Wife Mother Runner @fitzness Archives

Summer Reading List

June 25, 2021

I want to share my summer reading list with you with some new authors, that I know personally! These books are perfect for reading while floating in the pool or relaxing on the beach. I also carry a book with me to read if there is any downtime at my daughter’s softball games. They range from personal triumph over cancer, to encouraging self-help, and small-town romance. Enter to win a copy of Monica Ortega’s book The Power of Pivoting at the bottom of the blog post.

I would love for you to help them out as new authors, and purchase their books. The links I am sharing are my amazon affiliate links, which I earn a commission on; but you don’t pay anything extra for.

Non Fiction

Fitz Kohler: My Noisy Cancer Comeback

Available from Amazon https://amzn.to/35PP8xb

Fitz is a dear friend! She is my cheerleader at the Walt Disney World race finish lines. I met Fitz after a Princess Half Marathon race weekend when we were all hanging out at the Wave in the Contemporary Resort. She is a very strong, smart, courageous woman who spent most of last year battling breast cancer.

In her book My Noisy Cancer Comeback, she shares her struggle with the grueling chemo she had to endure, the extreme sickness, weight loss, and the changes that happen when you fight and beat cancer. She is honest with her experience, in hopes that her journey will help others going through it. Fitz didn’t want cancer to slow her down or take her away from the things she loves.

When I am working out and feel like I want to quit, I OFTEN think of Fitz and what she endured and fought through and still kept working as a race announcer, flying all over the country during her battle with cancer. She didn’t want cancer to keep her from announcing races and noisily greeting the runners at the finish lines.

I am a member of Fitz’ Hottie Body Fitness Group where we encourage each other, and share our struggles with maintaining a healthy life and also supporting us with our weight loss journey. I love that she tells it like it is, and is real and honest with us in the group. Of she notices that we are not making progress, or have gone quiet in the group, she’ll reach out and find out why, and help us get back on track.

Monica Ortega: The Power of Pivoting

Available from Amazon https://amzn.to/35ZAkMd

When I started reading this book I had no idea I was going to need a highlighter and page markers! This book was spot on with putting to words many of the things that I was feeling and experiencing. I know Monica from the blogging community. She is a travel blogger, but now can add the title of author to her name!

This book is about facing your fears, changing your mindset, and moving towards living the life you are meant to live with happiness. She shares her heartbreak with divorce, how she came to where she is today, and helps build a toolkit to manage a healthy mindset.

When I first started reading the book I was in a period of self-doubt, low confidence, and was downright beating up on myself for no good reason. Her words were so helpful in making me change my way of thinking and reversing my outlook to a more positive approach.

Romance/Fiction

Audrey McLelland

Audrey didn’t just publish one book this year, she has published two and she is already working on the next one! Her books are part of a series “The McKay Sisters Series”. These books are the Hallmark channel of love stories in book form. They are feel-good, small-town romance books with a happily-ever-after fairy tale ending.

Available from Amazon https://amzn.to/3gTe7pF

Available from Amazon https://amzn.to/3h4q9Lv

The second book At Last, is about one of the McKay sisters finding a way to make her ex jealous while attending a wedding they will both be at. She finds the hottest guy in town, who happens to be single. After spending a lot of time together prior to the wedding, they start to realize that their time together is turning into something more than a friendship. Find out how their relationship unfolds and what happens in the end with this second book in Audrey’s series.

I met Audrey through blogging as well, and was selected by her and her partner Vera Sweeney to attend their Permission To Hustle Mastermind At Sea event last February. I was so honored to have been selected and all of us who attended are now part of a special club…the Covid club. We returned home from the 5 day cruise to a world that was preparing to shut down. It was like we were in a bubble out to see while Covid was spreading everywhere. It was a surreal experience that will forever bond all of us!

I’m so excited for Audrey’s new books series. She has been wanting to do this for a long time so it’s wonderful to see others’ dreams come true!

Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What Books Are On Your Summer Reading List?

I am in the process of reading all of these books. Yes, I read several books at a time because I have ADHD. But they are all unique and different from each other. I’m almost done with all of them, and I do really enjoy them!

What’s on your summer reading list? I’d love to hear your book recommendations!

Make Your Health A Priority

February 28, 2019

Many times as mothers we always put everyone else’s needs in front of our own. Recently, I had a health scare and needed to see my doctor. I had felt a lump in my breast when I took a shower. It did scare me; but I didn’t rush off to my doctor immediately. I can’t tell you why. It was in October, ironically, breast cancer awareness month. I talked to my husband about it and finally did make the appointment to get checked.

My doctor checked me and referred me to get an ultrasound and mammogram. She couldn’t say for sure that nothing was wrong; but didn’t think that what she felt was concerning. That eased my mind slightly; but I knew I wouldn’t feel complete relief until I had my tests done.

In early December I had my tests done. It was very nerve wrecking going to the Yale Smilow Breast Center to get these tests. Honestly, I was a wreck. My husband went with me and had to wait in the waiting room while I had everything done. It took about an hour and I was given my answer right away. The lump is not in the breast tissue. It’s in my skin. They weren’t concerned about it and told me I can see a dermatologist if I wanted to explore this more.

Why Moms Or Women Don’t Make Themselves A Priority

Time

Many times our schedules are full with our children’s activities. I know with girl scouts, 4H, band, after school clubs, and softball we have a lot of events and activities to shuttle the kids off to. On top of that, I have my own work schedule to manage. I also have my workout and running routine I want to stick to.

Energy

Let’s face it, being a parent is a lot of work! Keeping up with them, the house, and managing my business is a LOT of work. I know it sounds like I am making excuses, and maybe I am!

Denial

Sometimes you don’t want to find out what is really going wrong. But as a parent it is extremely important to take care of yourself. I was scared of finding out what might be wrong. It would be very unfair to my family if I neglected myself and let something go that should be taken care of.

How To Make Your Health A Priority

Self-Breast Exams and Mammograms

I had found my lump while in the shower and that’s where I do my breast exams. I was at the #BlogHer conference in August and visited the Know Your Girls booth. They shared with me that while all of us are at risk for breast cancer, including men. Black women in the U.S. are about 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women. That’s a scary number.

Here’s how you can take charge of your breast health

Know what’s normal for your breast tissue.
Make an appointment for a mammogram
KEEP that appointment

Here’s more information on how to do your own breast self-examination.

What Else Do You Need To Take Care of?

Yearly Physical

Most insurance companies cover the cost of a wellness visit. Cigna has a large initiative to help individuals know their numbers. When I was at the Walt Disney World Marathon weekend, I was invited to the Cigna Blogger Meet Up. We had a catered lunch in the General Motors Executive Suite above Test Track and then played a vegetable and fruit racing game to raise awareness of knows our numbers to keep us healthy.

I participated in the free screening to have my numbers checked. I think this is a great resource to help individuals find out about health conditions that may be going on in your body, but you aren’t aware that you are at risk because you don’t feel any different.

Cigna was also the presenting sponsor for the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, so they were offering the health screenings at the Expo. They do this every year and I always participate so I can get a quick peak at my numbers in between my doctor appointments.

Skin Care

My mother has melanoma. I’m almost 47 years old and when I was a kid, sunscreen wasn’t something we used diligently. In fact, we would lather on baby oil and lay in the sun to burn. Or we went to tanning salons to get a tan for the prom, weddings, and vacations.

Now skin cancer rates are on the rise. As a parent I always slather sunscreen on my kids since they were babies. I am so proud of my kids to know that when they are heading out to the pool that they know to put on their sunblock. My son accidentally got a bad sunburn because he was in the pool without his sun shirt and sunblock. I felt like the worst parent in the world when he was crying in pain from that sunburn. I also felt like I was going to cause him to have skin cancer because of it.

As I write this, I know I have to make an appointment to have my skin checked. I already had some pre-cancerous marks removed from my skin two years ago. So it is important to stay on top of any changes in your skin. Do you know the ABC’s of skin cancer screening?

Dental Care

I used to HATE going to the dentist. I would rather go to the gynecologist than the dentist. Every year I would make my appointment and then cancel it. In the past 10 years I have been much better at keeping and going to my dentist.

Are You Going To Make Your Health A Priority

There are so many things we can’t control. But taking care of ourselves is one of them. I want to share with you that a friend of mine who is very diligent with her health and taking care of herself and breast exams has recently found out that she has breast cancer.

I shared a video from Fitz in my blog post about my running goals. Fitz is well-known in the runDisney community. She is one of my biggest cheerleaders! At the end of every race she is there to give me a hug and NEVER minds receiving a sweaty hug from her running friends!

She shared the announcement about her breast cancer with us over the weekend. She takes care of herself and gets her exams done diligently. While she had her exam in December and it was clear, she found a lump in February and had it tested and will now be moving forward to fight it.

This is just proof that you have to take care of yourself, do your self exams. Thankfully Fitz did have a clean scan three months ago and when she noticed something wasn’t right she immediately called her doctor 30 minutes later and proceeded to get things checked. I will be Fitz’s cheerleader now as she goes through her fight.

Take Care Of Yourself! Do you keep your appointments? If not, please do yourself and your family a favor and make your appointments and be well!

Glass Slipper Challenge – Day 3 Half Marathon

March 14, 2017

The last day of the Glass Slipper Challenge weekends ends with the half marathon. I took the time the night before to lay out all my race gear, get my food and tea prepped, and had most of my bag packed for the trip home. All I had to do was get up when my alarm went off at 3:30 to plan on being on the road for 4:30. I was on the road at 4:30 but there were major traffic issues. I didn’t arrive to my parking spot until 5:21… the race starts at 5:30. However, as I was making my way to the corrals, Mandy sent me a text and then I got a Tweet from runDisney that due to the traffic issue, they were going to delay the start of the race. I was concerned about that because I had a very tight window of time for when I could finish the race, shower at my hotel and be to the airport for my 12:20 flight home (more on that later).

I got down to the corrals after the start of the race. I was in Corral G so I wasn’t worried; but I did run into a problem. As the corrals moved forward, the volunteers for the corralled sections wouldn’t let me move forward to Corral G. I was stuck in Corral H. Had I been there 5 minutes earlier I could have snaked my way up to where Mandy was. I told her I was stuck and that I would meet up with her. She told me she’d stay to the right of the road so I could find her. My corral released at 6:01 and I kept a pretty consistent run the entire first mile. I stopped for a picture of the mile marker and then continued over the bridge and on the road towards Magic Kingdom. With no sighting of Mandy, I called her. She and Kenn had to make a pit stop and I found them and meet up with them on World Drive. As you can see from my splits, my first mile was quicker because I ran most of it to catch up with them.

After I caught up to Mandy we ran past the photo stops which were the Pirates of the Caribbean and further up was the heroes. We took our usual pictures at the Magic Kingdom toll gate and then continued to run towards the Magic Kingdom. Again, the plan was to save our time for photo opportunities in the Magic Kindom. The photos along the way were the Incredibles, the Evil Queen, Malificent and then the drummers were at the TTC. My favorite DJ was on the overpass leading to the Contemporary.

Once we got into the Magic Kingdom we planned on using a real bathroom, and then I knew to look for Sam Ganow from the Mickey Milers and Kenny from Team Shenanigans. Found them and proceeded on towards the back of the park to Fantasyland where we wanted to see who was going to be out for photos. We skipped past Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and found Gaston. He was the longest wait for us. This was between miles 5 and 6. The Beast was the next photo stop after Gaston; but the line for him was VERY long, so I took a selfie with the Beast in the background. We ran through the castle and towards Frontierland. We skipped the photo with Woody and Jessie and ran on towards backstage. Sadly, because the train was being refurbished it was not on the tracks on the way to the backstage area. They had Cinderella and Prince Charming at the large float backstage; but that was a very long line as well. We continued up through cone alley and tried to run as much of that as we could to make up for time we spent taking photos in the Magic Kingdom.

After cone alley were the Penguins from Mary Poppins. Then I found Richard from the Floridian! I found him during the marathon weekend as well! The gentlemen singers were on Floridian Way as well as vacation Genie on the golf course. I had been tracking my friend Kim and saw that she was catching up to us and I spotted her just before mile 8! We stopped for a quick picture and then pushed on. This part of the race gets boring and I had a plane to catch so I didn’t want to slow down at the end. We set up little mini plans to make up time and make that portion of the race course more tolerable. We’d run up to a water stop and then walk. Then run up to the mile marker and then resume our run/walk intervals. After mile 10 we decided to run the entire ramp up to the bridge and walk across the bridge and then run downhill towards mile 11. It was good to keep pushing forward because by that point in the race it is easy to decide to walk it in for the end.

Finally we were in Epcot and there were a few chances where we wanted to get some photos. We took one with Daisy just near the turn around, and then attempted another jump photo in front of the waterfall. Then we brought it in for the finish. I HAD to get my Fitz hug before the finish line and then we took pictures with Donald and Goofy!

Our fourth Glass Slipper Challenge accomplished. Just one more year to go in hopes to get legacy status. With the announcement of a new name for the challenge next year we aren’t sure that we will be recognized for doing five consecutive Princess weekend races in a row. Same holds true for Dumbo; so I think once Dumbo comes around we will know what the result of that will be. But I still enjoy this weekend with Mandy and Kenn and it’s a nice race to run mid-winter to keep my mileage up. Considering I hadn’t run longer than 4 miles since the WDW marathon, I felt great during these races.

2017 runDisney Walt Disney World Marathon…The Second Half

February 6, 2017

This blog post is the second part to the first one I wrote last week highlighting the first half of the Walt Disney World Marathon on January 8, 2017. This was my friend PK’s first marathon and we really wanted to make sure he had a enjoyable experience. I think we were very successful in that. So much so that he wants to do the Dopey Challenge next year!

Something PK and I noticed during the first half of the race was the number of discarded clothes and socks on the side of the road. In past years the discarded clothing dwindled off after the first 2 miles. But this year we saw it as far as mile 10. The funny thing were all the socks we saw. I assumed that since people didn’t have gloves they used socks to keep their hands warm.

The second half of the race was going well. We ran through Animal Kingdom and the long tour of the Animal Kingdom parking lot and then to the long stretch of Osceola Parkway. I played my game of tag with Nick Takacs just outside Animal Kingdom; but didn’t see him the rest of the race. The temperature was ideal, the sun was out and we were having a good time. I found a few friends out on the road. I saw Jon Biel and his friend Sara dressed as Bob’s Barricades. Then a few miles up I found my friend Linda Bachand Jackson.

After about 3-4 miles of Osceola Parkway we made our way into ESPN Wide World of Sports. I was starting to do some mental math in my head and PK thought it was funny seeing me try to calculate the balloon ladies and our arrival time, etc. He never saw that side of me. I also knew that it was time to take in some sugar because I was starting to get a little mental in my head. I was also feeling a little bit fatigued so I wanted to make sure I was going to finish strong.

At some point during the second half we were talking about our strategy. He thought that maybe we would walk a mile or two near the end and then finish the end running. I was ok with that plan. But then, during our miles in ESPN, we got caught up with the 6:30 pacing group. We couldn’t really get past them; so when they ran, we ran, when they walked, we walked. It actually felt good. They were doing a 15/30 pace. We had been consistently using a 30/30 pace. So I suggested to PK that we follow them until we get to Hollywood Studios and see how we feel.

That was a great plan, because I remembered that back on Osceola heading to Hollywood Studios there is an incline. So if we stick to the pacer group that would help us get up the hill without walking the whole thing. It worked out very well. We made it to Hollywood Studios and continued with the group all the way to Epcot. I actually felt a lot better using their intervals because it kept us at a consistent pace and the intervals left me less fatigued. We made a new plan that at mile 25 PK was going to run ahead and I would meet him at the finish. That was the perfect plan because I wanted to savor that last mile through Epcot. Given everything the family had gone through since Thanksgiving I wanted to reflect during that last mile. I wanted to have time alone with my thoughts.

With just about 3/4 of a mile left I saw a small child wearing a Pokemon hat and I swore it was Lyla. It stopped me in my tracks. I totally felt that it was a sign of her telling me that I had the strength to finish and that I could do anything I wanted as long as I worked for it. So for the last 3/4 of a mile I was sobbing. I couldn’t wait to finish and see my family. As I rounded the corner after mile 26 I saw my family and blew them a kiss. Then I saw Fitz waiting to give out hugs and I got the biggest hug from here. It was so special to share that moment with her. I had finished my 3rd Dopey Challenge (aka the Grumpy Challenge). And I will continue to do the Dopey Challenge as long as my friends want to be crazy and do it with me!

Enjoy a recap of the entire race from start to finish!

Creating Good Habits

March 7, 2015

As I was driving to work the other day, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, “Laugh or Go Crazy”. Steve and Michele were talking about how easy it is to start bad habits but it seems harder to fall into good habits.

After finishing the WDW Princess Glass Slipper Challenge my goal was to start incorporate weight training back into my workouts. This means that I also want to do strength training for my legs.

I have been good about keeping up with my runs and doing them outside despite the frequent snow storms. I look forward to them. But lately I have added an early wake up to my day and I walk on the treadmill for 30-40 minutes. I want to get my steps in before the day starts and I head to work and sit for most of the day.

Another habit I am starting is to head down to the “tunnel” at work and walk every so often during the day to get moving or to walk to a bathroom farther away from my desk.

While these are good habits I also needed to cut out some bad habits like enjoying a refreshing beer after work. Even if it is just one. If I don’t have room in my calorie budget I can’t have it. So I didn’t buy any treats or drinks to keep in the house.

I am also making myself accountable by joining the latest Mickey Milers Diet bet. Heck if I can lose a few pounds, gain some control and good habits plus win some money why not?!

When I am at work with my packed lunch I am very good. It’s when I get home that all hell breaks loose. So I bought lots of veggies at the store this week and cut them up ahead of time. I also purchased foods for our meals so we didn’t have the old “What do you want for dinner?”?… “I don’t know”…. “What do we have?”…. “Not much” conversation which end up as a cereal for dinner night.

Each night I will be sure to have something thawing out or have some thought put into a meal ahead of time. I didn’t think I ate bad but once I start tallying up what I eat the calorie total tells the true story. It’s not what I eat but how much I was eating. So I am dialing it back again and making myself more accountable for what I am eating. I’m keeping tabs on things and using my conscious brain to make my decisions. This was something Jeff Galloway also explained to me last summer.

Drinking more water and getting in 10,000 steps per day are also little milestones I set for myself during the day and track with my fitbit. Sadly with all the running I do you’d think I wouldn’t need to diet but I do. I need to be aware of what goes in and what gets burned off. You don’t burn off as much as you think with your regular 3-4 mile run. It doesn’t give me free reign to have whatever I want any day of the week. Even when I am doing my long runs!

Fitz Kohler was on episode 256 of the Mickey Miles Podcast and hearing what she said solidified my recent thinking. She said that runners can’t just run. Strength training is important to keeping a runner healthy and all around strong. The episode was AMAZING to me! One of my favorites. Go check it out. I met Fitz at the Princess Half Marathon weekend on Saturday afternoon at the Mickey Milers meetup. We sat and chatted for a long time, even after everyone had left! She is a great person and a great resource for training information. I will be using her knowledge to help me get stronger so I can lose more fat and gain more muscle and run stronger and faster this year. Fitz has workout routines that you can do 3 times a week for 8-10 minutes that will make a difference in your running within 6 weeks! I started weight training again last weekend and have been sticking to it. It felt good to be sore again. I miss that feeling.

So my goal this year is to have a faster half marathon finish time again. I’ve been running the Disney half marathons for fun and haven’t pushed myself lately to go faster so it’s time to start working towards that goal. The sun is going to stay out longer which means I can get out and run after work again and race season is starting in the Northeast soon so I have to get out there and start getting some long runs under my best and register for the half marathons!

What are your goals for the year? Do you have any habits you need to break or to start?

Tag: @fitzness