Happy Times

A few fun pictures from the past month:

Santa

We've been crazy busy around here. We had our two story foyer painted along with the whole upstairs hall (since it was all connected). I finished up the semester and got my grading finished. We've had tons of get togethers and parties, and then xmas shopping, ect. Oh what fun! This past weekend, we headed over to a Cookies with Santa thing that our neighborhood did. While a bit chaotic, it was still good. Some crafts and cookies and trying to talk to Santa.  They had fun except for actually wanting to talk to Santa or sit on his lap!

Sunglasses

I took P to Target one day and she had quite some fun trying on sunglasses and making silly faces:

Then at a bday party we received sunglasses as favors:

And then lastly....how P ate her breakfast this morning (yes those are half-zipped down penguin PJ's):

And because T doesn't want to be left out-how she likes to eat breakfast:

Marathon Training

So back in May, I decided to sign up for the American Tobacco Road Marathon in Cary, NC. This race is March 16th. I even convinced my BRF to sign up with me. The summer and fall went by and then a few weeks ago it became time to start training. Right now I am finishing up week 4 of the 18 week plan. I stressed over what kind of plan I was going to choose to train, but in the end I picked the Hanson Brothers plan. Their plan is very different from most plans. I run 6 days a week and the long run caps out at 16 miles. Every Tuesday is intervals, the first half of the plan is 5K of intervals at 5K pace. The second half switches to 10K of intervals at 10K pace. Wednesday's are rest days, Thursdays are marathon pace days, starting out at 5 miles and building to 10, and Sundays are long run days.

I was hesitant about using the plan for a couple reasons, the main one being the mental barrier of only running 16 miles and then having to run 26 on race day. But my sister has used this plan twice and I have read other reviews and people say they actually seem to feel better on race day in those last 6 miles of the marathon. We shall see. So far it is going ok. I am using a hybrid plan between their beginner and their advance plans. But by week 10 I will be completely on the beginner plan.  Goal-sub 3:40 and qualify for Boston for 2015.

I knew I wanted to raise money for a cancer foundation and ended up hearing about this organization VS. Cancer. Founded by a former UNC baseball player who was diagnosed with brain cancer first few months into his freshman year at UNC. What's great about this organization is I was able to pick a local pediatric hospital for half of my funds to go to, and the other half will go to fund national pediatric cancer. I talked with the founder the other day and he has such a great outlook on life and he told me that while he knows cancer research is needed and important, the children who are sitting in the hospital right now need something too. They need hope and by donating the money to local pediatric hospitals, they can implement things for the kids in the hospital to make their lives better.

By the end of our conversation, I had convinced him to run the half marathon at the same race I will be running the full marathon in a life dream he has always had to finish a half marathon.  I am currently trying to raise $2620 for the 26.2 miles I will run come March 16th. Please join me and donate to VS. Cancer.

www.stayclassy.org/lzack

(And what a great domain name....Stay Classy Everyone)