Posted by Kurt on January 9, 2013
It’s too easy to break my resolve. I’m weak willed. Therefore, I have resolved to call my resolutions challenges. It sounds better. It allows for me to fail because challenges are sometimes hard. Plus, there is always next year.
So what are my challenges for the New Year?
Posted in About Us, Introduction | Tagged: blogging, Cooking, eating, Photography, traveling | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Kurt on March 13, 2012
Cristina and I are both teachers. I teach Digital Graphics and Web Design to seniors and juniors while Cristina teaches World Geography to freshmen. We are lucky in that travel allows us both to be better at our jobs.
The Eiffel Tower
Windsor Castle
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum as Wikipedia puts it.
Since I teach Photoshop, all the pictures we take on our travels can be used in my classroom. For not having any formal training, Cristina has a good eye for composition…better than I do. Her pictures allow me to discuss the rule of thirds and the golden ratio. I show them the camera we use and then discuss the types of camera out there including cell phone cameras. The London rain allows me to show them how to color correct. Now, I could do this with pictures I Google gank. However, that’s stealing. Inevitably, the questions go beyond the subject of my class. They start asking about history, art, architecture, economics, and world geography.
The Westerkerk in Amsterdam
Confetti in Sulmona
The Champs-Elysées from the Arc de Triomphe with the Louvre in the Distance
For Cristina, it’s easy to make the connection between our favorite hobby and her job. Instead of pulling off pictures off the internet for her PowerPoints, she just needs to look on her external hard drive. The difference it makes to her kids is amazing. Their eyes light up and then ask, “Did you really go there?” Students suddenly become aware of how big, and small, the world is. They realize, some for the first time, that someday they may get to go to these places. For them, they are now one degree of separation from Paris, Prague, or the Panama Canal.
Europe Collage Created by a Student
Now, does anyone know if we can write off our trips on our taxes?
Posted in About Us, Travel | Tagged: Adobe Photoshop, World Geography | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Cristina on March 11, 2012
Kurt’s point of view:
Hanging out at the Rock N Roll New Orleans Half Marathon Expo
When we planned to run the Rock N Roll New Orleans Half Marathon (previously the Mardi Gras Marathon), we developed a training schedule. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men…well, you know how it works out. Swollen and infected lymph nodes, pink eye, two separate cases of an upper respiratory infection, and, worst of all, a debilitating case of sciatica decided to rear their ugly heads. And that was just with me.
Needless to say when we lined up early morning March 4th, we were not ready. Our only goal was to finish.
We started out okay. We had a plan of running for about five to eight minutes followed with a walk of three to five minutes and then repeat. It didn’t take long to realize that wasn’t going to work either. After a good three miles at the pace we wanted, we realized, for various reasons, we had to walk the rest.
Not that made it easier.
Every step made my feet feel as if it was coming apart at the seams. My fingers were swelling. I was starving. Cristina felt even worse. Yet, we were determined to finish.
By mile ten Cristina was in utter pain. I could see her considering quitting. She didn’t. She kept on going. I’ve never been more proud of her.
When we got to the finish line, we did do the one thing we planned. Running is something we do together as a couple, so it only made sense to hold hands as we crossed.
Looking back at all the problems we had training for this half marathon, we could use them as excuses. But that’s not how I see it. They are badges. Each one of those things could have made us not show up for the race. But we did.
We might have finished in the bottom 1%, but WE finished. And when you think about it, that’s all that matters.
Cristina’s point of view:
Back in July of last year, Kurt and I decided to start c25k (Couch to 5k) for about the 5th time. We were determined to make it work this time. During our first couple of “runs,” after 30 seconds, I was literally gasping for breath. Kurt had to give me his arm for support as I felt my lungs struggling for air. By October, I could run for about 20 minutes straight, at least a mile, though not at a fast pace or anything. We ran 3 different 5k races, including one in Disney World, and were really excited about it. Thinking we were on a good pace, we decided to book a half-marathon in New Orleans at the beginning of March. We were confident we could finish this in under 4 hours, maybe even under 3 1/2.
Boy, were we ever wrong.
Little did we know a host of problems would plague us, everything from the flu to sciatica, and many more in between. For two weeks at a time, at least one of us would be out of commission, and even though we should have continued training alone, we didn’t want to leave the other one suffering at home.
We should have trained!
While Kurt was very nervous at the half-marathon and whether or not we’d finish, I was still confident we’d finish in a decent time. The day of the race, we awoke about 3:30am to try and get to Poydras in New Orleans a little after 5am. Though it was an extremely chilly morning, we dressed lightly because we knew running would make us sweaty and hot. After we got there and grabbed some free breakfast of bananas and bagels, we went back to the car to wait until it was closer to start time, as it was so cold!
Finally the sun had risen and it was 6:30am. We got in corral 23 (out of 25) and anxiously awaited for the start of the race. After what seemed like an eternity, 7am rolled around and we started moving; however, since we were so far back, it was a little after 7:30am before we even reached the finish line. After a brief speech and countdown, we were off!
Right after getting our medals at the Rock N Roll New Orleans Half Marathon
We started off at a nice pace. Jogging down the streets, making our way to St. Charles Ave, we saw hats, mittens, sweatshirts, even nice jackets thrown all over the place. I knew it’d get hot, so I was glad for the loose pants and breezy shirt I had on. Even though I had used the potty right before we lined up, I guess all the nervous energy was making me have to go again. A little ways down St. Charles is a McDonald’s, and I saw other runners leaving it…perfect! I ran up to the 2nd story of it and ran back out in less than 5 minutes. We got to the 5k mark at right about 50 minutes…and spending around 5 minutes to take my potty break meant we were running around 15 minute miles…so far, so good!
We started to slow down a bit at the 5 mile mark. As we made the u-turn to start running the opposite way down St. Charles, we saw that there were still plenty of people behind us. We were near the end, but no where close to the actual end of the race, where the tail car was, ready to pick up people that couldn’t go on.
When we reached mile 6, Kurt’s feet and hips started to hurt. We slowed down a bit more, and I felt the need to potty again. My bladder didn’t like all this running, which was weird since I never had to pee very much during my training. I hit the Porta-Potty up at mile 7 and we finally reached the end of St. Charles, and started to walk toward Magazine St, where we’d eventually hit Decatur St. in the French Quarter.
By mile 8 my feet felt like I was walking on glass. I had never actually trained beyond 6 miles, and my feet were just not happy with me. As we’re walking through the French Quarter, passing Jackson Square, seeing the street art and hearing the live bands, watching the people waiting for Cafe Du Monde, I would have given anything to be with them instead of enduring the pain in my feet. Right after mile 10, we reached Esplanade Ave. From here, it was a straight shot to NOMA, where the race ended right behind it in City Park. As we got slower and slower and more and more people passed us, my worst fear came true.
Rock N Roll New Orleans Half Marathon Medal...I'm proud of this one!
Right after mile 11, the tail vehicle came behind us to pass us.
At this point, I was literally crying while I was walking. My feet have never felt such pain. My stomach was cramping big time. All I wanted to do was lie down on the median and take a nap in the grass. I could care less about finishing this race. As that vehicle came up and asked if we were okay, every fiber of my being wanted to hobble into it and be whisked off to the finish line.
Yet, somehow, some little voice managed to convince me not to. That at some point later that day, or tomorrow, or next week, I was going to regret not finishing the race. That the only people left with us so far back were much, much older people, and they were still walking, still struggling to finish, and not giving up. And I knew I couldn’t either. So I just let that tail vehicle pass us and focused all my energy on making it to that finish line.
At mile 12, there were some more Porta-Potties. Now, I’m not going to go into details, but let’s just say this was NOT a pleasant moment for me. But I knew I could not walk one more painful mile with my stomach cramping the way it was. I was so desperate, I was about to randomly knock on some door along Esplanade and beg to use their bathroom. When I emerged from the Porta-Potty, I did feel tremendously better. And that last mile, at around a 23min/mile pace, actually went by in a blur. Oh, seeing all those half-marathoners and marathoners being finished from as far back as the French Quarter did not help my ego any, but when we turned behind NOMA, saw that finish line, and crossed it holding hands, it was one proud moment.
Because even though the odds we against us, we didn’t give up. We got those medals. We completed a half-marathon, even if we didn’t break any records doing so. But hey, we were NOT last! Very, very, very close to it, but still, not last. And next time, because there will be a next time, we’ll make sure we put in the proper training BEFORE we sign up for another race. And hopefully, finish it in the 3hr 30min time frame I was hoping for!
Posted in Adventures in NOLA, Running | Tagged: Half Marathon, Mardi Gras Marathon, Rock ‘n’ Roll New Orleans, Rock N Roll New Orleans Half Marathon | 2 Comments »
Posted by Cristina on November 15, 2011
Four o’clock is not a time I should ever have to wake up. Especially, when I’m not even sleeping in my own bed. However, we had to start getting ready for our run. The buses were leaving around five to take us to Animal Kingdom. We bought bananas the night before so we could have something in our stomachs. The air was chilly.
We arrived at Animal Kingdom to the sounds of very loud music. An energetic and, actually, quite funny DJ was keeping the crowd entertained. We walked around and sat down and talked about the race. About a half hour before the race, our supporters, Cristina’s mom and sister, joined us to cheer us on.
Around seven, we got in our chute position. Due to Cristina’s illness we self-imposed a slower pace time for us. The race began shortly after.
I have to admit, it was a fun, if rather crowded, race. Disney music was playing throughout the park. We could take pictures with characters, which most of the runners with kids did, but we were too worried about finishing to stop. The park made the race go by that much quicker especially since it kept setting up mini goals for us.
The only problems with the race were that the people with strollers were way too fast. They started right after us so they kept passing us up. They kept trying to avoid us and we kept trying to avoid them. There was also one section that wasn’t wide enough for the runners so everyone except the very first people had to stop and walk. While I don’t mind walking, we were all sweaty at this time so it reminded me of teaching middle school boys after PE.
While we have run faster times, I was real proud of our forty-six minute time. Cristina had only run once in the last 3 weeks due to her illness. We enjoyed collecting our plastic medals. Most importantly, we realized this race wasn’t the end of our training but the beginning of our next phase of running.
Meeting Mickey and Minnie before the race
I was so excited to run the Disney Halloween 5K. Disney World is one of, if not, my most favorite places on Earth, and since running is becoming more and more of a big time hobby for us, it was the perfect place to have one of our first races. Especially since Halloween is my favorite holiday! Unfortunately, I contracted the flu 3 weeks before the race. I was bedridden for a week, and it took me almost two full weeks after to really get over the tired, achy feeling the flu left behind. During that time, I only ran once, which bummed me out. I was shooting for a goal of around 40ish minutes before the flu, but now I upped it to 45 minutes.
We went to sleep around 8pm the night before the race to try and get a good night’s sleep. While various reasons kept us from getting a great night’s sleep, we did okay. 4am came quickly, and before we knew it we were on the bus, headed to Animal Kingdom. It was still pretty early when we arrived, around 5:30am for a 7am race, so though there were people, it wasn’t hugely crowded yet. A dressed up Mickey and Minnie were out and since the line was short, we jumped at the chance to take a picture with them (which became a ridiculous line a little later on). A DJ was blasting out music to keep us pumped up, a much appreciated thing. After about an hour, my mom and sister arrived to cheer us on. We smartly saved seats on the bleachers for them and suddenly, it was time to line up.
Hitting the 3 mile mark
As Mickey and Minnie cheered us on, we were off! I was a bit tight, because we placed ourselves toward the back of the race where the slowish people were. The beginning was very slow going as we tried to move past some of the slower ones and were forced to walk at certain areas due to a large crowd in a tight squeeze. The first mile was entirely in the parking lot. When we actually got to the entrance of the park, characters were greeting us. Though some people were stopping to take pictures, Kurt and I really wanted to time ourselves and declined doing so. As we ran, the park with littered with different characters, the only ones giving me pause to almost stop being the hyenas from The Lion King since I’ve never even them out before. We kept moving, however, through different sections of the park, including behind the giant animal facilities which looked much nicer than it smelled.
Eventually we hit the 3 mile mark and only had that .1 left until the finish line. We pumped up the volume and crossed at 46:06…not quite my goal time of 45, but good enough considering how slow that first mile had been. It truly was exhilarating to run through Animal Kingdom and see all the people enjoying themselves like I was, especially Kurt. We got our plastic medals with pride and met up with my mom and sister to tell them all we had seen during our run.
Next year, I foresee the Wine and Dine Half Marathon in our plans.
Cristina crossing the finish line
Sweaty and displaying my medal
Posted in Running, Walt Disney Parks | Tagged: Animal Kingdom, Halloween 5K, Road running | 2 Comments »
Posted by Kurt on October 4, 2011
Cristina and Kurt at the Wild World of Sports at Disney World
The old saying about running is that the only equipment you need is a good pair of running shoes. When we started running, we were using our everyday tennis shoes. After about two weeks of running, when we both realized that we were committed to this, we headed out to Varsity Sports on Magazine Street.
If I were still teaching marketing, I would ask Varsity Sports if I could bring my class to see what great customer service is. We were greeted right when we entered the building. They asked why were there and set out to find shoes for us. They looked at our old shoes as if they were reading tea leaves. They made us walk to analyze our gaits. They asked about our budget. They then brought out every pair of shoes that fit our needs. Like in Ollivander’s Wand Shop, we weren’t picking the shoe; the shoes were picking us.
However, shoes aren’t the only thing you need. Well, it’s not the only thing I need. I won’t go into details of why I need it, but no run happens without applying Body Glide first.
While, that might be all that runners need, there is quite a few things runners want. Cristina and I both are iPhone users so we both bought a couple of apps to help us with running. C25K and Runkeeper have both helped us out tremendously. The C25K app is great for beginners especially since it tells you when to run and when to walk. Recently, we downloaded the Run Training app because it had training programs for 10k, Half-Marathons, and Marathons. We also bought arm straps for our iPhones, but today’s announcement might soon make that obsolete (actually, it won’t).
ESPN Wide World of Sports -- runDisney Headquarters
Runners Expo at Disney
The day before the Disney Halloween 5k and the Food and Wine Half Marathon, Disney held a runners expo. Of course the one thing I am looking for couldn’t be found: clip on sunglasses. Cristina did find some hydration belts that she liked so when we start doing the longer distance runs, we won’t have to carry our bottles. We also bought some Disney 2012 Half Marathon In-Training shirts to help motivate us to run it next year.
The next morning, we laced up our shoes, applied Body Glide, and attached our belts for our 5K in Animal Kingdom the next morning.
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Posted in Running, Walt Disney Parks | Tagged: Animal Kingdom, iPhone, Runkeeper, The Walt Disney Company | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Kurt on September 29, 2011
Kurt and Cristina at the 2009 Food and Wine Festival
We have been running for about three months. We are proud of what we have accomplished because this is actually the third time we have tried the C25K program. To make sure we stayed on course this time, we signed up for a race even before we started. And we made sure it was one that we had to run because the amount of money we would be spending: The Halloween 5K at Walt Disney World.
We have had some setbacks. It was nearly impossible to run during the week of the smoke monster (aka the marsh fire) and tropical storm Lee. Also, Cristina’s flu episode postponed any running we tried in the last two weeks. We ran yesterday, which was the first time for Cristina since her illness. We might not set any records but finishing will be a victory in itself.
Now, we are also going to treat ourselves while we are there due to the fact it is the kickoff of the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. We attended this a couple of years ago and literally tried to eat our way around the world. There are plenty of booths each representing a country or a specific region of a country selling tasting plates along with a couple of small glasses of wines. The plates are not very expensive, so if you go to spend as if you are eating in a fine dine restaurant, you can get tons of great tasting food. During the day, there are cooking demonstrations and wine tastings. Knowing that we are going to be tired after our run and will be in need of a nap, we decided to buy tickets for the special Half-Marathon party that ends in Epcot. Hopefully, watching people run the half-Marathon will inspire us to run it next year.
We will try to have a complete report when we get back!
Posted in Running, Walt Disney Parks | Tagged: 5K, C25K, Couch to 5K, Epcot, Walt Disney World Resort | 5 Comments »
Posted by Kurt on September 20, 2011
Our 5K will take us through Animal Kingdom (Image by insidethemagic via Flickr)
After our first 5K in Lockport, we were excited about keeping to our running schedule. We live on the east bank to the Mississippi River and are lucky to have paved biking/running paths on the levees. We were all set to go run on the west bank levee every other day this past week. Why the west bank when we live on the east bank? Simply, it is for the anonymity. Being teachers, we know if we go run on the levee nearest our house, we will have at least two students recognize us each time. Then we have to answer all the questions that come with it. It’s sweet really, but running is for us. So we usually head to the west bank.
Tuesday, we were really excited to get our run in. Cristina came home from a field trip a little achey and tired. We both though nothing of it and thought it was nothing a nap couldn’t cure. When I went to wake her up, however, something was wrong. She was as hot as the asparagus and mushrooms I just baked. She was running a low-grade fever.
And the fever went on till Saturday. Friday, she seemed to be recovering only to have it start getting in the scary neighborhood of 104. Time for the emergency room. Not really for them to treat the fever, not much you can really do, but to make sure it wasn’t something deadly serious. Luckily, all tests determined that it was lowercase f flu. She was given some token antibiotics and was prescribed what we were already doing.
The whole time she was suffering from this, my body decided it was a perfect time for a sinus infection. Running is again something that is for us, to do together. We still need each other for encouragement and to help monitor each other. In other words, we had a second week off. The smoke and tropical storm gave us our first week off. Hopefully, Cristina will be able to run by Wednesday so we can get some decent runs in before we head to Orlando for the Disney Halloween 5K through Animal Kingdom. Wish us luck!
Posted in Running | Tagged: 5K, Couch to 5K, Orlando Florida, runDisney, Running | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Kurt on September 13, 2011
Getting geared up for the race.
And we're off!
On September 11, we traveled down to Lockport to run a 5K Fun Run to help with Cancer Awareness. The only problem was that Cristina woke up sick that morning. However, we were going to complete the 5K no matter what.
The start and end of the race was at the Bayou Side Park on the Company Canal. The town of Lockport has done a great job in making this an attractive place for people to meet. The park has a nice walking track, sign posts explaining the history and science of the region, benches and plenty of shade. The only thing the park doesn’t have, and there really isn’t a way to correct this, is ample parking. The event had a DJ, health screening and plenty of treats for sale.
The race started earlier than we were told it would so we didn’t get a very good warm up. It really didn’t matter because Cristina truly wasn’t feeling well. So we power walked most of it. I pointed out where friends of mine grew up, where relatives lived, and where I went to school. We passed in front of the church where we got married. We actually finished the race in forty-seven minutes. The first couple of weeks that we started the Couch to 5K (C25K) it would take us thirty-eight minutes to run walk two miles. When we are both feeling well we are confident we can break the forty minute mark.
Even though we really only ran about three-quarters of a mile, we know we can be successful at our next 5K: The Wine and Dine 5k in DisneyWorld.
Pushing through until the end.
Posted in Lockport, Louisiana, Running | Tagged: 5K, Cancer Awareness, Couch to 5K, Fun Run, Walt Disney World Resort | Leave a Comment »
