Food Truck Sunday

Yesterday was the monthly gathering of food trucks in the town I live in.  This is only the second time it has happened, and last month I was sick in bed, so I missed it.  Therefore I was quite excited to check it out for myself!

Last month my mom and dad went and figured out how things worked, so this month they were ready to go with a table, chairs, and a cooler with drinks.  We stuck to water and soda, but there were a bunch of people with beer and wine.  I am not sure what the rules are about stuff like that, since we were in a Lowe's parking lot.  My guess is that it will not be a big deal until some kind of disturbance happens, and then it will be an issue.  But that is of course just my not so professional opinion :-)

The trucks were all set up in one roped off area, and people brought their chairs and tables into that part, and some people were sitting out in the regular part of the parking lot as well.  It was pretty much like tailgating, except there was no football game.  If I could somehow combine food trucks and Buccaneer football I would be one happy camper!

I would guess there were about 30 different trucks there - everything from cupcakes, to bbq and burgers.  The only thing I do not like is that every truck gives you a full sized meal.  Which makes it hard to sample a lot.  Mom, dad and I decided that we would just choose things that we could share, so we could try a few more things, but it was still a lot of food.  Here are just a few of the trucks!  I wanted to get pictures of all of them, but I got distracted once we started eating.  These are the ones I could see from my chair :-)

This Gastro truck calls itself the home of cheesy goodness!  They were not lying!  I have already decided what I will be eating from them next month :-)

Saigon Sizzle (or Saigon Sally as my dad calls it, no idea why, lol) has Vietnamese tacos.  They are really good, but we tried them a few months ago at the Manatee Festival, so we did not have any this time.

Chicken and Waffles seem to be the new popular combination?  So random, but it must be good I guess.  I have not yet worked up the nerve to try them out!

The Batter Bowl had all kinds of desserts!

So then it was decision time!  We started out with fried green tomatoes!  Yummy!  Although, there were some red tomatoes in there as well, which was weird, but they were just as good.  I am not sure what the sauce was.  It reminded me of the sauce you get at Outback with the Bloomin' Onion.  Whatever that is called.

After the tomatoes, we had creme brûlée from the Batter Bowl.  It was pretty good...but the dish was so deep, so the ratio of sugar topping to custard was a little off for my liking.  But it was still good!

This is a ham and grilled cheese sandwich with a side of mac n cheese.  Yep you know this is from the cheesy goodness truck!  I am not a huge ham fan, but it was good.  I love mac n cheese though!  They also have a sandwich on their menu called the Apple Harvest Grilled Cheese.  It has apples, cheddar cheese and clover honey.  I will be getting that next month for sure!  It has apples, so it will obviously be healthy :-)

This next one came from the Korean BBQ Taco Box.  It was beef and rice, with a ginger salad, chicken wing, fried cheese thing, and two unidentified objects...although I vaguely recall the menu saying something about tofu, but I cannot remember.  It was yummy!  The meat had an awesome flavor!  This was what I picked.  It was so hard for me to make a decision.  All of those trucks with so many choices were so unbelievably overwhelming!

After this, we had a monte cristo crepe which had honey ham, turkey, cheddar, lettuce and raspberry preserves.  We also had a blueberry and creme cheese crepe.  I am not sure why but I missed pictures of those!  Oops!  I think I was so busy with my Korean food.

The grand finale was this strawberry balsamic basil popsicle.  I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of weird to have basil in my popsicle, but it was surprisingly delicious.  Nice and light and fresh :-)

All in all our food truck experience was quite lovely!  I cannot even wait until next month!  Mmmmm!!

Epcot Flower & Garden Festival

Last weekend I went to the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival.  This is one of my favorite Epcot events...second to the Food & Wine Festival of course :-)  I love flowers but cannot grow them to save my life.  Honestly, I have the thumb of death!  I have tried to have so many different kinds of plants/flowers, and none of it ever lasts.  I could not even keep a bamboo stalk alive.

So here are some of my favorite pictures...I am hoping to go back at least one more time before it is over!

The orchids were actually at Animal Kingdom, but I could not pass up adding them in :-)

I love this bonsai tree so much.  I have never seen one with colored flowers on it (not that I am any kind of bonsai expert or anything, lol).

I have never seen ducklings at Epcot before! These little guys were so adorable.  There were quite a few people standing around watching them, and just as they were going through to the other side of the gate, a little girl picked one of the ducklings up.  Holy cow did that mama duck go bananas.  She pecked the snot out of that little girls legs till she put her baby down.  That little girl should not have touched it, and the little girls parents should not have let her do that, but alas, that is a blog entry for another day :-) All of the babies made it safely down to the water's edge.

I think its super fitting that Goofy looks as if he is running :-)

While I was there, I had to indulge in some yummy goodness! I walked around a decent chunk of Animal Kingdom in the morning, and then I went over to Boardwalk and walked all of that into Epcot, and walked all of Epcot about 3 times.  So I felt like it was well deserved   :-)

Fiesta margarita!! Lime, Mango, and Strawberry :-)  Delicious!

And of course, what is a trip to Disney without a Mickey bar!  While it was really nice to be able to walk around and not have to worry about whether I was going to tire my feet out for a race the next morning, I think its best for me to hang out at Epcot only when there is a lot of running involved!  There is just way too much yumminess to pass up :-)

Weekly Recap - March 18-24

I have so many things to catch up on!! But it would seriously be the longest post on the face of the planet if I tried to do them all together...I doubt even my mom would make it to the end without getting bored! So I am going to just break it all up and start with last weeks running recap.  Exciting stuff :-)

Last week was the first week that I upped my intervals to 30/40.  The first mile on the first day was kind of hard, those extra 10 seconds felt like an eternity! But by the time I finished it was not that bad at all.  Also, the circus came to town and their tent was set up right along my running path.  I am NOT a fan of the circus.  At all.  Well let me rephrase...I have no issues with the circus itself, its the clowns I have issues with.  Issues as in they freak me out! So I am pretty sure that the part of my path that was past the circus tent was most likely extra speedy.  I needed to make sure I was going to outrun any clowns that happened to be wandering around (never mind the fact that it was only 7:00 in the morning, and I am sure all of the clowns were sleeping, I was still on the lookout!). 

So here are the numbers! The first mile is always the slowest because I just walk for the first 2 or 3 minutes.  I have considered just waiting and starting my Garmin when I start my intervals, but since I have always started it in the driveway, I figure it will give me a good gauge of how I have improved since I started. 

Tuesday:
Mile 1 - 15:51
Mile 2 - 14:41
Mile 3 - 14:21
Mile .05 - 9:35
Total - 45:20 minutes, 3.05 miles, 14:53 min/mile average

Thursday:
Mile 1 - 15:06
Mile 2 - 14:22
Mile 3 - 13:50
Mile .07 - 12:16
Total - 44:07 minutes, 3.07 miles, 14:23 min/mile average
Somewhere between Tuesday and every run I have done since then, the distance went from a consistent 3.05 miles to 3.07? No clue how.  I know I am starting and stopping my Garmin at the exact same spot, so I must be making some turn differently or something.  Its just funny how it had been so consistent, and then it changed, and now it is a new consistent.  Maybe the earth is stretching :-)

Friday:
Mile 1 - 15:23
Mile 2 - 14:01
Mile 3 - 13:47
Mile .07 - 11:36
Total - 44:05 minutes, 3.07 miles, 14:19 min/mile average
I moved what would be Saturday's run to Friday because I was going to  Disney on Saturday and did not want to have to get up earlier than necessary.

All in all not a bad week!  I am going to keep these intervals for one more week, and then on Saturday I am going to do 8 miles, and make sure I can actually keep them up for longer than 3 miles.  If I can, then I will bump them I think to 40/40.  I also need to throw in one more run day sometime soon.  Once I get used to waking up earlier three times a week, I want to wake up even earlier at least one of those days and increase the 3 miles to something longer...probably 5.  It would be nice to fit one in after work, but it is just getting way too hot, and it is only going to get hotter, so I may as well get used to morning running sooner rather than later :-) 

I totally skipped yoga all week.  I need to get back into that routine ASAP!! So that is going on the must do list for next week! 

Hooray for running :-)

Victoria Park 5K

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

This morning mom and I got up and ran the Victoria Park 5K.  I ordinarily avoid small races like the plaque...I hate feeling like a snail!  But its not too bad when its just a 5K :-)

The race winds through a local neighborhood and around a lake, so while there is no castle and no princesses, it is definitely scenic!  I finished in 43:23, which came out to just under a 14 minute mile pace. Slow!! I think maybe 10 people max finished after me (I am not sure how many people were actually running...I registered there, so I have one of the higher numbers, but I seriously do not feel like there were 1200 people there...weird).  In fact, right at the finish line a lady passed me and she was wearing Crocs! She did not even have on running shoes! At least it took her the entire 3 miles to catch me :-)

But the good news is that I kept my intervals the entire race, and even added on some extra running here and there because I felt like my run time was too short.  And it was faster than my morning training runs, and faster than every other 5K I have run...so lots of good! Oh and my Garmin actually decided to work through the entire race :-)  So this makes me very excited to jump the run time up come Tuesday!

I am now free to enjoy my green beer without guilt!! Or rather I can probably guiltlessly enjoy about 4 sips it, but hey I will take it!

:-)

A Spectacular Surprise??

I opened up my April issue of Runner's World yesterday (I get the electronic version, which apparently comes much slower than the paper issues, because I have heard everyone talking about this for over a week!) and saw the most beautiful ad for the 2013 WDW Marathon!!!

Its kind of hard to read the small print...but there are 2 awesome pieces of information:
1. A "spectacular surprise" at Mile 20!!!
2. Special anniversary Mickey medal!!

I am equally excited for both of these things!  Disney medals on a regular occasion are awesome, so I cannot even begin to imagine what this one will be like.  They eventually revealed the 15th Anniversary Donald medal for the half marathon last year, so I wonder if they will show this one early or keep it top secret.  I kind of hope they keep it secret till we cross the finish line :-)

The spectacular surprise will be interesting.  I am hoping that it is either a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar (yum yum) or beer (yum yum).  However, both of these are probably unlikely.  I wonder what it will be though! It will not be anything tangible, since we will still have to carry it around for 6 more miles.  Plus, I think my definition of "spectacular" is somewhat different than Disney's...so I am thinking maybe more along the lines of a special character op? But who knows!

I cannot wait to find out!!!
:-)

My Garmin hates me!

No joke! I seriously think it purposefully dies every time I try to use it! Conspiratorial little stinker (I do not know if conspiratorial is actually a word, but I feel like it is a legit fake one at least :-) ).
In all honesty, I think there may be something wrong with the wall charger part of it.  I still think it was messed up that it died the morning of the WDW half.  I KNOW I put it on the charger before I left for Orlando...all night! And there is absolutely no way it should have been dead in like 2 days.  It was dead again on Saturday, although this time it was my fault because it has been in my running bag since coming home from Princess weekend.  Even though I knew I needed to put it on the charger on Friday night, I did not.  So on Monday I knew that I needed to charge it so that it would be ready to go on Tuesday morning.  I plugged it in to the wall, and it beeped like it recognized something had happened to it, and it showed the little charger sign for a minute, and then it just gave me the "low battery" message.  No joke the battery is low, that's why I am plugging it in to the wall!! So I tried like 5 other outlets, and still the same thing, it beeped, but no charging.  I finally decided to try it in my computer.  It plugged in and charged just fine in the computer.  I left it in for a while and then unplugged it when I went to bed.  It was not really in the charger for that long, but it at least gave it 2 bars, which I knew would get me through 3 miles.  Last night my computer was dead, and I did not feel like plugging anything in, so I went to bed and crossed my fingers that the little bit of life I gave it on Monday would hold out, but alas this morning it was dead.  Sad. 

And to make the morning even more interesting, I woke up late.  Super late.  My alarm goes off at 5:30 on running mornings.  I immediately shut this one off because I also have alarms set for 6, 6:30 and 7 (those are for the regular days).  I ignore the 5:30 one, but it gives me the 30 minute warning, and I go back to sleep until 6.  For some reason though, the 6 and 6:30 alarms were both off!  I have no idea what I was thinking when I did that!  I was probably thinking it was a good idea to get some extra sleep :-)  So today, I opened my eyes and thought that I was enjoying the longest most awesome 30 minute nap ever!  And then I decided to just look at the clock, and it was 6:38.  I should already be in the car driving at that point.  Oopsie!

In my flurry of trying to get out of the house as quickly as possible, I left my Luna bar and bottle of water on the counter.  I did of course have the dead garmin, but no breakfast.  So when I got to my mom and dad's house, I decided to just borrow mom's garmin.  I stood in the driveway for like 5 mins waiting for it to "locate satellites".  Seriously, I listened to one full song on my iPod while I waited.  It was finally ready, and I made it about a half mile and that one died as well! Its like something in my body just sucks the life out of them :-)

It was also at this point in my run that I realized I could not breathe.  I forgot about my inhaler in my mess of activity.  Big mistake!  That's probably a little melodramatic...its not like I pass out or anything, it just makes running a lot less pleasant. 

So I had a dead garmin, no breakfast, no water and no inhaler.  Awesome morning :-)  The good news is that I still managed to keep my intervals.  I did somehow manage to remember my interval timer.  So the run was a little slower than normal, but I still stuck to those intervals and I think I was only a minute or two slower than my normal run to work. 

I am running a 5K this weekend...hooray for St Patrick's Day races!! And I think come Tuesday I am going to bump up the run part of my interval.  Hopefully by Tower of Terror I can get a little bit speedier :-)

I have a problem...

and it is called "Race Day Signup Envy".

I am not even sure if that is an accurate description for it?  I get all caught up in everyone's excitement signing up for races, and it makes me want to sign up for them too.  Example 1: The Chicago Marathon.  Yes Marathon.  I have not even taken my first steps on a single 26.2 journey, and truthfully still freak out a little bit thinking about how long it is, but when a race opens, I want in on the fun.  Thankfully Chicago sold out so fast that I did not have the opportunity to do anything crazy. 

Today it is the Marine Corps Marathon.  Same thing. Watching everyone sit anxiously by their computers waiting for the 3:00 registration to open seriously made me consider I needed in on that action as well!  I may be certifiably crazy! I am guessing this one sells out just as fast as Chicago, so I will luckily miss any opportunities for foolish behavior.  Well that is not entirely true...I have been on the website, so its not like I am so busy that I just will not have time to do anything, but thankfully there is enough common sense in me that knows this is not the year for me, but that the time will come :-)

I know come April 10th when WDW Marathon registration opens I am going to have race signup envy again.  This time, not nearly as bad, because I will be registering for the full marathon...but I have to stay away from all the Disney running message boards and facebook pages because before you know it I will be signing up for Goofy (half marathon on Saturday, followed by full marathon on Sunday...Goofy right!).  I ran into the same thing last year and had a hard time not caving in!  I really want to run Goofy, but I am going to go slow and steady...just like how I race :-)  Mickey this year, and IF I live to tell about it, Goofy in 2014!  Besides, I think it is probably enough crazy for me to be registered for two marathons before ever finishing one....I mean, what if I absolutely hate it?  I have a funny feeling it will be similar to the half marathon - awesome idea until I am at mile 10, then it is the stupidest thing I have ever done, and then I cross the finish line and it is right back to being awesome...but I guess we will see!

So for now, I believe I will just have to keep mental notes of all of these races and start my Marathon Bucket List!