Hanging up my running shoes-Update on ZellyB

[disneydaydreamer33]

Glad to see a post from you! Congratulations on your family races! Even just doing the bare minimum is still doing- sometimes that's all we can ask for. I'm sure you'll get that drive back! Have an AMAZING time on your WDW trip! Can't wait to read a report!

 

[ZellyB]

How exciting that you are heading to WDW so soon! I feel you on the motivation front. I love when the warm weather and longer days come around, but I also can feel my motivation waning.

I can't wait for the trip!!! Dog days of summer always make it hard, but my motivation has been lacking for some time. Hopefully all of us shake out of it soon.

I was starting to wonder where you were - glad you're back!! Super cute pic of your fam in matching shirts. Yay for WDW trips. Don't be a stranger!

Thanks! I love the picture of all of us. We were in front of my BIL's house and he was like, "Hero poses, NOW!"

Glad to see a post from you! Congratulations on your family races! Even just doing the bare minimum is still doing- sometimes that's all we can ask for. I'm sure you'll get that drive back! Have an AMAZING time on your WDW trip! Can't wait to read a report!

Thank you. I do keep telling myself not to get too down. I am still getting out there at least.

 

[rteetz]

Glad to "see" you posting! Definitely now the feeling of bare minimum training. You'll be fine though! Hoping to maybe run into you guys at WDW coming up here if not I am sure we will meet up at Wine and Dine. Definitely am with you in less planning there. I have my AP and a hotel but no flights and what not. Only thing I do want to get done is checking out Star Wars of course.

 

[ZellyB]

HEY!!!! Remember me? I'm still alive and still training (although poorly) but that's a story for a different post. It's been crazy busy around here this summer so I haven't been reading or posting much but making plans for our Wine and Dine trip (more on that later) got me wanting to get back on here again and what better way to do that than a trip report from our summer trip!!

Follow along if you'd like!!

WDW Summer Extravaganza!

 

[ZellyB]

SHORT AND PATHETIC TRAINING UPDATE


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Excuse me while I whine a bit. It's been a really tough training session for me. I've had about zero motivation to run (and honestly that goes back to the Chicago marathon) and it's been just sheer force of will and the looming Wine and Dine races that have kept me going.

We own a rental house that we decided to sell and so a few weeks ago we started doing a lot of work on it to get it ready. In the course of doing a lot of painting I managed to strain my back and get a lovely case of sciatica along with it. So, I've barely run in the last three weeks. I did run a little over a week ago with Sophie at a very easy pace for 4 miles (her longest run!) as I'm also panicking about having the girls ready for their races, although getting Sophie to 4 (she's running the 10K) was an accomplishmment. Paige has run 8 at a pretty fast pace and is pretty athletic in general, so hopefully I can push her these last 6 weeks and have her ready as well for the challenge. Anyway, in doing that 4 mile run, I managed to undo any of the progress my back had made, so now I'm back to no running again. It's mildly improved, but still painful and I'm eating anti-inflammatories like Pez. I got a massage which helped some and I'm going to add back in some gentle yoga stretches this week as I'm seeing slight improvement. Anyway, I mostly wanted to just vent a bit here and share my frustration and worry about the races. Sigh. It's my own fault for neglecting my core/yoga work for so long, but my self-recrimination isn't making my back better either. Hope I shake out of it soon. I think it's also why I'm just not finding much desire to post much on the boards.

In at least some good news, I spent much of yesterday looking for outfits for the Halloween party and found some cute stuff to do some Disney bounding as Pooh and friends, so that was fun at least. I am looking forward to the trip though and hope I get to see some Dis folks there as well.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Hang in there and hope you feel better soon!

 

[rteetz]

Completely understand the motivation aspect as I think all of us as runners have been there.

I hope you feel better soon and are back in action just like before! Can’t wait for wine and dine!

 

[Princess KP]

Hope you feel better soon!
You guys are going to be so cute as Pooh and friends. Hope to see you at W&D!

 

[SarahDisney]

Yikes! Sorry to hear that you've been having back problems. I hope some rest, relaxation, and taking care of yourself helps and you can be back to running soon.

But yay for Sophie and Paige getting some training in! That 4 mile mark is a big step on the way to the 10K - hopefully Sophie can get to a good place to be race ready by November!

 

[Jules76126]

Sounds like a rough couple of weeks. I hope you are feeling better soon. Hopefully your mojo will return. You ideas for the Halloween party sound really cute. I love pooh and friends.

 

[ZellyB]

Hang in there and hope you feel better soon!

Completely understand the motivation aspect as I think all of us as runners have been there.

I hope you feel better soon and are back in action just like before! Can’t wait for wine and dine!

Hope you feel better soon!
You guys are going to be so cute as Pooh and friends. Hope to see you at W&D!

Yikes! Sorry to hear that you've been having back problems. I hope some rest, relaxation, and taking care of yourself helps and you can be back to running soon.

But yay for Sophie and Paige getting some training in! That 4 mile mark is a big step on the way to the 10K - hopefully Sophie can get to a good place to be race ready by November!

Sounds like a rough couple of weeks. I hope you are feeling better soon. Hopefully your mojo will return. You ideas for the Halloween party sound really cute. I love pooh and friends.

Thanks, everyone for indulging my pity party. Back is still cranky although doing better. Enough so that I tried to do a short run today. Too soon. I ran about a mile and a half, but it was causing me some back and leg pain, so thought it was better to stop. I need to be patient and do some back rehab. I'm not good at either of those things.

We did get some of our Disney bounding stuff that I bought this weekend and that was fun! Looking forward to our first Halloween party!!

 

[disneydaydreamer33]

I'm so sorry about your back Injuries just plain suck. Good luck rehabbing. I'm sure your trip will still be fantastic- Disney bounding as Pooh and friends sounds like so much fun!

 

[ZellyB]

Back from a lovely Wine & Dine weekend with Chris and my girls, Paige and Sophie. We had a great trip and it was amazing to get to finally do some runDisney races with my girls. I don't think I want to do a separate trip report (shoot, I never even finished my summer one), but I'll do a small embedded one within this journal I think. Mostly because I'm so proud of my girls and we got some amazing pictures that I want to share with my Dis peeps. I'll try to get to it over the next few days, but I'll start by sharing this one which is my absolute favorite of the weekend.

 

[roxymama]

Really hope this can be my family one day!

Glad @Chris-Mo knew to let his girls be in front...but probably y'all were beating him

 

[DopeyBadger]

That picture is truly what dreams are made of. Congrats to you all!

 

[ZellyB]

Wine & Dine Here We Come
In the interest of actually doing this mini trip/race report, I'm going to get this party started sooner rather than later in the hopes I finish it.

We were headed out from our hometown in the afternoon on Halloween. We got to the airport and just as we arrived, I got a notification that our flight was delayed. Uh Oh. We had a connection to make in Atlanta and that delay had me worried. If we didn't make that connection we'd be spending the night in Atlanta and I did NOT want to do that. We opted to go ahead and check all our bags so we weren't waiting on gate check (small jet) and that choice combined with a brief training run through the Atlanta airport secured us our seats on our plane with just a few minutes to spare. PHEW!!
Happy to make it to MCO




For this trip, we splurged with a stay at the Grand Floridian. I got a decent AP discount rate and it was a shorter trip, so YOLO, there you go. These shots are from the next morning as it was late when we arrived.


We had booked a standard room, so I'm guessing we got an upgrade since we had a lovely lake view. We were in one of those dormer balcony rooms in the Conch Key building. Very near the boat launch but a bit of a walk to the main building. Still we liked it. It was a very nice room and we enjoyed the resort overall, but in general I wouldn't probably pick this resort again. Not our vibe.

We crashed into bed and far too soon, woke up to beeping alarms for the day ahead. (A theme for any race weekend, of course). First up was a trip to Hollywood Studios. We are not necessarily big Star Wars fans and none of us were that interested in riding Smuggler's Run, but we did want to see the land. The girls did a quick ride on RnR and then we all rode Tower of Terror before heading into Galaxy's Edge. I'd gotten a reservation for Oga's Cantina, and we had a little time to explore. We walked over and we all did comment on how well we thought they managed the transition from Toy Story land into GE. The walk across with the change in scenery and especially the sounds and music really helped you feel more immersed once inside. We mostly just wandered around and looked at things. The area is very well done.



Soon it was time for our reservation at the Cantina. We got lucky and actually got a seat in a big booth. You have to share the booth with other parties, but that was fine. We all opted for different choices so we could try as much as possible.



I don't recall the names of any of these. They were fine, but all WAY too sweet. The one on the far right (which had dry ice in the bottom to make bubbles) was the best of the lot I thought. Sophie ordered the jello thingy. Also way too sweet. Still the atmosphere was fun, cool and festive. After soaking up the atmosphere for a bit, we got up and walked around and took our obligatory picture of DJ Rex

before heading out. We had an expo to get to after all!!

​

 

[ZellyB]

Expo and Party Time!
We had debated how best to get to the expo from Hollywood Studios and after some thought, we decided to combine one of our other must-dos for the trip with our transport to the expo...

Skyliner!! Even with the lengthy incident that happened a few weeks ago, I was really excited to try this out and it didn't disappoint. Our plan was to ride it over to Caribbean Beach and then catch an expo bus from there. We basically walked right on to a gondola. They are so cute!


We did share with another couple but who cares.



The ride was very comfortable and breezy with pretty views. We thought it was great.
Once we arrived at CBR, though we didn't realize how far the walk was nor how spread out the resort is! We wandered a bit before stumbling upon the pick up place for the expo. A bus arrived within minutes though and we were off!
We looked around some at the merchandise and Paige bought the women's challenge I did it shirt, but that was really all we bought. The line to check out was kinda crazy


Eventually we got checked out and then walked out to see this cute fellow meeting...


it was a long wait, but we figured easier to do it here than after the races. I love him in that outfit. We grabbed a snack and then walked over to the expo and got our shirts and looked at some merchandise. Also checked out the marathon weekend medals. Gave me some FOMO for skipping marathon weekend in 2020. Sigh. Anyway, with that out of the way, we walked back out to catch a bus back to Grand Floridian.. It was a beautiful day and the temps were PERFECTION!!!


Once back at the hotel, we grabbed a late lunch/early dinner and then headed to our room to get ready to head over for the last Halloween party of the season. Yes, it was now November 1, but we were still excited to experience our first Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party.

We didn't want to do full-on costumes so decided for a little Disney Bounding kind of action instead. We all love Pooh and Friends and so opted to each take on a character for the party. It was a quick change before we jumped back in the elevator to ride the monorail over to MK


Paige had decided to really embody the Eeyore mindset on this trip. Actually she was doing this whole Instagram post thing about being at the happiest place on earth with all deadpan expressions. Ah, teenagers.

Anyway, soon enough we were arriving at the MK still decked out in all her Halloween glory!


Within moments we were inside with candy sacks in hand and ready to begin our evening.
​

 

[TeeterTots]

Looks like a great family trip!!!

 

[rteetz]

Awesome view! Glad you got a chance to stay at GF. I’d like to stay there someday but probably wouldn’t be my favorite just like you.

 

[ZellyB]

Looks like a great family trip!!!

It was. We always have the best trips with the kids there. Part of what keeps us coming back!

Awesome view! Glad you got a chance to stay at GF. I’d like to stay there someday but probably wouldn’t be my favorite just like you.

Yeah, I mean it was beautiful. The lobby in particular was gorgeous and spotlessly clean. But, it all just felt very formal and that's just not the way I want to feel at Disney. I felt a bit like a poser the whole time. LOL