When fellow blogger Meghan from Travel, Eat, Love emailed me about this next race, I just knew I had to share it with you. If you live in New Jersey and are looking for a June race, definitely keep reading!

From Meghan:

Last summer, a family friend lost her younger brother and her mother just a few days apart. To honor them, she formed a foundation in their memory and has been working to give back to the community in their names via the Christopher and Susan Phillips Foundation. Events such as the Phillips 5k/10k trail run and walk help to raise funds that directly go to the charity to help out its various causes.

About the Phillips 5k/10

The 2nd annual Phillips 5k/10k trail run and walk will take place on June 9, 2013 at the Lewis Morris Park in Morristown, NJ. 100% of the race proceeds will benefit the Christopher and Susan Phillips Foundation, which helps support scholarships for graduating Jonathan Dayton High School students.  This USA Track and Field Sanctioned event will begin next to Sunrise Lake and runs through the park.

If you are interested in running, definitely let me know! I would love to do it too! And please do not hesitate to spread the word about this wonderful foundation!

What started as my quest to eat a little healthier has turned into a bit of a detox. I thought I would share my journey on here to stay accountable and help anyone else who is looking to clean up their diet. I am not being super strict with it and don’t have a timeframe, just seeing how my body reacts and going from there.

Here is how it is going so far!

Breakfast
*hot water w/ lemon & pinch of cayenne pepper
*1 apple w/ fresh ground peanut butter & cinnamon
*1 banana w/ fresh ground peanut butter & cinnamon
*pomegranate green tea

Mid-Morning Snack
*Yogi Women’s Energy Tea

Lunch
*Stuffed Flounder
*Roasted veggies: asparagus, broccoli & cauliflower

Afternoon Snack
*Green Tea
*Black bean tortilla chips & guacamole
*Sunset Cocktail: See recipe below!

Dinner
*Lemon Chicken (Breaded)
*Quinoa, lentil salad (w/ sun dried tomatoes, goat cheese and spinach)
*Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Evening
*Honey Lemon Chamomile Tea

Sunset Cocktail via The Bombshell Diet
*1 Beet
*1 Orange
*3 Carrots
*1 Apple

This is one of the best juices I have ever made! I will definitely be making this one again! I also ran 5 miles today and so far am feeling great, even without the coffee!

*Have you ever done a detox before? Would you consider doing one?
This is my first one!
**What races do you have on the schedule for this year?
I will be doing a post on this answer soon!

Today is back to work for me, which while unfortunately means less sleep, also means back to my healthy living routine. Less Christmas cookies, more salads.

As a part of my New Year’s Resolution to eat more vegetables and less meat, I also resolved to juice more. I have been collecting juice and smoothie recipes as well as creating my own. Today I made my own version of a green lemonade.

Green Lemonade
*1/2 Lemon
*1  Granny Smith Apple
*1 inch Ginger
*1 Handful Spinach
*1 Handful Mixed Greens

I will warn you, this juice does not appear to be very appealing but is in fact quite refreshing! I forgot to snap a pic- next time!

Health Benefits

Lemon
Fights infection, lowers blood pressure, aids in disease prevention, lowers risk of various cancers, improves complexion, aids in digestion and purifies the liver, prevents colds and urinary track infections, relieves gastric distress.

Ginger
Plays a role in cancer treatment and prevention. Reduces pain and inflammation. Provides heartburn, migraine and  menstrual cramp relief. Prevents diabetes, colds & the flu and has been proven to relieve nausea due to morning sickness.

Spinach
Anti-cancer and anti-inflamatory properties. Full of anti-oxidants such as vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, manganese, zinc and selenium which fight high blood pressure and osteoporosis. Improves vision, complexion, fights infection, strengthens bones and strengthens the nervous system.

Apple
Protects against diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, various cancers, diabetes, reduce cholesterol, strengthens heart, relieves gastric distress, detoxifies the liver and boosts the immune system.

Mixed Greens
Contain vitamins A and C, as well as calcium, iron which can reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure & diabetes. Strengthens the immune system and keeps the skin and eyes healthy.

I’ll be back tomorrow with another delicious juice recipe!

*Will you try it?
Do it!

Happy New Year!

I mentioned in my last post that I just finished reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. Have you read it? If you are looking for a new book to read, I would definitely recommend checking it out. In it she plans out her happiness project for the year, identifying different resolutions for each month. One thing that really stood out to me (and maybe you guys already know this but I never really thought about the difference before…) is the difference between goals and resolutions.

She explains: A goal is something that can be accomplished, i.e., I will run a marathon. A resolution is something that is ongoing, i.e., I will eat vegetables with every meal.

With that being said. Here are some of my goals & resolutions for 2013.

*Goals for 2013*

*PR in the NJ Marathon
Scheduled for May. We are already registered. Anyone else running the full or the half?
*Choose and run a fall marathon.
Suggestions???
*Take on a few hours of tutoring to make more $$
See saving resolution below!
*Write and submit more health/fitness articles.
A new website I am targeting is Mind, Body, Green. Have you read it? It’s fabulous. I would like to get 5 health/fitness articles published there.
*Submit an article to Runner’s World.
Even if it gets rejected, I have to start trying.
*Maintain/renew personal trainer & group fitness cert. Take on some more clients.
Last year I had a few client inquiries that I turned down because of the craziness of the year. I would like to take on a few clients this year.
*Increase etsy shop sales/revenue x10.
I can’t believe I just wrote that but I think we can do it! If you know anyone getting married, send them my way! We made 50 sales in just 4 months. I want to make 500 this year. Go big or go home, right : )

*Resolutions for 2013*

*Buy whatever I want at the grocery store (within reason).
Eating out is always more expensive than cooking at home. <—-stolen from The Happiness Project. Why didn’t I think of that?!
*Juice 3 times per week.
A new health food store opened up in our neighborhood and I have been buying expensive juices. Then I realized I could make my own at home so I took their juice menu and have been making their recipes at home! Much cheaper and I make more juice.
*Save $$ to buy a house.
You can never be done saving!
*Get to the gym at least 2 times per week (ideally 3).
Add in yoga to offset high impact faves like jump & pump. Calves. Still. Ache. Ouch.
*Eat more veggies, less meat.
Which equals more alkaline, less acid. I have a huge acid problem. Reading a book about it now. Will share!
*Organize finances.
Somehow I have a feeling this is going to be a never ending task…
*Blog here 3-4 times per week.
Minimum! You guys help me to stay accountable and I’ve missed you.

*Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Share one with me!

And, just in case you want to make resolutions but don’t know where to start…I pinned this earlier today! Enjoy!

Hello and Happy New Year’s Eve!

2012 was a fantastic, albeit crazy year. I hate that there are so many things left un-updated on here, so I thought it might be fun to do a little recap post. I recently read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin,(a great book! You should definitely read it!) inspiring me to write LOTS of New Year’s Resolutions, some of which I will share with you next week. One of my 2013 resolutions is to blog more here, so I hope you will keep me to that promise!

Some of my 2012 highlights included…

*Moving out of our home of 3 years
*Turning 28
*Celebrating our 6 year “dating” anniversary.
*My Bridal Shower!
*Our Wedding <3
*Our honeymoon to Hawaii –> I still owe you a post for this one!
*Training for the Atlantic City Marathon with my Dad.
*Blue-Eyed Dad starts a blog!
*Running the Atlantic City Marathon with my Dad.
*Opening an Etsy Shop.
*Completing my special education certificate. – This was an old resolution I finally accomplished!

2012 Resolution Check In

I’ll admit I didn’t do as well with some of my resolutions this years as I would have liked. For example, I didn’t achieve any of my running goals. I did, however, make some major progress with some of my professional goals. Plus, I planned and executed the wedding and honeymoon of my dreams. Those memories will last a lifetime and there is plenty of time to “get certified in another specialty” or “break my marathon PR.”

{Running}
Break 1:30 in the half marathon. Not Achieved.
Break 19 minutes in the 5K. Not Achieved.
Break 40 minutes in the 10k. Not Achieved.
PR in the marathon. Not Achieved.

{Professional}
Build East Coast Bride. Achieved! We recently celebrated our one year anniversary and expanded from wedding blog to blog + boutique with the exciting launch of our etsy shop!
Expand writing career. We will call this one achieved! I blogged about our wedding planning on Engaged & Inspired, built East Coast Bride and recently accepted a paying gig as a regular contributor to DIY Bride.
Get published in a major publication. Not {yet} Achieved.

{Fitness}
Build my bootcamp/fitness career. Totally failed on this one. Oops.
Get certified in one more specialty (TRX, SPIN, etc.) Not {yet} Achieved
Tone Arms for Wedding! Achieved!

{Hopes & Dreams}
Wedding Day- YES!
Hawaiian Honeymoon – It was AMAZING!

*How did you do on your resolutions this year? Do you make resolutions? My resolution post will follow!
**Will you be making 2013 resolutions? Share one with me!

Today is Blue-Eyed Dad‘s Birthday! Please leave him some birthday love!

Unfortunately, we ran a race last weekend and he got hurt so I’m not sure how long of a birthday run we will get to do today but we are going to try. Send get better vibes his way as well!

I have been waiting for the perfect time to share these pictures and I can’t think of a better day than today! The church that Dan and I got married it happened to be around the corner from the store front of the running club that my dad and I run for, Sneaker Factory. I knew I wanted to take pictures with my dad in front of the store, so the morning of the wedding we packed our sneakers and stole a few minutes with our photographer, Cassi. I wore the sneakers Dan proposed on and my Dad surprised me with a number 1 race bib.

Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Dad, I hope you have a fantastic birthday. Thank you for being my running partner and motivator. You are the best dad a girl could ask for!

Hello and happy election day! Are you voting today? Today is my first day back at work and class since Hurricane Sandy. I have a feeling its going to be a busy one! I thought I would share this feature with you guys since I stopped posting wedding photos! Our wedding is featured on the blog Wedding Chicks today! They didn’t share the running shots we took…I’ll share those here this week but if you want a sneak peek, make sure you check out the gallery for more photos. If you like any details you see, also check out my etsy shop as I am selling most of the items I made for the wedding. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Atlantic City Marathon
October 21, 2012

*Official Results*

*Garmin Results*

*Garmin Splits*

*Course Map*

*Race Report*

My dad and I registered for the Atlantic City Marathon before my July wedding. He began training a week or two before the wedding, but I didn’t not begin training for the marathon until after my two week honeymoon in Hawaii. When I got back from Hawaii, I had 12 weeks to train for the marathon. You can read the few Atlantic City Marathon training posts I wrote here.

We arrived in AC on Saturday afternoon for the Sunday race, checked into our hotel and headed to the expo. The expo was extremely small and not very impressive. I definitely thought there would be more to do there, but apparently the marathon was not a very big deal for Atlantic City. We picked up our bibs and shirts and walked on the boardwalk for awhile.

The night before the race we had a pizza party with my cousins, aunt & uncle at their house a few miles out. We ate lots of pizza then headed back to the hotel nice and early to rest up. I feel asleep around ten o’clock and woke up before my 5:30am alarm.

After quickly getting ready, I went next door to my parents room for breakfast and coffee. We snapped a few getting ready pictures there as well.

Marathon #5

After the photo shoot I went back to my room to finish packing my bag and put on my garmin. As I was putting on my watch it snapped right in my hands! Luckily it was only the band and the watch itself still worked. I ended up carrying my watch in my hand the entire race. I still need to get that fixed. Any suggestions?

Dan and my mom dropped us off at the casino and my dad and I hung around inside to stay warm until shortly before the start when we decided to head to the starting line.

I didn’t realize that the half marathon was more popular than the full. Approximately 4000 people were running the half and only about 900 people ran the entire marathon. Both races began together, but we knew that when the half marathoners turned around that the roads would likely be quiet. We were both happy we decided to run together. It would have been tough to be out there on our own as there were not many spectators either.

Before we knew it it was time to go! We were pretty close to the front of the pack and luckily the start was not very crowded.

The course was obviously very flat with the first few miles weaving in and out of the casinos and then back to the boardwalk by mile 9 where we saw my  mom, Dan, my uncle and Grandma.

Do you see my makeshift watch?! We were on the boardwalk for the next 7 miles then we looped through some residential neighborhoods until heading back to the boardwalk going north.

My plan for the race was to run with my dad and his goal was to ultimately qualify for the Boston Marathon with a BQ of 3:30. My job was to keep us on target for an 8 min/mile pace. As you can see from my garmin splits, we stayed on target until mile 10. Then it got a bit windy so we decided to maintain our effort and hoped to make up for the speed when the wind was at our backs. We stayed in the game until about mile 18 when we needed to slow down. At this point I was the 9th overall female in the race.

Blue-Eyed Dad got tired and slowed down a lot from there as the sun came out and the temperature rose into the 60s. We adjusted our goal and set out to enjoy the rest of the race. I tried to push as much as I could to keep the pace but he wasn’t having any of it : )

Fortunately, this is the first race I decided to run with my iphone. I thought it would be fun to document how we were feeling at various points of the race.

I also took a few videos but Blue-Eyed Dad wasn’t so happy about that : )

Soon, we made it back to the boardwalk and could see the casinos again. We were so close to the finish. I kept counting down the distance we had left and tried to be a positive cheerleader as we neared the finish.

Finally, we were there! Within a minute of last year’s NYC Marathon time.

*Race Photos*

Be sure to read Blue-Eyed Dad’s race report here.

Thank you for all your love, prayers and comments! I don’t know what you did, but I think it worked! We got power back on Thursday along with cable and Internet. Even better- so did my parents! We are so grateful and lucky to be relaxing in our WARM apartment. The temperature was down to 57 degrees- indoors, and the outdoor temps dipped into the 30s the night we got power back so we are really very lucky. After the state and power companies predicting weeks of power outages, we are surprised and thrilled to be back up and running so early!

Here are some pics of the damage in our area.

And I assure you this is not even close to as bad as a lot of people have it. We live no where near the water but I large portion of the Jersey Shore is completely destroyed. We are so lucky to not have suffered any serious damage and to only be out of power for 3 days. Many people (millions) are still without power.

I am working on the Atlantic City Marathon race report. Hope to have it up tomorrow!

Hello!

Just checking in to say that I have not forgotten about the Atlantic city marathon race report. NJ got hit by hurricane Sandy and 80% of the state is currently without power, yours truly included! Fortunately we are all safe, albeit pretty cold work has been cancelled all week and the power companies are saying restoration could take anywhere between 5-15 days!

I am blogging from my iPhone so feel free to leave some love. Good luck to everyone running NyC this weekend. They are saying the race is still on! Safe travels and can’t wait to read those race reports!