Dopey Challenge Training – Week 10: Virtual Mayhem

 

This week was so busy I can hardly put my thoughts on paper much less on the internet. I’ve had the misfortune of being a victim of porch pirates this week, normally they don’t come out until closer to Christmas. I’ve had three packages stolen off my front porch, with the most recent my order of holiday flavored Joffrey’s ground coffee. It’s for this very reason I have a PO Box where I get most of my mail, however Joffrey’s does not mail to PO Box’s. Luckily when I contacted them, they immediately sent out a replacement order – THANK YOU JOFFREY’S!! As you can see I immediately dug into a bag and brewed a cup of “Apple-y ever after”. I’m saving the ‘Happy Harvest” for Thanksgiving morning, but the pumpkin will be open sooner than later!!!!

 

This final theft of my holiday yumminess, prompted me to add to my existing home security system. I already have Arlo cameras inside my house and being extremely pleased with them, I installed a camera to monitor my front porch and surrounding yard. I also subscribed to their online service for just $10 a month. The extra $$ is worth my peace of mind. You don’t need an expensive security system to protect yourself – Arlo is super affordable and took very little effort to get up and running. If I can do it so can you!

  

I been reading on Facebook everyone were starting  to receive the Disney Virtual Lion King medals and mine finally arrived. Thanks to my Arlo, no one stole them.

 

 

I was so excited on how my homemade lion king running costume turned out, but sadly I never got to wear it. 

 

 

Between the triple digit temperatures and smoky air quality I never ran the three dedicated runs I had planned for these virtual races. I do feel I deserved them since I ran 30 5K’s in 30 days during the “Close your rings” Challenge I did in June. I put in the miles to earn they gorgeous medals, just didn’t dedicate any particular run to each of them. I must say I’m super impressed with the packaging this year, except the medals were really hard to get out of the box. I think that was all me!

 

I added an additional 3 miles to my training plan this week with the long overdue Virtual Margarite 5K. I had been planning this with my friends for months, but weather, smoke and busy scheduled had postponed this run more times than I can count. 

 

I have to say I have the best friends in the world. 

 

 

The day of the race, which was supposed to be in the mid-70’s ended up closer to 90 degrees. And to make matters even worse there was a brush fire not more than half a mile from the “aid station” they were attending for me. The wind started up and the smoke filled the air as well as my lungs.  I actually ran right by the fire, through all the firemen. Who by the way, said I looked very refreshing. Did I mention, I ran the entire race in a Margarita costume, completed with a lime wedge headband, which by the way kept falling off because of the windy conditions. 

 

 

After the race we were hot and thirsty. So what better way to celebrate the end of a Margarita run then with MARGARITAS!

 

 

The week ended with my long run, 11 miles on the plan and as I walked out the front door, I was not sure there was 11 miles left in me. Surprising enough the three margaritas the previous day did not slow me down too much. I did change my intervals to 3 run/1 walk and this helped keep my energy level up as did the lower temperatures. When I hit mile 8, I realized I was actually going to complete the entire 11 miles today!

 

Recipe this week is from the Disney’s Simple Family Cookbook – Summer Ratatouille Salad and Miguel’s Favourite Empanada. 

 

The title states “simple” so why was this weeks recipes so hard for me. I couldn’t get the pie dough to keep from ripping, not sure if it was because there was too much meat or if the meat should have cooled before dumping it on the dough. Regardless, I’m glad there were two dough rounds or this would have been a catastrophe. Then there is the issue of me not paying attention to the directions and noticing the oven temperature was NOT in Fahrenheit so when it said 200 degrees with a “C”, that doesn’t mean set your oven at 200 degrees. The recipe also used metric measurements. It’s a wonder we had dinner at all that night. The Ratatouille salad was very delicious, however more salt could have been added, but that is my own personal preference. Despite the major mishaps in preparing the empanadas, they were most flavorful and the crust was nice and flaky.

 

 

Here is how the recipe should look.......

And this is my version, may not look like as pretty.... but it was very tasty.

Week 10 was a long and busy week, to watch all the Mayhem on my YouTube Channel, Click here!

Dopey Challenge Training - Week 9: I Wanna be Royal

The week began with Washington State’s third round of mask mandates. I’m actually okay with this, except for the ornery emails and phone calls from members who do not want to comply. I am a Membership Director at a private social & health Club, so yeah there’s that. You can imagine how the last year and a half has been. Enough said…. Moving on…..

I look like the masked bandit going for a run!! hahaha

 

The weather has been wonderful this week, not once did it get near the 90’s and hardly in the 80’s. Running has been so much for fun, which has helped my attitude immensely. I have been working hard to get myself organized; making lists, realistic goals and following my planner each day rather than glancing at it once a week. 

My house is still dusty as all get, but with the weather getting cooler the windows will be closed and I can finally get rid of the layer of dust particles covering every piece of furniture I own.

 

Tuesday was Princess weekend registration and I went into the morning as calming as physically possible. I refused to let myself drag every laptop and iPad I own to the office and frantically monitor each like a dog waiting for a juicy treat. And guess what?????? I got every race I wanted, 5K and Challenge. It was the most laid back, relaxing Disney race registration I have ever done!

 

My costume crisis is slowing fading into costume completion. Items are arriving and ideas are coming together nicely. 

 

One of my favorite Fall/Holiday flavors made a pleasant early arrival this year……….PUMPKIN SPICE! Over the weekend I found flavored coffee at our World Market, Pumpkin pie and waffle mix at Costco AND STARBUCKS HAS PUMPKIN SPICE. I am not at all embarrassed to say I had not one, but two pumpkin spice drinks on premier day (Tuesday). 

Could life get any better?!?!?! Well, as a matter of fact YES!

This week special medals arrived for our Wine & Dine weekend. During Disney’s Food Festival we will be participating in Around the World 1 mile challenge. This year’s medals were too amazing to pass up. As you drink or eat at a Country you insert the corresponding flag into the magnetic slot. I am way excited to complete this challenge. 

If you see me drunkenly staggering around Epcot, please help me from falling down. And if you see my passed out from a food induce coma, just drag my limp body off to the side, preferably a nice grassy spot behind Germany. At least I think this is where this picture was taken. Hard to say, as this was not my first drink that day. 

 

Thursday was National Dog Day, so I thought it fitting to take Baxter out for my second run of the week. It was actually a four mile walk, since I’m still not comfortable yet running with him now that I’m almost completely healed from our July 4^th tumble. This is the first time we’ve been out together since that holiday mishap. He was so happy to be out and about with his Human, and with the weather a bit cooler I welcomed his company. 

 

My son participating in a Sprint Relay Triathlon this weekend at Hills Resort in Priest Lake Idaho. This is the first in person race either of us has done since the pandemic started. I was there for support and photographer. Watching all the race participants having so much fun and all the excitement made me feel very antsy to get back into the racing game. Their team came in 11^th and let’s just stop right here….. the Mom in me has to take a moment for some major bragging. My son came in first overall for all participates in the relay triathlon. I’ve said it so many times for so many different reasons, but here I go again………. I am so PROUD of him!!!!!! What a great way to end the training week.

 

Recipe this week is from the Disney Villains Cookbook – Huntsman Pie

Why is it every recipe from this Villains cookbook has 47 steps and takes hours and hours and hour make? We renamed this dish the “All meat, meat Pie” because it was so filling and meat rich that seriously we had meat sweats all night. Baxter and Blitz were all up in my cooking business since they could smell all the meat fragrance. It must have been torture for them, with their super sense of smell to resist the temptation of jump on the counter and grab themselves some bacon or port or chicken. The final product looked surprisingly similar to the Disney version.  It smelled like Thanksgiving and provided days of dinners since you could only eat a small portion at a time. 

This is how Disney's Pie appeared in the Cookbook. 

 

Mine was surprisingly similar.

To watch the recap of this week on my YouTube channel click here!

Dopey Challenge Training – Week 8: Feeling Overwhelmed

Do you ever feel like you have so much to do that you don’t know where to begin and you end up just moving paper from one side of your desk to the other. Well, that’s me right now.  

 

Even though I’m seeing so many races coming back in person, my State is having increasing Covid cases and large annual events are beginning to cancel, AGAIN. I fear we are heading into another year similar to 2020, and to be honest, I do not have the strength to do that again. When the country shut down last March, I was one of seven employees remaining from over 200 employed at my Club. We all took on extra duties, however being in charge of membership at a private Club meant the number of irate phone calls sky rocketed. Trying to keep our membership number up without lowering dues too much was quite the struggle since we shut down twice and then reopened with limited amenities and lots of restrictions.

 

With Disney’s Princess weekend registration opening up next week, I’m wondering if I should bother should it be cancelled and if it doesn’t, that will mean two travel races in February. I also have a very expensive oral surgery coming up in October that will put my training on hold for a couple of weeks. I’m stressing about that cost as well as those expensive Disney races, not to mention the loss of training during surgery recovery.

 

I am a goal oriented person and I’ve set daily, weekly and month goals for myself which I’m not coming at all close to meeting. This makes me discouraged and frustrated. Plus those Disney Virtual races…. Not done, I’ve made one of the costumes, but between the heat and the smoke, I’ve not had the chance to get out and run them. My summer is quickly coming to a close and the deadline to complete them is fast approaching. I’ve rationalize in my head that I’ve already completed well over three 5K’s doing the “Close Your Rings” Challenge of 30 days 30 5K’s back in June, but I really wanted to do something special for those cute Lion King themed races. 

 

And what about those Craft fairs that sent me confirmations, one in October and one in November. Although my basement is overflowing with inventory, all my displays and such are stored away in different areas of the house and garage. I hate the feeling of not knowing where everything is….my own personal OCD. Will these actually take place with our Covid numbers increasing?

 

Then there is making sure all my Race-Cation travel details. Already had a near miss when I discovered I reserved our rental car for the Surf City race for the wrong weekend and I almost forgot to call my travel agent to move my Disney resort reservations because Princess weekend was booked for the week prior. Trying to keep all my races, reservations and details straight is much harder, why? Is it because I’m out of practice with that COVID year of isolation? Who knows, but I am always on the brink of hysterics and feeling nervous all the time. 

 

Plus the added task of making costumes for all those Disney races. I made the mistake of counting how many I need to make………..10 COSTUMES! and they is not even counting the ones for the mystery Spring races if I choose to register for those.  I have so many ideas, and absolutely no plan on how I’m going to get them done.

 

Balancing work, training and just keeping my house clean is almost becoming too hard to manage. This week I have a 9 mile run on the weekend, and I have to go in to work on Saturday. Plus I have to plan and prepare those weekly recipes… I actually really love that part, but it’s one more thing on my plate.

Recipe this week is from the Disney Cookbook – Kronk's Famous Dish, Spinach Puffs.

Well this recipe proved to be a hot mess, just like me this week. I did roll the dough out thin enough so rather than 18 puffs I had 10 kinda thick crusted puffs. However they tasted wonderful and I used the left over spinach cheese mixture and pan fried it with the leftover egg yoke. This has become our new favorite chip dip.

How beautiful are Mickey's version of Kronk's puffs.

And then there is my attempt, delicious but not so pretty to look at.

Take a look at my struggle this week and the comedy of errors in the kitchen, then click here

Dopey Challenge Training – Week 7: Stretch It Out!

 

This week I started putting in some strength training and stretching exercises into my routine. I can feel my muscles tightening up with all this running so I need to work on lengthening those muscles to improve my running. Although it caused sore muscles at first, staying flexible not only makes me feel better, but will reduce the risk of injury and help recover faster after those long runs. 

 

I’m taking it very old school, does anyone remember an exercise called Callanetics? I bought my first VHS tape in the mid 80’s and when it came out on DVD later on, I had to have it. 

I’m going to be showing my age here, but I remember doing Jane Fonda tapes in the basement when my son was just a little guy and 2 years ago he surprised me with DVD replacements of most of all my Jane Fonda workout videos. I love ‘em!

 

The fires around Spokane have not stopped and the smoke in the air has caused unhealthy breathy conditions. 

So I took to the Treadmill for my second run this week and because I was engrossed in a TV show as able to increase my mileage to 4.5 miles in 45 minutes. It wasn’t because I was running faster, I just didn’t take those walk breaks. 

 

My final run of the week was an easy 3 miler.  I headed out the door early Saturday morning before the temperatures started to climb. Because of the smoky air, the sun rises have been just beautiful. It was a great ending to a nice easy run week. These photos really don't show how beautiful this sunrise was, but believe me it was spectacular!

 

 

This weeks recipe is from the Disney Eats Cookbook – Mickey Turkey meatloaf and Aladdin’s Fattoush Salad. 

After last week 3 hour tour in the Kitchen I wanted something a little bit easier. These two recipes fit the bill. Normally when I cook using Turkey it comes out on the dry side. Not so with meatloaf. It made so many mini meatloaves we were able to fest on it for two days following. The Salad was my personal favorite, maybe it was because I goofed up on the dressing adding 1 tablespoon salt rather than 1 teaspoon….. and I’d do it again, it was so tasting for this salt aholic. 

My finished dish looked surprising similar to the cookbooks. This is Disney's version of the recipe.

And this is mine....so yummy!

Check out Week #7 training video by clicking here

Dopey Challenge Training – Week 6: Beat the Heat

 

Since my neighbors left me in charge of watching their house over the weekend, I helped myself to their above ground pool. I’m pretty sure that was implied with “watching the House”.

 

With this heat, it was so refreshing to float around enjoying my adult beverage. When I was growing up we had a pool in our backyard and it was wonderful on those hot hot days. I actually learned how to swim before I learned to walk. Mom was adamant about that since it was hard to keep track of us three kids and God forbid one of use accidentally falls in when no one is watching. 

 

I am running so much slower this week and it’s because of the heat. As all good training plans say, you should slow down once the temperature increase. I know once the season turns it will cool off and running will be much easier. 

 

This week I learned a very important lesson on waiting to run after you eat. My Thursday run was miserable because I ran out the door after a huge dinner. I adjusted my interval timer to 3 minutes run/2 minutes walking to accommodate the bulging tummy. I didn’t want to see my dinner on the pavement (if you know what I mean)

 

This was a big week in my son’s life. He finally purchased his dream car. A brand new Tesla. 

Welcome to the wonderful world of debt my boy. Seriously though, I am so proud of my son. He is only 24 years old, college graduate, terrific job, no student loans and able to afford a new car of his choosing. I feel a pat on the back is deserved for the fine job I did raising such a fiscally responsible young man. 

 

This weeks recipe is from the Villains cookbook: Olympus Moussaka. 

Probably the hardest and most time consuming recipes so far. I ended up cooking for 3 ½ hours and the kitchen became so hot the sweat was pouring down my face. I use a lot of dairy substitutions in my recipes, this causes many of my dishes to be a little on the runny side, however the flavor of this dish was so good. There was no photo in the cookbook so hopefully this is what it is supposed to look like.

 

Week #6 and my son's new car can be seen by clicking here

Dopey Challenge Training – Week 5: Officially Dopey AGAIN!

 

It’s Official – I’m officially Dopey….. Again!

 

Tuesday was Dopey Challenge registration day and I was even more stress out than I was during Wine and Dine registration. I brought this on myself because I wanted in so badly and if I didn’t get in, what would become of all my training videos. (I know, real world problems right here).

So, once again I hauled my old laptop, my IPad, my new laptop, and my cell phone to the office at the crack of dawn, seriously it was barely light outside. I just knew it was going to be mayhem. Well, once again all that anxiety was for nothing because I got registered with no drama and even a week later there were still races available, even Dopey. I am got to calm the heck down.

 

Since registering for the biggest series of races in my life, what have I done? Well……NOTHING!!

I didn’t get either of my 45 minute training runs done this week. Tuesday after registering I was full of adrenaline and ready to run after work… until the down pour of rain started shortly after 5PM. I fully intended to make up for it on Wednesday, however work conflicts kept me well past the time I wanted to venture out. Then Thursday began the triple digit temperature and smoke from surrounding area fires covered the city on Friday. Yes, I know the treadmill was calling out my name. But somehow I didn’t hear it.

 

Saturday morning I woke up and had a “come to Jesus” talk with myself and pushed my butt out the door even though the heat was beginning to rise, I did my three miles and was proud of myself for doing it.  

 

I ordered a new Disney cookbook this week off of Amazon. I want to say I bought it only because it was Villains themed and since this years’ Wine and Dine weekend is also Villains themed it seemed a justified purchase. 

But in reality I’ve developed a new addiction to Disney Cookbooks. By total coincidence I was able to find corresponding fabric at JoAnn’s to make an apron that matched the cookbook design. I didn’t break into my new Villains cookbook this week because I already had a recipe picked out and ingredients bought.

 

This weeks recipe was from the The unofficial Disney Parks Cookbook: Dole Whip

Make sure to have a lot of time on your hands to make this recipe because after the first step you have to wait 2 hours!! 

Once the mixture went into the ice cream machine it was only 20 more minutes. 

And yes I did add a little Capital Morgan’s spiced rum to the mix. The result took me back to the Tiki tiki room, it was so yummy.

Mine did not look at all like this beautiful photo from the cookbook

But it was sure tasty, and the rum, yes that is a must do every time.

I am not at all disappointed in myself for missing those 2 training runs. I feel refreshed and strong, so who knows maybe I needed the break. Don’t beat yourself up, you have to keep it fun or you will surely give up. Even professional athletics have a bad week.

 

If you want to watch Week #5 and learn how to make delicious Dole Whip then click here