CROW!

Canoe Races of the World, also known as C.R.O.W., is a beloved annual Disney Cast Member event that dates back to 1963. Scores of Cast Members arrive at the Magic Kingdom before sunrise each July to participate. About 80 teams (each has 10 people on board) compete on the Rivers of America in the Magic Kingdom before the parks open in canoes that were part of the original Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes attraction. Teams that row around Tom Sawyer’s Island with the best times, averaging around five minutes, advance to the finals and get a chance to race against the clock in a championship round.

I signed up for this active and totally not running event this year and had a total blast! I loved my team - they were so much fun - even at 6am...:)

Magic Kingdom is so pretty at sunrise...

We wore 'Brave' shirts for the final qualifying day...

And our time was just over 7 minutes for a mile - about 3 minutes off our initial qualifying time!!

But nowhere near the top 4 who went through to the finals unfortunately....maybe next year :)

video here!

Watermelon 5K photos

The photos are in. I told you I had a tough time. Big baby..:)

It could be worse. Watch out Mike, that 8 year-old girl with the pink socks is about to take you...

4th July Watermelon 5K

I secretly think that running in extreme heat is only for 'real runners' and I'm not a real runner yet :). I do the majority of my training runs very late in the evening or very early in the day and for the last couple of years (since I started running), I have seriously cut back on miles between May and Labor Day. Last year I promised myself I'd sign up for a race in June and took full advantage of the fact that I happened to be in NY to make it happen ;). This year I have been determined to keep up with running (and activity in general) right through summer with a view to starting out the season much stronger than ever before in the Fall.

I ordered 'Run Free - in miles we trust' shirts for the family to benefit the USO - an organization that serves military families...

So happy that Lu is back! She is very excited to get her bib and packet :)

And even happier that the shirt is so cute...

And it's a small :)

Mike is a bit more sedate when he's registering...

There was a watermelon eating contest scheduled after the race. This guy wore his on his head...

And this guy had painted himself blue for some reason...

There were about 4,000 runners which totally blew my mind! I can't believe how many people in Orlando don't use the heat as an excuse! Way to represent - O-Town!!

I've missed my Lu...

Now we are both rocking the sleeveless shirts - how'd that happen?

Today was tough for me and I just wanted to know that I ran the whole thing. I spent most of the race doing endless math to figure out how much longer I had to keep going! I tried to focus on celebrating the day and having an appreciation for the fact that we live in this amazing country where we can run whenever, wherever...and even painted blue with a melon on our head if we want to! And I made it through!!

Happy Birthday America!!

Juneathon - the verdict!

Juneathon is finally over!!!

Juneathon, "the annual festival of activity and excuses" is an event within the blogging community where you commit to working out (and blogging about it) every day for the entire month of June! Since this is usually the month that my activity levels seriously slow down, I signed up to see if it would help me stay on track during the hot, hot season:). My goal was to work out every day for at least 20 minutes and 'eat clean' for the whole month...and here's how it went...

In the first week I managed to miss a couple of days so I changed the rules and gave myself the opportunity to make missed sessions up on other days (because bending the rules is how I roll). I realized pretty quickly that making up sessions was far from ideal and did pretty well at staying on track for the rest of the month! The eating clean thing was more of a challenge though and I counted 8 days during the month where I just didn't :(. Here's what I learned:

* The days when I didn't eat clean were generally the ones when I didn't work out, primarily due to poor energy levels :(
* Even though I only technically had to do 20 mins activity a day, I actually did an average of 35 mins per day :)
* I ran over 41 miles during the month compared to 17 for last June and worked out for an extra 7 hours too!

So it was a huge success! My triathlon training is right on track and I only have two more months until the temperatures are a lot more bearable!! I feel healthy and strong and even ready for something I've never tried before - a race in July!! Thank you Juneathon for keep me on track:).

And my goals for July? I'm going to stay on top of the triathlon training program (here!) and cut down in half the average number of days that I don't eat clean which will give me 4 'off' days for the month :).