Mini Tour to Sarasota

We did a mini tour on Saturday afternoon from Coquina Beach to Downtown Sarasota and back. While in Sarasota we paid a visit to our favorite bike shop, Ryder Bikes, and had lunch at a local waterside tiki bar, Oleary's. We totaled approximatley 30 miles and had an absolute wonderful time. I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

Ryan unloading the bikes

Stopped for a photo.

Theresa riding up the Ringling Bridge

Bridge at the south end of Longboat Key.

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Our Little Princess

Just because she might be the cutest dog ever, I thought I'd share some recent pictures of Dottie Pottie. Enjoy!

The Masked Bandit at her finest.

Hunting lizards.

Chow time.

Chillin.

Barking up the wrong tree?

Purely Content.

Lata Betches!

Marathon Wrap-Up

Well, after 18 weeks of training, the Disney Marathon came and went faster than we ever expected.

Someone tipped us off last year about staying at the French Quarter so we were able to walk to the start which meant sleeping until 4:15am which was heavenly if you ask me! We anxiously waited (bundled up in light of temps in the 20s) until our set of fireworks and off we went past Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy who came out to cheer us on at the start line. We were pumped and were making good time due to the excitement of this being my first marathon & simply because we were at Disney World. Somewhere along the line the sun came up but it didn't bring much warmth at all - our FL bones apparently used to temperatures in the 20s & 30s.

Mile 10 brought us to the Magic Kingdom where we pranced along to some GREAT techno music while we passed Tomorrow Land, the Mad Tea Party and ran thru the Castle. Then what I call "the real fun" began...and by "the real fun" I mean "the most miserable portion of the marathon". We twisted and turned on various back roads leading to Animal Kingdom from miles 12-16 and each step seemed to suck more of the life out of me. Poor Ryan had to practically drag me down the course (he literally had to take me by the hand and lead me forward so I didn't stop moving a couple of times). I was chilled to the bone and was absolutely miserable - I didn't want to take another step. (Jeanine wasn't lying when she told me everything in my body would eventually tell me to "STOP MOVING!".) Admittedly I got pretty darn bitchy at this point & basically took it out on Ryan (sorry babe). I don't even remember going thru Animal Kingdom.

Once we hit mile 20 near Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM) I started to perk up a little - the end was in sight! By now though Ryan was starting to hit the wall - but bless his heart, he didn't get nearly as bitchy as I did! Although I felt like we were really draggin, we kept passing people along the course and managed to pick up our pace a bit once we hit Epcot and the World Showcase (I could practically taste the beer as we passed Germany!). Once we were back at

Spaceship Earth with only .25 miles remaining we picked back up to a pretty good jog and crossed the finish line with smiles on our faces! We collected our mylars (a godsend if you ask me) and our finishers medals and posed for our "official pictures". Then we trudged to the waiting bus, pulled ourselves inside and patiently rode back to the French Quarter for showers and WARMTH!

We all accomplished the goals we set out to attain for the weekend - Jeanine, Mom, Tammy, Leah and Ryan completed Goofy and earned their special 5th Anniversary Medal and I successfully completed the Marathon and the 5k. We celebrated with our customary champagne toast and then some "park hopping". Fun was had by all!

As we all continue to recover from the weekend's festivities, the temperatures in FL continue to rise and we're all starting to plan our "big events" for 2010. Thanks again for all of the support and encouragement!

Check out all of the pictures here

Marathon Weekend Update

Well here we are on Saturday morning & everything has gone off without a hitch (aside from the freezing rain anyway!).

Theresa had a successful 5k on Friday morning completing the Up & Away 5k at Epcot Center.

Tammy and Leah made it into Orlando on Friday afternoon followed by Margaret & Jeanine who landed safely at Orlando International only a few hours late. Everyone visited the Health & Fitness Expo to stock up on various goodies and collect our race numbers, timing chips and commemorative shirts.

Saturday started EARLY at 2:45 am for Ryan, Tammy, Leah, Margaret and Jeanine so they could head to Epcot for the Half Marathon start. After 13.1 cold, windy and rainy miles everyone came across the finish line with a smile on their face & everyone earned the coveted Donald Duck Finishers Medal. Theresa "held down the fort" at the hotel and helped everyone warm up afterwards with lots of coffee and hot chocolate.

Now for some rest & relaxation in preparation for Sunday's Full Marathon! Fingers crossed for no more nasty weather and 26.2 SAFE and FUN miles!

Marathon Weekend Here We Come

We are just about ready start our trip over to Disney World for the weekend. We've been training for this for almost a year and I think we're ready. The fun starts on Friday with Theresa's 5K run through Epcot. It continues on Saturday with Ryan and Tammy's half marathon, then finishes up on Sunday with the full marathon.

If anyone wants to track our progress in the races this weekend, you can follow the link below and fill out the info. You can use email addresses or even cell phone numbers, I guess. This way, you will know when we're high-fiving Mickey in the Magic Kindgom and hopefully not running through elephant crap in the Animal Kingdom

http://live.activeresult.com/msg/MSG-signup.tcl?event_id=3

Wish us luck!

A Random Afternoon At Busch Gardens

We are theme park junkies. Anything from Busch Gardens to The Magic Kingdom to Seaworld. We've seen them all, but that certainly doesn't stop us from going again...and again...and again. In fact, we spent last Saturday at Busch Gardens...again. I guess that's yet another perk of living in central Florida. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

us in front of the christmas tree

ryan in his natural surroundings

theresa posing in front of the park

an interesting bird

an awesome sight

some arrangatang comming after us

a white tiger on his way to eat some small children

king of the viewing dome

birds birds birds

flamingos

theresa with one of the birds

looking at the pink flamingos from downstream

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