afterwards I felt kinda bad. We rounded mile 13 and a gospel choir was singing, which was very nice! Gave me a bit of get up and go.

We turned around the back of a building and there it was. The finish line. Yes the spectator stands were mostly empty and most of the runners had already finished but I didn't care. As we got closer I could feel myself getting choked up but I was in no way shape or form prepared for the rush of emotion to come. Kyle and I grabbed hands, I gathered every last ounce of anything I had left and we ran across the finish line together, hands held high, just as I envisioned we would. The moment we crossed that finish line I just lost it.. 1.5 years of prep, 13.1 miles of pain were over and we had finished. I was doing that gross, heaving, embarrassing sobs in public and I didn't even care. Judging from the sympathetic smiles from the volunteers I don't think I was the only one who had an emotional breakdown at the finish line. Kyle just hugged me and told me how proud he was of me, which of course made me cry more. Then I got my medal which also made me cry more. And then I saw that my sister, Tom and my niece and nephew had waited in the stands that whole time which also made me cry so I was just one big sweaty, cry-y exhausted mess. But I had kept my body moving in a forward direction for 13.1 miles.......

So there it is in all it's real, messy, TMI, unflattering truth. The story of my not- so-ideal first 1/2 marathon.  And I just want to make it very clear I wouldn't have been able to write this without the support of you all, my family, my sister and Tom, of course Cindy and most of all my amazing, supportive, wonderful husband, Kyle. You all mean the world to me.

I'm working on my thoughts after the race. Check back for post- race analysis and my thoughts on what's coming up.