Spring Mix(ed) Bipolar Episode

You'd think that after an exhilarating weekend racing a Spartan race with the Weeple Army that I'd be on a pretty good high or at least a good mood the week following, however that has not been the case. During that past week I've held in a lot of anger issues, been ill with a recurring cold/allergies/or whatever the hell it is, plus my mood/motivation has dropped to near nothing and I'm doing some unhealthy obsessing.

I'm not sure what's going on...is it just a mood swing or my annual spring depression setting in? All I know is that I'm just not happy with basically everything. It would be easy enough to blame everything on the bipolar but that's just not true, sure it's got a big influence in things but life is just biting the big one overall. Last week when I was feeling this way, but to a lesser extent, I was able to go get some exercise and get the endorphins to kick in beating back the poor mood/depression. This time around it's just hard to get out of bed, let alone go out for a run or even a walk. I have a 10K this afternoon and truthfully, I just may play drop out, get the shirt and man some drinks/fruit for our run/walk club. I just don't have the energy to deal with anything right now.

To top it off the old man's dad and step-mom called yesterday let us know that they'd be here early in the week. They're nice people and at least they did let us know they were coming whereas the old man thinks that his brother got no warning at all. I'm just not in the mood for visitors. All I feel like doing is sitting on my ass or sleeping. I'm still taking my meds, 3 weeks in a row now, but I just don't give a damn about anything.

This is especially not good since I have the Oklahoma City Half Marathon in 2 weeks with my longest run being 8 miles last week. I need to bump up to 10 miles at least before next weekend, luckily I graded down from the full marathon. Then there's the old man whose training has consisted of walking on the treadmill 3-5 miles at a time. I told him that I'd run the half with him (thus the downgrade) since it's his first road race but I don't know if I can go that slow. I'm by no means fast or anything, but I would like to finish around 3 hours give or take, at his pace he'll be lucky to finish before they sweep the course. Yeah, that's one of the things I'm angry about...

At least I have one thing that I'm looking forward to this weekend, the MTV Movie Awards with the Pitch Perfect cast reunion. I actually cleared off space on the DVR to record their 3 minute opening performance. I don't remember when the last time I watched the MTV Movie Awards but between the cast reunion (and my continued obsession with Skylar Astin...I mean really, what the hell is that all about?? He's freakin' 11 days older than my own son! Dude does have a voice that could met the polar ice caps though...) and Rebel Wilson hosting the show should be a hoot.

Other obsessions have cropped up again and have me thinking about racing in specific states just for the hell of it. Really, I seem to be the most content when I'm away from town whether it be with my racing friends or alone. Between the obsessions and the depressed moods most psychiatrists would say that I'm having a mixed episode which in fact is likely. Hell, if I actually drank, which I rarely do now, I'd love to get totally wasted and just pass out. Not to worry though, I'm not suicidal or having any suicidal thinking...I'm just fed up with everything.

Sorry for this downer of a post...it's just where I am now and this blog is a place that I can put everything into words. I do have an appointment with my psychiatrist in just over a week and the plan was/is to switch me over to Abilify in place of my Welbutrin, but considering I'll be running OKC within a few days I won't be making the switch until a little later...well actually probably a couple of weeks later because I have Military Spartan Sprint in Colorado the following weekend. Oh the joys of medication management and running. Later.

Race Recap: WDW Princess Half Marathon Weekend, Pre-race

5K Race Day: Saturday, February 23, 2013 @ 6:30am
Half Marathon: Sunday , February 24, 2013 @ 5:45am
Location: Walt Disney World Resort, Lake Buena Vista, FL

Travel Day - Thursday, February 21, 2013
Well, it really starts the day before travel day. I had decided at about 8:30am not to drive to Albuquerque to stay overnight before my flight because a friend I was supposed to meet had her new grand daughter born the day before. I knew bad weather was coming in due to a winter storm watch/advisory but it looked like the storm was tracking north of us so I didn't give it much concern and went about my normal pre-race/pre-trip cleanup. At about 5pm I saw that the weather had worsened and I began panicking that I would miss my flight, so I decided to go ahead and drive up and just find a hotel when I got up there (had already canceled my previous reservation). So I get on the road shortly after 6pm and immediately ran into severely, thick fog...much like what can appear in the California Central Valley. I ended up having a minor anxiety attack on the road and ended up returning home instead.

The next morning I woke up at 3am to check the forecast and now the last half of the trip was "snow packed and icy." Great! I was out the door by 4am and was not happy to be hit with fresh snow and small hail before even getting out of town! I managed to make my way through somewhat icy roads to the next town over after which the roads became almost totally clear until I reached I-40. After traveling about 25 miles west on the interstate, the roads became slushy but were well sanded/salted and relatively easy to drive on. Once I hit the mountains just east of Albuquerque portions of the interstate were not as well maintained and travel slowed to about 5-10 mph below the speed limit. This slow moving traffic continued even into Albuquerque where the Interstate was mostly clear...go figure. Since I had made the trip just about 20 minutes longer than I normally would have on clear roads I had arrived early enough to stop for breakfast at Denny's before heading to the Sunport (the name of Albuquerque's airport). As I sat there getting ready to eat I received a notification text from Southwest Airlines with the ominous words..."flight has been canceled." Really?? Did I just drive nearly 4 hours over questionable roads and weather to catch a flight that was no longer going to happen? I immediately called SWA to try to reschedule the flight. I had two choices...a mid-afternoon flight with a long layover somewhere or a 6:25pm flight with one stop but no plane change. I went with the latter. When I posted on Facebook the time of my flight I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my running friend/Tink sister, Kathleen, was catching the same flight as a connection from SeaTac. This is the same woman who walked with me so that I could finish the TinkerBell Half Marathon last month! It was pure serendipity that we would be together for the trip to our next race! :D

So, now I had time to kill. I loitered in Denny's for about an hour after I had finished eating then headed over to Barnes and Noble's to loiter there for awhile! Thankfully I managed to walk out of there purchasing only 2 magazines...that store is one of my shopping weaknesses. Since it was just after 11am I went to watch Les Miserables which was just totally fantastic! That will be a definite purchase when it comes out on DVD/BlueRay. By the time the  movie was over it was about 3pm. I made a quick trip to Party City to find a tiara to wear during the weekend then stopped at Jack in the Box for lunch before heading to the airport to check myself and my bags in.

As I made my way to the gate, I met two girls from NorCal who were running the Princess HM as their first Disney race. The dead giveaway was the tutu that they were bedazzling at one of the tables near the gate. We chatted for awhile and I showed them some of the Facebook groups pertaining to the race and costumes. Finally it was after 5:20pm and the plane from Seattle had landed and I waited for Kat to come through the gate (being sure to wear my tiara). There were some muffled squeals of excitement and big hugs going on when she finally appeared! I introduced her to the new girls and we just hung out for about an hour before boarding began. It turned out that the lady who completed our row of seats was also going to run the race. All in all I counted about a dozen Princesses on board.

Run Kat and I reunited at the Albuquerque Sunport
for the first time since the TinkerBell HM.

Once we landed in Orlando after a fairly uneventful flight, we grabbed out bags and headed in the direction that we thought the WDW Magical Express shuttle was. Unfortunately, even though we both had used the service before we forgot that it was located on the other side of the airport. So, after we finally got directions we made our way there along with other runners who also had gotten lost! It was at this point that we had to separate due to being at different Disney properties.

I finally arrived at the All Star Sports resort where my room mates, Dianne and Chris, had already checked in. After unpacking what needed to be hung up and my toiletries it was bedtime according to EST as it was something like 1am and I had an early day planned.

Fit for a Princess Race Expo - Friday, February 22, 2013

All Star Sports Resort pre-Expo breakfast meetup.
Dianne was our Perfect Princes...5 year Legacy Runner, the rest of us were PHM newbies.
(L to R: Eric, Dianne, me & Sandy)

I had arranged a breakfast meetup for any of the Disney's Princess Half Marathon Facebook page that were staying at the same resort. At first we thought no one was showing up until a young man sat down at the end of the table. I knew that there had been a male who was looking to meet other runners and I had invited him to join us if he was at the resort, but I wasn't sure if it was him or not. I asked if he was Eric, the guy I had invited and indeed he was! We had him move over by us, I think I promised that we wouldn't bite, and introduced ourselves. He was from Minnesota and this was his first Disney race. Then another lady, Sandy, stopped by the table asking if we were from the group and she joined us as well. We sat there talking and eating until about 8am when we split up to get ready to catch the first shuttle to the expo at 8:30.

Dianne and I at the Expo...
the volunteer taking the pic was a little shaky!

A little Princess nuttiness at the New Balance booth at the Expo! LOL!

Dianne and I got into the line at about 8:20 or so and were able to get on the first bus that was running about 15 minutes late. By the time we got to the Coronado Springs resort the line to get into the expo was probably close to a couple of hundred people deep already. Once we got in, we walked around the vendors area for a while to see what there was then headed to the runDisney Official Merchandise store. That was pure craziness! The line to get in wound in different directions outside the entry way to the booth. Once we got in it was literally packed like sardines, trying to get to items on either side was near impossible because the line to pay for items was winding around inside the sales area. I knew what I was getting so I got my stuff and got into line since it would take awhile Dianne grabbed some last items then joined me in line.

For some reason I had the bright idea to have my debit card ready to go even though we would be in line for at least another 20 minutes. At some point while in line I dropped it and didn't notice. When I did notice, I went walking up and down the massive line looking on the floor to see if I could find it. After a couple times doing this I finally went down the line literally yelling over the din for people to look at their feet to see if they could see a lost debit card on the ground...yes, it was that packed there was no way that I could see all of the floor so I enlisted the help of the people in line. When that failed I asked Dianne if she could cover my purchase for me while I called the bank to make other arrangements. I stopped at the registers to see if anyone had dropped off the card with no luck, I then went to the lost and found booth and they didn't have it either. I called the bank and suspended the card and found out that they couldn't get me a new card until Monday...not good since I didn't have any cash. I told them to hold off on canceling the card and I went back to the booth and asked again at the entrance (they were restricting access by then) and the lady came back with my card in her hand. Talk about a sense of relief!! I then went in search of Dianne who was unable to print up her 5K waiver so while she went to the runner's service booth I picked up my race packets for both the half marathon and 5k. We finally got back together and had an animated gif photo shoot done then headed over to join the DPHM Facebook group's meetup. We met a few of the other members and then went back into the vendors area one last time before heading back to the resort.

Race packet swag and Expo purchases.

When we went out to the shuttle pickup area, I noticed that there was a shuttle to the military resort, Shades of Green. I had planned to go there to do some basic grocery shopping because the prices in their c-store were more like normal off resort prices plus I needed to get my military special park ticket. So we hopped on the bus and were whisked away straight to SoG. We both got some stuff in the c-store and I purchased my ticket and we caught the next shuttle back to the expo. Since the c-store didn't have fresh fruit/vegetables we briefly went back into the expo to get some bananas from the Chiquita banana booth. This was the first time I actually had to play a game of Plinko in order to get a banana! Usually you can just go up and ask for them. Anyway, I actually won 2 bananas and a cheap pair of sunglasses...just the perfect number of bananas to get me through until race day.

After the expo, which was strictly for the bananas, we got on the bus back to the resort and Dianne and Chris headed out to Downtown Disney to eat. I wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom but was so tired that I decided to take a nap. I ended up sleeping for 3 hours.When I finally awoke I ate some dinner and caught the shuttle to the Magic Kingdom. It was overcast and humid and I arrived at the park literally at the tail end of the Light Parade. I made my way to Thunder Mountain Railroad, It's a Small World (a ride I hadn't been on since my kids were little), Under the Sea, Space Mountain, Space Ranger Spin, Stitch's Great Escape, the Haunted Mansion and lastly Pirates of the Caribbean. My waits for any of the rides was no more than 15 minutes and just before I went to the Haunted Mansion it began sprinkling and by the time I came out a full blown tropical rain had started and most people were trying to stay out of the rain and I ended up basically walking right onto Pirates of the Caribbean.

Arrived just in time to catch the end of the Electrical Light Parade...

Thunder Mountain Railroad...my second fave ride behind
Space Mountain. Yes, I do love roller coasters!

The fireworks started right as I got onto TMR.

Woot! First time on It's A Small World in probably over 15 years!

By now it was just about closing time, 11pm, and I decided that I wanted to get a churro as I left the park but because it was so late all the vendors had already packed up. So the back up plan was going to Downtown Disney to get a sundae at Ghiradelli's which meant taking the shuttle back to the resort and catching a shuttle from there to DTD. I arrived back at All Star Sports just around 11:15pm and had to wait a few minutes for the next shuttle to DTD to arrive. It finally got there at about 11:30pm and left about 5 minutes later to make the rounds at the rest of the All Star resorts. I had begun to watch the time because while I was waiting I had looked up Ghiradelli's hours and found that they closed at midnight.  This literally had to be the slowest shuttle ride I've ever had at WDW!! It seemed like other shuttles were zooming by us as I watched the minutes tick away.We finally arrived at DTD I headed at a pretty fast, but not running clip to Ghiradelli. I was happy to see that it wasn't shut down yet and that there were still people in line...but I walked up to pull the doors open and...LOCKED! I looked at my phone and I had missed getting into the store by 4 minutes...four lousy minutes!!

Since I still had that craving for sweets I walked all over DTD looking for somewhere that had sundaes. The only two places were the bowling alley and I think House of Blues where it was a 2 person sundae...didn't need one that big for myself. So I headed to the bowling alley restaurant only to find out that the only thing they were serving were pizzas. Really, you can't make an ice cream sundae? Sheesh!! Luckily I remembered that I had a Snickers in my purse so I had to settle for that to quench my sweet tooth as I headed back to the resort after my epic fail for a Ghiradelli Treasure Island Sundae (warm brownie hot fudge sundae). I decided that it would definitely happen the next day.

When I got back to the resort I pretty much just got ready for bed since it was about 1am since we had to be at the Mickey & Minnie Royal Family 5K at something like 5:30am which meant a 3am alarm to wake up to...the story of my no sleep nights prior to a race! lol!

Race Recap: TinkerBell HM 2013, Part 1 : Pre-race

2nd Annual TinkerBell Half Marathon (AKA my worst race...ever)
Race Day: Sunday, January 20, 2013
Location: Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, CA

So, this was supposed to be a benchmark in my running "career." This was the second running of the TinkerBell Half Marathon and my second step towards achieving "Legacy" status (running in each of the first 5 years of a race) in a Disney race. Let's just say that it didn't go according to plan...

Race Day -3 (Thursday, January 17, 2013)

This was a travel day for me. Since I had organized our TinkerBell Half Marathon Facebook Group meetup, I was traveling with 2 suitcases for the first time for any race (thank you for the free bags Southwest Airlines). Unfortunately, they were two different types of bags which made handling them a little difficult. One was a softsided 360° spinning bag and an old hard shelled suitcase that was the only thing that I could fit the sign that I had ordered for the meetup into so that it wouldn't get damaged. Along with that I was carrying 150 button name tags that would be passed out to members of the group.

My flight out wasn't until 2:50pm CST and I made sure that there was no repeat of my travel woes that happened for the Mississippi Blues Half Marathon. I left plenty early to allow for the lost hour for the time change into Texas. In fact, I arrived almost 3 hours early for my flight giving me enough time to pick up some last minute items and a sandwich before entering the airport. Most of my time waiting was spent on the laptop either playing on Facebook/Twitter or watching my Pitch Perfect DVD...yes, even when traveling I have to get my fix of this movie at least once a day! lol! The flight out of Amarillo and into Las Vegas was late but uneventful and it still blows my mind that McCarran International Airport has a severe lack of outlets/computer charging stations in this day and age. I mean, really?? After a short layover we boarded the short 45 minute flight into LAX. There really wasn't a whole lot of time to do anything on this flight so I just listened to my music and tried to nap with a 6 year old (or so) talking at the top of his voice sitting in the row in back of me.

My flight landed a little early and I had hoped to catch a 6pm Disney Resort Express shuttle to the hotel, but found out that it wouldn't be making it's next pass through the airport until 6:30pm. Thankfully it was warm outside with only the slightest of breezes, much different from the windy, 30-40° back home in New Mexico, so I just sat on my suitcase and waited outside while playing on my tablet and listening to music. Once I finally arrived at the hotel, I met one of my room mates, Jessica, who was a total stranger other than our interactions on the Facebook group. A couple of hours later my running buddy from the inaugural TinkerBell HM, Melanie, and her friend, Noreen, arrived to round out our group of four. Now, considering that the last time I had shared a room with 3 other chicks was when I was a young teenager I knew that this would be an interesting event with 4 grown women sharing a single room. lol!

This was a night to stay in because the race expo would be in the morning and I'd need to be there early to help work the SparkleSkirts booth through the morning and into the early afternoon. So, after chatting and catching up on things we all turned in at around 11pm in preparation for the next day.

Race Day -2 (Friday, January 18, 2013)

My earnings/purchases and official race shirt from the Expo minus
the ear buds and mini Minnie ears/barrettes thatI lost on race day.
Pic taken about a month late...whoops! lol!

Melanie was up bright and early in order to go attend the runDisney Galloway Meetup, she had been lucky enough to get her name on the RSVP list that literally closed within minutes, if not seconds, after opening. In fact, she had to change her travel plans and leave a day early because she had originally planned to arrive on Friday rather than Thursday but this meetup was an opportunity that she couldn't miss. I was already up and just procrastinating on getting ready. Once I finally did get up and out of bed, I got dressed and prepared to walk over to the Disneyland Hotel with Noreen (a first time Disneyland/Disney California Adventures visitor) so that she could eventually meet up with Melanie. Jessica did the right thing and headed to the gym when we all went our separate ways.

After I got Noreen to the Disneyland Hotel, I headed down to the expo to start work at the booth. Now, I try to volunteer for the SparkleSkirts booth whenever I can just because I believe in their product so much and this was the second time I would work with them, the first time being at the WDW Wine & Dine HM. I truly love Leah and Tom and have purchased their tech skorts and medal hangers several times. I always have fun working with the customers and trying to eventually get someone to convert to the brand.

My first time back on the Tower of Terror in
probably a decade?? Last time was at WDW.

While I was working, Jessica was kind enough to pick up my race packet for me and drop it off so that I could walk around the expo after my shift without having to wait in the pick up line. The girls stopped by the booth for a bit with Melanie making an unplanned purchase and we eventually met back in the room and headed over to the parks for an evening of rides. We really didn't get on too many rides...a couple of turns on the Tower of Terror, plus Buzz Lightyear, the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jungle Cruise and we had FastPasses to Space Mountain but it had broken down before we got a chance to get on. :( All in all we were probably in the park for 3-4 hours tops before heading back to the room with a stop at Denny's for a late dinner. Since Jessica had to be up early the next morning for the Neverland Family 5K and I had another morning shift at the SparkleSkirts booth, we both turned in fairly soon after arriving back in the room so that we could get an early start.

Race Day -1 (Saturday, January 19, 2013)

This day started out just like any other. I knew it was going to be busy since I was going to be working the booth, then managing the group meetup to be followed by the group pre-race dinner. Unfortunately this meant no trip into the parks for me on this day since the race was scheduled to start bright and early at 5am on Sunday morning. I realized early that I had been scheduled to start work at 9:45am but that the expo was scheduled to open at 9am so I decided to head over early just to see if they needed help sooner rather than later only to find that the expo had opened at 8am for a special group of people so it was serendipity that I showed up early.

In the afternoon, the next set of volunteers showed up and noticing that there was an hour overlap with 6 volunteers in a small booth, I opted to leave early so that I could get things ready for the group meetup. After resting up for about an hour I packed up the buttons/name tags, my label printer and the sign and headed over to the meetup location in front of Apricot Lane at Downtown Disney. Members of the group started to trickle in starting at about 3:45pm and by about 4:15pm I was catching up on name tags that I had missed making, started to introduce each other (the main goal of the meetup is to put faces to the names that we see on Facebook) and prepare for the group picture. This is the second of what will hopefully be an annual meetup although for me the 5 year legacy mark will likely be my final Tink HM. We all hung out for as long as we could with many of the original crew staying the longest catching up with each other. Then I was off again just after 5pm to bring back my bag of stuff to the hotel so that I wouldn't have to drag it around to dinner.

Our pre-race dinner race participants!

Our group dinner was held at Naples Ristorante in Downtown Disney at 6pm. In all there were 21 of us with about 11 being actual participants in the race the next day. This was a good mix of new Tink runners and original crew. We had a great dinner with great service and I think I would be speaking for all of us in that this is a great place to eat and would come with some very good recommendations from us. At about 8:30pm we said our goodbyes and headed out to prep for the race early the next morning. It had been a long but great day being able to meet new members of the group and catching up with some year long friendships that have continued courtesy of Facebook.

To be continued...and will include my medical issues that cropped up during the race and the aftermath.