Out With The Old, In With The New Balance

It's been a few weeks since our last post mostly because we finished our most recent half marathon and we took some time off from working out.  But, now we're trying to get back into running and the first step for me was new shoes. During our last 2 half marathons, I noticed that during the longer runs I was experiencing some pain right in the arch of my right foot. I have been running in some very supportive Brooks shoes that work well for flat footed people like me but they were not allowing my foot to move very much. So, I visited our local running store, Top to Top, and the Shoe Doctor there recommended the New Balance M1260.

Back To The Farmers' Market

I think we have officially found our new favorite farmers' market -- the Mar Vista Farmers' Market! We visited for the first time this past weekend and as you can see from the photo below, we did quite well:

We made it home with red beets, kale, arugula, spinach, peaches, plums, tomatoes, corn, carrots, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and figs.  We're putting our Williams-Sonoma Cooking From The Farmers' Market cookbook to good use too! As we were unpacking our bounty, I found a small stowaway hiding in the kale...

Disneyland Half Marathon 2011 - Part 2

Clayton and I had an amazing weekend at the Disneyland Half Marathon (our third half marathon). Our time was just under 1:55:00, 3 minutes better than half marathon #2 (Santa Barbara Wine Country), and 10 minutes better than our first half marathon, which was the Disney half last year!! Honestly it didn’t even feel like we were pushing ourselves harder than the other races. I think it’s because we both made a deliberate choice during our training to up our speed on the treadmill between long weekend runs and had gotten accustomed to a faster pace.

One of our favorite parts of the Disneyland race is the first aid after you finish. They wrap ice packs around your knees with saran wrap and it’s amazing. Even if your knees don’t hurt initially it helps with any pain that might come later. You keep them on for about 10-15 minutes while you walk around a little oddly! No such treatment at the SB half.  They changed up the route as well which we didn’t expect, but is nice considering all the people like us who repeat the race. I definitely see this as being a yearly event for us! You can see the actual pictures provided by Brightroom for me by clicking here and for Clayton by clicking here.

Disneyland Half Marathon 2011

What an amazing weekend! We are back from Anaheim and we've finished our 3rd half marathon. We drove down to Anaheim on Saturday to pick up our race bibs and look around at the Disneyland Health & Fitness Expo. After that, we checked in at our usual Anaheim hotel, the Ramada Maingate. It isn't the fanciest hotel but it is a perfect location and the staff there is phenomenal. The only drawback to staying that close to Disneyland are the 9:30pm fireworks that sound like gunshots in your room. Next year we're brining ear plugs.

On Sunday morning we woke up at 4am to give us time to wake up and make it to the start line by 5:15am. We were in Corral A this year so we actually started the race just over a minute after the official start. The course takes you through Disneyland, California Adventure and through Anaheim including running on the field at Angel Stadium. We crossed the finish line with a new personal best half marathon time of 1:54:53 -- more than 3 minutes better than our previous best and more than 10 minutes better than the 2010 Disneyland Half Marathon!

Right after we crossed the finish line.