Silver River Kayak Trip

Tuesday morning Rudy, Joe, John and I took our kayaks down to Ocala to the Silver River for a day on the river. The weather was perfect! We put in near the Oklawaha River and headed upstream to Silver Springs. About 20 minutes into our trip we passed a family of monkeys. These things are wild and crazy! I was terrified that they were going to try to jump right into my kayak. Everyone feeds them, so when they see people they expect that they are going to get food.

We also saw alot of alligators. I've never seen alligators this big in the wild. After I saw this gator, I went around the corner and took the second picture, but when I turned around, that big gator was right behind me! I screamed and started paddling like crazy to catch up with the guys.

When we got to Silver Springs we were paddling around the main spring right next to the Glass Bottom boats! There were a few tourists milling around and it was funny that we could just paddle right up in there. Of course, we weren't allowed to dock or get into the water, but it was still pretty cool.
Perfect weather and perfect company made this the perfect trip.

March Race - Disney Princess Half Marathon

I am a bad-ass, fleet-footed, kick butt Princess. Sunday was the inaugural Disney Princess Half Marathon. This was my effort to redeem my less than stellar showing in DC at the MCM, so I was training for a time of 3:00. My marathon time was 6:13, so I figured, unless I wake up in the same state I did for the marathon, I was definitely going to make 3 hours. I would like to preclude that my last race, the 5 points of life 5K was my fastest pace ever! I flew by with a 10:25 pace, that shocked the pants off of me. (Well, not literally, but you know what I mean. Maybe next race ;-)

Saturday night/Sunday morning was daylight savings time, so we had to move the clocks forward an hour (you know - spring ahead, fall behind) What this meant was that I had to hit the sack about 8:30 to get enough sleep to not be dragging ass the next morning. I was staying with my cousin Michelle at a house my other cousin, Phaedra and her husband and two daughters were renting for their vacation. I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep with a very rambunctious 6 and 3 year old in the house, but I was so exhausted I passed out at 8:30 anyway.

I made sure I set 3 alarms on my cell phone and my cousin set her alarm too. However, at 4:30 a.m. (new time) my cousin comes into my room and says, "Kristina, it's 5:30." I FREAKED! Holy shit! How did I sleep through 3 alarms? The race starts at 7:00 am and we have to get dressed and get to Disney (about 15 minute drive), park and get to the start line!? I look at my watch, which I conveniently did NOT adjust, so I would be sure not to get confused in case my cell phone didn't automatically adjust for the time change and it read - 3:30. Which means that it is really only 4:30 and that is precisely what time I had my alarm set for. WHEW!! Tragedy averted.

We make it to the race and park the car and still have time to pee, which is good, because the 50 port-o-lets that they had were hardly enough for the 6200 women that were running. I leave my cousin and head to the start line. It was awesome! 6000 women and most of them are dressed as their favorite Disney princess. I saw Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, Tinkerbell. The few guys that ran were even into the spirit - I saw a guy dressed as a frog prince. And, sorry fellas, it is not cool to run wearing a tutu, but I give you a thumbs up for channelling your inner princess ;-)

Well, I am standing at the start line and my stomach starts growling and I realize that I forgot to eat breakfast. OOPS! Oh, well, no turning back, and I did have a big dinner, so I sucked it up and the start gun goes off.

I feel strong and my legs are working well in the cold 45 degree temperature. I was fortunate enough to qualify for the first corral of runners, so I think that gave me a bit of a mental advantage. I reached the first place where my cousin could watch for me, about mile 4 and I am flying! I grabbed a protein bar from her and choke it down so I can have some fuel for the next 9 miles. About halfway through we got to run through the Magic Kingdom and straight through Cinderella's castle! (I'll have pictures of that soon) People were cheering us all the way, it was so cool. After leaving the Magic Kingdom we headed past a golf course and through some service roads that most people don't get to see at Disney, then it was off to Epcot, which was our final destination. We ran around Spaceship Earth (the big golf ball thing that is associated with Epcot) and then the mad dash for the finish line.

As I crossed the finish, and looked at my stop watch, I couldn't believe the time - 2:30. I was way below my anticipated time of 3 hours. My fairy godmother gave me my medal and another sprinkled me with fairy dust. My cousin was there cheering for me, it was truly a great moment. All doubts I had about being a race competitor vanished.

I always set such high standards for myself and then get discouraged when I don't achieve them. As was the case with the marathon. I was really hoping to finish 26 miles in 5:30 and I didn't, so I was really hard on myself and couldn't be happy for the huge thing that I had done which was finishing a marathon.

Needless to say, I am pleased with my time - officially: 2:30:37, which equates to a pace of about 11:30/mile. It makes me feel good.

Here is a shot of the feet that carried me through 13.1 miles, I don't know if you can see it, but I wrote on the insides of both my lower legs "FAST FEET" I think it worked.

The next race coming up for me is the AFLAC Iron Girl 10K in Clearwater on the 11th of April. Last year's time was 1:09, so I am shooting for :59.

Here are the rules:
1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer.
2) Select the 4th picture in the folder.
3) Explain the picture.
4) Tag 4 people to do the same.~No cheating (cropping, editing, etc.)

So, the 4th item in the fourth folder isn't exactly a photo, but a video.

This was taken at my house on my 32nd birthday. I originally posted it in a blog on Myspace titled, "Why you shouldn't put candles on your birthday cake after age 30." My husband, thought it would be funny to put 32 candles on my little birthday cake. These were not regular candles, but the kind that relight after you blow them out. Sounds funny, huh?

Well it would have been except that he didn't account for how he was going to get the candles off the cake to put them out. They all kept relighting and he couldn't get them off the cake. Then to really add to the hilarity of the situation, the smoke detectors went off and scared the bejesus out of the cats and my niece and nephew. We were all laughing so hard! Billy eventually took the cake over to the sink and I thought he was going to turn the water on and put the cake under the stream. We ended up wetting a paper towel and grabbing the candles with that. By the time we were done, my cake had a think layer of wax on the top of it, but it still tasted yummy and we all had a really good laugh.

The next year, no candles on the cake.