Friday night under the stars

Admit it. You read this blog title and thought oh, Anthony and Lyndy had a romantic evening out...they probably sat on a blanket and listened to an orchestra, sipping wine and cuddling. Ahhhh

WRONG-O

We went to the Vandy/South Carolina baseball game.

Gotcha!

A few observations from these brown eyes & this warped mind...

#1  The net thingy, although I certainly realize is there for our s-a-f-e-t-y is a visual impairment. Depending on where ya sit.

#2  I <3 people watching. You can't do that very well from the 1st row.

#3  Baseball, as I've been saying pretty much all of my adult life is b-o-r-i-n-g.

#4  I need to send an email to Vandy. Hey Dores - quit sellin the knock off cheapo imitation dippin' dots. I'm gonna need the real deal. #disappointing

The one cool thing about the night is we ran into Blaine Bishop, former Tennessee Titan, currently a local legend & radio host. Ok, so maybe Blaine isn't a local legend, but he's a real cool dude. And he smiled at us like we were old friends and commenced to fist bumping Anthony. Cool points for Blaine. *Note: No, I did not ask for a pic. I do have some self restraint. I figure we already have 2 or 3 so I'll leave the guy alone for once. 

Another highlight of the night was a return visit 
here

Tips for a good LONG RUN

Last Saturday I was supposed to run 8 miles. Yeah, you heard me right - EIGHT. But I didn't. I only did 7 and had to walk a bit of that last mile. 

As I reflected on it, I realize I didn't really set myself up for a good run last week. 

Mistakes I made:
~I didn't eat a good meal the night before. 
~I ran 3 miles the day before. The day before is supposed to be a "no exercise day."
~I didn't get out there early enough and it was 77 degrees last Saturday. It was a hot one. Running in the middle of the day during an unseasonably warm feels like July or August kinda day... dee-you-em-bee dumb
~I didn't have enough to eat before going out to run AND I only had a small amount of water. 
~I ran at my faster, short run pace. The.whole.time.

I pretty much did everything wrong last Saturday. :-( Shame on me!

So this week I was determined to do everything right. 

And I did.

THE DAY BEFORE - First off, I did not exercise - not at all. Second, I had the right kind of dinner Friday night thanks to my sweet hubby... Anthony grilled us some chicken and I also had spaghetti. And a bit of rice too actually. Carbs the night before with some protein is a good prep for the following day's long run.

FUEL UP & GET OUT EARLY - I got my lazy tail up around 6:30 and was out the door by 7ish. I had a nice bowl of oatmeal and about 8 oz of water. (Not too much or you may hafta find a bush & some privacy. Lol)

WATER OR SPORTS DRINK - I stowed a ziploc bag of ice with my Gatorade in it along my route so I could grab it around mile 6 or 7. It totally helped!

PACING - While I was running, I slowed my pace down from my usual 10-10.5 minute mile pace to around 12-12.5. So the first 6 miles I was following the LSD rule (long slow distance). They say on long runs you're not supposed to be concerned with speed AT ALL. You just wanna f-i-n-i-s-h. Doing that allowed me to speed up my last three miles. So I did my 9 miles in 1 hour 50 minutes. 

GOOOOO ME ! 

As the joyful runner blog girl says...
go here for her blog ~

But I'll soon be in the club... I'll be able to say Why yes, I have run a half marathon... 
A 13.1 sticker or magnet will be attached to my car, oh yes.
 
Be jealous, very jealous. Or you can think I'm crazy, whatev... 
 

Riley's 4th birthday

Yes, I'm behind in blogland. I figure the 3 people who probably read my blog will forgive me. :-P 

Last Sunday was Riley's 4th birthday. 

Side bar: Our good friends Lisa & Alan are the proud parents of this sweet boy I'd love to steal. We hang out with them and sometimes watch Riley for them. 

Riley's all into superheroes now. 

He got lotsa cool Superheroey toys and stuff to play with. We got him some kinda of Light Speeders Hot Wheels play set thing he wanted.

 the happy birthday boy

 with his chums

Since Riley likes several different Superheroes, it was only fitting that his cake reflected that.

Cue Lyndy.

A guy at my work dabbles with cakes on the side. So we gave him some inspiration from the world wide web and here's what he came up with - 

Pretty cool, huh?

And IT TASTED GREAT, too. 
Sometimes the fondant icing, while pretty and neato, will be chewy and um not so yummy. But this was the best fondant I've ever had. And the cake was super moist! 

His biz is called Big Daddy's Cakes n More. He's on Facebook so look him up. I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

Pretty sure Riley had a HAP HAPPY birthday and I'm glad we were able to share his special day with him. Hard to believe the little booger is 4 already!