One week to go......

Disney Half Marathon is exactly a week away....Eeeek! I actually feel good about it. My last two runs have gone really well. This morning I ran 10 miles at the park again. I love that park! Anyway, I started a little after 6 am and got done in about 2 hrs. I did make a few water breaks so I feel really good about that time. I only had 3 more miles to complete a half marathon..so I'm thinking if I did 10 minute miles for those 3 then that would put me at about 2hrs and 30 mins. Our goal for this half marathon is 2:45. We both decided that if we beat that time then we are going to buy ourselves something nice.....it has to be something that we usually wouldn't buy ourselves. I still haven't decided on what I will buy but this morning I was thinking a massage. LOL. It was only because my back was starting to hurt at about the 8th mile. The last 2 miles were the hardest. My legs just felt extra heavy. I did it though and felt great afterwards. On the way home we stopped at The Human Bean. I got a strawberry smoothie and Craig got an iced coffee.

I just realized I haven't posted a picture of the lovely Cristina. Here is a picture that Craig took when she came to visit.

That's us being dorks. I'm really excited about being dorks next Sunday at Disneyland! YAY. I wonder if Ariel will be there.....She loves Jasmine but my heart belongs to Ariel. =)

I also want to post 2 videos of my favorite running songs. The first one is by Kevin Rudolf.."Let it rock" This one has been on my running playlist for awhile. The second song which is not very old at all is " Run this town" which is Kanye West, Jay-Z and Rihanna. Hope you enjoy the videos and if you don't have them on your playlist yet.......add them. You won't regret it..trust me.

Betty

Healthier lifestyle 2yr anniversary!!!

Today I am celebrating something very important in my life. 2yrs ago I started a new life. I knew it was going to be different this time. It wasn't something I was just going to do for a couple of days, weeks or months. This is my life now. It seems like so long ago. I don't even recognize the girl in the pictures and I can't believe how my life used to be. I'm not going to say that I was completely unhappy. I've always had great friends and a wonderful family. That's not what I was not satisfied with. I was not happy with myself. I remember I would just stay in bed and watch t.v. all day on my days off. I was too lazy to change what I was unhappy about. I thought it was too hard..something that I wasn't able to do. I remember going shopping with my sisters and always crying in the dressing room because nothing fit the way I wanted it to. One of the worst feelings in the world. I was always the chubbier one of the sisters...the one with a cute face. I had tried so many times to change. I tried different diet pills and even tried "starving" myself.....thinking that was what I needed to do to lose weight. Well now I know that you just have to eat better. Easier said then done...right?! Well after awhile it's just something you do without thinking. Yes there are some days when you want the "bad" food but that's okay too. I don't think anything is forbidden.....it's just portion control. Everyone is different and we all know what we want and don't want to eat. My family sometimes thinks that i'm depriving myself from eating the "good" food but they don't understand that to me....my food IS good.

Also I have to workout. That's just how it is. My goal when I first started out was to go to my apartment gym for 21 days straight. I had read somewhere that if you do something for 21 days it becomes a habit. So that's what I did. After that there was no way I was giving up, especially when I was seeing results. I had short term goals that I knew were possible. After 5 months I had lost 38 pounds. I'm not saying that i'm perfect everyday. We all have those days when we don't want to workout and we just want to relax. We deserve them....I deserve them. I'm not going to feel guilty for taking a day or two off during the week because I know that those other 5 days...I'M GOING TO BE WORKING MY BUTT OFF. Man does it feel good when you finish working out. Since my new life I have more energy than i've ever had. I've done things that I never imagined doing.....running a half marathon and hiking to name a few. I also don't mind going shopping anymore. LOL. I guess I can go on forever on the perks of a better life but I won't. I just wanted to share a little bit of my story. My journey isn't over yet.....I have a long way to go. Everyday I learn something new and if you have any healthy tips please share. =)



Here are some before and after pictures.



Before pictures:

07/16/2006Aug. 2006- Camping trip

03/12/2007-Las Vegas

After pictures:

Hiking Summit Trail

Hiking Camelback Mountain-05/2009

Las Vegas-05/2009

Have a great and healthy day! =)

Betty

Interesting Turn of Events

This morning I woke up at 5:20 am to go on my long run. I was going to run to work which is a little over 6 miles and also run half way back. I was putting in my contacts and I don't know how I did this but I got soap in the left one. My left eye was killing me.....it got all red and I could barely keep it open. Not a good way to start the morning. =( I ignored my eye and still got ready. Had half a clif bar and was on my way. I was about half a mile into it when I decided.....I don't want to run this route alone today. I just wasn't in the mood. So I ran back home and told Craig I was just going to run on the treadmill. He offered to go but I knew I would be awhile since I was going to atleast run 8 miles. On the way to the gym I got the clever idea of going to the park to run.....like i've done in the past. I called Craig to make sure I knew the cross streets and he offered to come with me. We like to go there and ride our bikes. So I went back home to pick him up. At this point it was already like 6:30ish. I was not feeling good about my run at all. I started getting scared and really nervous. Disney Half is 2 weeks away. I need to get my butt in gear. We arrived at the park and I started running. Craig rode his bike around and would stop and take pics of me once in awhile. He is so amazing. Trying to keep me optimistic while i'm thinking it's the end of the world as I know it. Anyway, I'm glad to say that my run went REALLY well. I ran a mile less then what I wanted to do because the road was flooded. I felt like I could still keep running for a few more miles. I'm so glad that I didn't let those little things stop me from running. I know that if I would've came home and just went back to sleep after the first attempt I would be regretting it now. Thank you god for the strength and my Craig.

Here is the pic of the flooded part and a few other pictures.

Wooohooo to great runs! Have a great Sunday.

Betty

My Friday

Today I woke up at 5:20 am and went for a morning run. It started out really well. It was nice outside. I was running a different route that went through the neighborhood that I want to live in one day. Running through there made me want to move soon. It's just so homey. I was listening to LMFAO and the mood was right. Starting the 2nd mile my side started to hurt. Gosh I hate when that happens. I guess I must say that my run didn't go as well as I had hoped for but atleast I did it.
Came home and made me and Craig breakfast. I made us turkey bacon and eggs. He wanted a burrito but I had mine alone with some avocado. YUM...I love me some avocado.
I watched Coraline and wanted to watch The Haunting in Connecticut but knew I would be scared later to be alone. LOL. I don' know what happened to me. I remember when I was younger not being as scared as I am now. You would think as you grow older you wouldn't be scared anymore. Anyway, so I decided to take a nap and watch Friends. I love my Friday naps. I mean I love my Craig but when I try to take a nap when he is here.....it takes me FOREVER. We fool around so much...it's fun but sometimes a girl needs her nap. =)
Tonight we are trying a new place for dinner. Tradiciones......we hear good things about this place. Hope it doesn't disappoint. I like that me and Craig still have our "date" nights. I know we aren't in the "getting to know eachother stage" but i'm glad that we still have our nights when we go out. I've been in a relationship that we would mainly just stay home EVERYNIGHT and not try anything new. Don't get me wrong...I love staying home and cuddling while watching a movie but it's nice to mix things up too. I do have to say that it does make it hard to stay away from temptation foods though. I still try my best and watch my portions.
Monday is my 2yr Healthy Lifestyle Anniversary. I will be posting before and after pictures. I'm really happy that I made it to my 2yr goal. I'm not done though. More on that on Monday.

Have a GREAT Friday!

Betty

Zion National Park Trails

The Three Patriarchs .....Jacob, Isaac and Abraham.

These are the stairs on the Hidden Canyon trail. This was my all time fave.

We found the Arch that is in the Hidden Canyon.

This was the scary part of the trail. There is a point where there is NO CHAIN to hold on to. I tried to not look down but sometimes you just have to. =)

This is The Narrows Trail. The trail is basically going through the Virgin River. This was Craig's Favorite Trail.

This is Angel's Landing Trail.

These are Walter's Wiggles which are 21 steep switchbacks.

Enjoying the view from the top. Loved it.

Just some fun stuff to show......

Our vacation started a little earlier then expected. We decided to go to the lake the Saturday before leaving. We took out the Jeep and invited some of Craig's friends to get some 4 wheeling in too. Took my sister with me so I wouldn't be the only chica there. ;) It was a pretty fun day. We got in the water and stayed in longer then what I thought I would. We made burgers and just relaxed. Here are some pics from that day first.......

Our vacation officially started on 08/10/2009. We were both very excited to hike many trails at the Zion National Park. I was talking to Craig about how much people can change and how different I was from a year or two ago.

For example...... I would have never planned a vacation before that involved me being more active then waiting in line to get on a ride. This was so huge to me. We were going somewhere because we loved to hike. To me that was just an amazing feeling. On our way there we made a few stops which made the 9hr drive feel really short. One of our stops was the Dino Tracks. ( I love Dino's) I really can't explain why but just thinking about them existing is awesome. The other stop was the Moqui Cave. It used to be a bar inside but now is a museum.

As soon as we arrived at Zion National Park I was immediately in Awww. This place is beautiful. I wanted to take all the pictures and record everything there. I wanted to hike all the trails and enjoy every minute of it with Craig. I'm telling you this place is incredible. I can't wait until we go back someday. I know it will probably be awhile because now I have more places I want to go to. There is so much out there that I want to see. I need to calm down and not get ahead of myseld. I tend to just start planning things ALL THE TIME. I think I might be a little crazy. Is it that bad to want to see the whole world?!

Anyway we started with the a scenic byway that led through two tunnels and amazing views of the park.

This is the first tunnel...it's the shorter one. The second one is a little over a mile long.

Yeah I wanted to run....too bad I had my sandals on. I had to take a picture like this though.

Beautiful....right?! See I told you. I don't know if they have a marathon there but I will definitely investigate and if they do....then sign me up!

One last thing before I go..we thought this was hilarious. I swear that it was not planned. We got to our hotel room and guess what the first thing we saw was.........

Tada......funny huh? Yup a heart shaped hot tub......Yeah Baby!!!!

I have more pictures to show of each trail and some videos too. I will have to post them tomorrow. Craig and I are getting ready to meet our friend for dinner.

Betty

I love Hiking.

One of our first hikes...A mountain

I absolutely LOVE hiking. Craig and I are going to Utah next week for some wonderful hiking at Zion National Park. I will post pictures and possibly videos of our vacation when we get back. We are very excited about the trip. I never imagined myself as a hiking person. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I actually really didn't know much about hiking until a few years ago. I know that once I started that I loved it though. My first official hike was A Mountain by ASU. We then started looking for new trails and tried to fit in a hike every weekend. Craig loves it too. When u make it to the top of that mountain or to the creek its such a rewarding feeling. The views we see are just beautiful and it makes it so much better that we see them together.

I also like that you burn a ton of calories doing it too. =) What can I say.... It's AWESOME!!

Here is a slideshow that Craig made of our recent hikes.

Have a good Friday!!!

Betty

What is a workout?

This is something I found on sparkpeople.com. I love it and it really does keep me on check when I don't feel like working out. I truly believe that this is true.

What is a workout?

A workout is 25% PERSPIRATION and 75% DETERMINATION. Stated another way, it is one part physical exertion and three parts SELF-DISCIPLINE. Doing it is easy once you get started. A workout makes you better today than you were yesterday. It strengthens the body, relaxes the mind and toughens the spirit. When you work out regularly, your problems diminish and your CONFIDENCE grows. A workout is a personal triumph over laziness and procrastination. It is the badge of a WINNER, the mark of an ORGANIZED, GOAL-ORIENTED person who has taken charge of his or her destiny. A workout is a wise use of time and INVESTMENT in excellence. It is a way of preparing for life's challenges and proving to yourself that you have what it takes to do what is necessary. A workout is a key that helps unlock the door to Opportunity and Success. Hidden within each of us is an extraordinary force. Physical and mental fitness are the triggers that can release it. A workout is a form of REBIRTH. When you finish a good workout, you don't simply feel better...... YOU FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF!!!!


I don't know who wrote this to give them credit for it. But It has helped me a lot. I have it up at work and at home.


Betty

My sister's 1st day of training.

Last year I ran my 1st half marathon. It's one of the best and hardest thing's I've ever done in my life. The feeling of accomplishment when I crossed the finish line was something I had never felt before. Both my sister's and my boyfriend were there to support me throughout the whole thing. That day my youngest sister decided she would want to run a half marathon. I told her that we would run the P.F. Changs Half Marathon together.

We went running this morning at 6 am. Living in AZ we have to start pretty early before it get's so hot and you feel like you're going to die. She did pretty well for her 1st official run. I'm thinking that I will have her train the way that I did. I started really early and took it slow. We have 5 months to get her ready. It will be hard but an amazing experience.

As I am starting to have her train I am also training for the Disney Half Marathon in September. I will be running it with one of my closest friends. I know that we will have a blast. There will be many pictures and videos to come along with that recap. =) We still have a month to go and the closer it gets the more nervous I become. I wonder if that feeling ever goes away with the more runs you do?......

XOXO

Betty