This afternoon, I participated in my second Chili Cook Off at work. Two years ago, I somehow managed to finish in 5th place. I tried something different this year — adding noodles to my chili and turning it into Chili Mac. Being an IT guy, I needed to keep with the technology theme.
Enjoy the photos below, courtesy of Mr. Sunshine. You’ll rarely see photos of me here, since I’m always the one behind the camera.
I’m too lazy to rewrite my weekend recap for this blog, so below is an article I wrote for my local running club’s newsletter. It’s long, but stick with it because lots of pictures are below.
Those of you who know me are aware of how much I love all things Disney. In fact, I share the same story told in previous newsletters by several other Macon Tracks members: one main reason that I started running almost three years ago was to run the 2009 Walt Disney World Marathon. Of course, I didn’t stop with that race. In fact, I’ll participate in my third Disney Marathon this January.
Disney is packaging their race series under a new “brand” called runDisney and Jeff Galloway has signed on as the official training consultant. When Disney announced that they were combining the Tower of Terror 13K with the Race for the Taste 10K to create the new Wine & Dine Half Marathon, and I knew I had to participate in the inaugural event!
A few days before leaving for Orlando, I saw a twitter post that said “Check the Disney Parks Blog at 11:00 for an opportunity to go on a training run with Jeff Galloway”. I checked the blog, quickly submitted my name, and waited. At 2:00, I got the confirmation that I was one of only 20 people chosen! Needless to say, I quickly modified my travel plans to be there.
On the morning of the training run (the day before the half-marathon), the other participants and I arrived at Epcot at 6:30am. We checked in and signed waivers allowing Disney to photograph and video the activities. We also received a nice moisture-wicking runDisney shirt, which is currently not available for purchase. Then, Jeff Galloway arrived.
Some of us chatted informally with him, while others jumped at the chance to take photographs of the beautiful sunrise over the closed theme park. After a little while, we were told to warm up for our training run.
The training run consisted of a run through Future World followed by two loops around the World Showcase, which was bustling with activity in the early morning hours in preparation for the first day of Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival. We had the option of running at our pace, staying with Jeff (and his run/walk/run method), or falling behind. Of course, I stayed within earshot of Jeff. It was amazing to be able to run in such a small group through such a beautiful place with an athlete like Jeff Galloway. Of course, you can’t run at Walt Disney World without Mickey Mouse. He was on hand too to welcome us back to Future World.
After the run, there were numerous photo opportunities. The photos of our group with Jeff Galloway will likely be used for future race publicity. It was surreal having my photo taken with the world’s most famous mouse and one of running’s best known athletes.
Jeff Galloway is a great guy. After even more photo opportunities, he took over an hour to answer all of our questions and share tips and strategies. The most popular topic by far was how to properly eat before a night race, because running in a long-distance night race is something that most runners have yet to do. As expected, stretching and injuries were discussed as well. Did you know that Jeff has not had a running-related injury in 31 years? That’s my entire life span! And as for stretching, Jeff doesn’t do it! He told us that current research shows that stretchers are more likely to get injuries than non-stretchers.
Other Disney Sports administrators were on-hand as well, including Disney’s well-known race director Jon Hughes. They told us that Disney is actually planning a fourth race for the 2012 series to complement the Wine & Dine Half Marathon, WDW Marathon Weekend, and the Princess Half Marathon. That’s great news, but not for my wallet!
After the Q&A session, Jeff gave us each an autographed photo. He even offered his email address in case we had any additional questions. Then, we all exited the park, which was about to open to regular guests. The training run with Jeff Galloway was, by far the highlight of my weekend.
Later that day, we were off to the expo. Although it was smaller than the expo held during the regular marathon weekend, it was still very good. That afternoon, my kids participated in the Disney Kid’s Races. I constantly tell people that the kids’ races are the best deal at Disney. For $10, each child gets a shirt, a nice finisher’s medal, snacks, a goody bag and lots of fun.
The next morning my wife Kimberlie, one of Macon Track’s newest members, participated in her first 5K ever: Mickey’s Halloween 5K. It is currently the only short race that goes through the Magic Kingdom.
The Wine & Dine Half Marathon was later that evening. With a starting temperature of 74 degrees at 10:00pm, it was the hottest long-distance race that I’ve participated in. During the run, I actually caught up with Jeff Galloway at mile 11! He was pacing someone using his run/walk/run method. I ran (and walked) and chatted with them for a while before they left me at mile 12. The race wasn’t my best half-marathon, but it wasn’t my worst either.
The course started at the newly rebranded ESPN Wide World of Sports, and followed Osceola Parkway to Animal Kingdom where we ran through the park. Animal Kingdom almost always closes to guests at 5:00, so it was extremely rare to be there at night. There was a “Jurassic Park” feel as we ran through the darkness, knowing that animals were nearby but unable to see them from the darkness. We then ran back down Osceola to Hollywood Studios and continued through the resort area to an Epcot finish. For those who have run the Disney Marathon, the last eight miles of this course nearly mirrored the marathon course.
The staging area and pre-race activities were surprisingly the best I’ve seen at Disney. At that point, I was impressed that an inaugural race was that well organized. However, the finish line area at Epcot was a logistical disaster. To retrieve a bag from baggage claim, the tired runners were funneled into a very long line down a relatively narrow hallway.
A post-race party was held in the world showcase and each runner was given vouchers for “one drink” and “one taste”. However, when you divide 15,000 runners (and the many others who purchased party tickets) among only 26 food stands, those lines were excessive as well. The lines were so long that I didn’t have the energy to stand in them.
Although overall I had a great time, I doubt I’ll continue participating in this race annually. It always takes a few years for a new race to work out all of the problems, even at Disney. Also, I typically do much better racing in cool mornings than warm, humid evenings. Next stops for me: Chickamauga Half Marathon in November and back to Disney for marathon weekend in January!
After visiting the Georgia Aquarium yesterday, we ate a quick lunch at CNN Center and headed to the World of Coca-Cola. For me, visiting the “coke museum” is like a recovering alcoholic visting a bar. Again, we had visited before, but the free tickets were good enough reason to return. Again, here are some photos:
When we returned from our vacations, I found that our vegetable garden had become the world’s largest ant mound and weed factory. Aside from all of that, the garden continues to do well. We have picked lots of peppers of various varieties, quite a few tomatoes, and our pumpkin continues to mature. Here are a few pictures.
Peppers
Tomatoes
Pumpkin
Bell Peppers
Freshly picked peppers
Here are some updated photos from my vegetable garden! I have tomatoes, peppers, and a really fast growing pumpkin (that looks like a watermelon).
This has been quite the busy weekend.
Saturday, we awoke at 5:00 AM and drove to Milledgeville for another 5K. I set a new personal record and was 2nd in my age group. Former UGA quarterback David Greene (second photo in black) presented the awards.
Later that evening (after a nap interrupted by a census worker), we met up with some friends at Buckner’s Family Restaurant. It’s located at exit 201 off of I-75 behind the Pilot truck stop. They seat your group around a lazy susan and serve the amazing food family style. I highly recommend it!
This morning, we got up and headed up to Athens. My sister had her first child, Elinor Grace (don’t ask about the name), on Wednesday and we went to meet her. Afterwards, we ate at Raisin’ Canes — the best chicken finger shack ever. We discovered this place on our trip to New Orleans last year and were happy to find one in Athens.
Aside from all of that travel and fun, we have also played in the pool, went grocery shopping, and watched Avatar (which is totally not my kind of movie). The rain has now ruined our afternoon plans, so it’s a good time to catch up on a blog post.
I hope your weekend was enjoyable as well!
It’s been almost 2 months since we’ve visited Farmer Jonathan. The vegetable garden is doing well. We added tomatoes, strawberries, eggplant, and something that I can’t remember right now to the peppers and pumpkins. Again, we don’t eat any of that stuff (except the strawberries) so I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.
From the looks of things, we are going to have a LOT of peppers. As you can see, I’m also a master at growing weeds!
Yesterday, the garden produced it’s first edible item: a strawberry. I was excited. I think it is the first thing that I’ve ever grown that is consumable.
Guess who took it from me and ate it?
March is over and we didn’t eat out, except for the two exceptions noted in the original goal post: one trip to Chick-fil-A (because of the monthly calendar coupon), and free food at work. Although I can’t quantify any health benefits of the hiatus, I can certainly quantify the financial aspects.
The difference in food expenses from 2009 to 2010: $549.78
Below is a screenshot from my (now obsolete) Microsoft Money report, comparing this March with last March. You can clearly see, that in the Fast Food category, my expenditures dropped from $206.86 last year to only $19.30, which was the aforementioned Chick-fil-A transaction. My Dining Out category, which is generally any restaurant food other than fast food went from $375.15 to Zero!
I didn’t have School Lunch expenses last year, because Tristan wasn’t yet in Kindergarten. His food was built into day-care expenses for 2009. As for the Misc for the month, that $7.00 went to a snack for Mackenzie at the ballpark and purchasing a bag of boiled peanuts to support a non-profit.
It is worth noting that for three days last March, we were at Walt Disney World, so the Dining Out expenses for 2009 may be a little higher than the typical month. Even if I scratched out $50.00 due to the high cost of food at Disney, I still saved right at $500.00. Imagine if we did that every month. That would be an extra $6,000.00 in our pockets!
One thing that amazed me looking at the report was the negligible increase in Grocery expenses: only a $10.00 increase. I guess I have been the coupon king lately, but I didn’t realize that it was paying off that much! We haven’t been eating any differently. On Sunday I grilled some steaks. We’ve had fish several times this month and red meat about twice a week. I’m not sure how the Grocery costs remained the same even though we ate many more meals at home.
In a previous post, I talked about our restaurant addiction and how we are giving it up for March.
I’m happy to report that today is day #27 and we are sticking with it. We did use our Chic-fil-A mulligan on March 6 and I have been extremely creative at finding free food at work.
I failed at the no-Coke goal. I have had three so far this month: one with the Chic-fil-A meal and one after each 12K that I ran. I am happy to report that the last two didn’t even taste good.
(On a separately related goal, I have not posted a Facebook status update since February 28! That one was easy!)
I have tried to talk Kimberlie into calling this silly goal quits. It’s not like we’re doing it for lent or anything worthwhile. This morning we were at the Cherry Blossom Festival surrounded by fair-food. It was horribly tempting. Same story two weeks ago at the Forsythia Festival. But, I think the hardest times though have been the nights where Tristan has games right after work and we don’t get home until 9pm. Stopping at Zaxby’s would be so much more convenient.
This goal really was pretty silly. We are not eating healthier. We are still pressed for time when it comes to preparing meals, so unhealthy frozen foods have become a staple. Maybe that’s better than restaurant food, but probably not.
On a positive note, we have saved tons of money this month. I was more than thrilled at my credit card statement. We only have four more days. I can’t possibly screw it up this late in the game. The hardest decision . . . is where to go eat on April 1.
I decided to plant a vegetable garden this year. I’m not quite sure why. I don’t really need something else to do and I don’t eat anything that I’m planting. I guess I was just up for the challenge.
I’m attempting to grow peppers and pumpkins from seeds and tomatoes from store-bought plants.
I built this raised bed last fall to accomodate the vegetable garden. Here’s a PROTIP for you from Farmer Jonathan: When you build a food garden out of landscaping timbers, you should always let it sit for at least six months before adding your soil. This keeps the chemicals used to treat the wood from compromising your soil.
Even Farmer Kimberlie decided to get in on the action with sunflowers. We’ve planted sunflowers several times in the past and they always rock.
And we scored a nifty little rain gauge freebie this weekend at the Forsythia Festival . . . right before it rained on us!
Hopefully we will have a bounty of fresh veggies — even though we don’t eat them!
