Dessert Party + Blogger Meetup + TNT Update

Guess who I met up with at my dessert party?


Why it's Diana from The Chic Life!

This past Saturday Matt and I headed down to Charlotte for my TNT dessert party that my mom was hosting.

We had tons of desserts that were donated to us by various bakeries, and my mom and I also made up her famous blueberry pound cake. I had gathered tons of giveaway items from local companies and I was hopeful that the event would be well attended and get me closer to my $3,500 fundraising goal.

I won't say that the entire party was a failure, but it definitely wasn't what I had hoped for. Not many people came. The good part? I raised $225! Better than nothing, right? Another good part? I got to meet Diana and her hubby!

After Kelsey posted about my event last week, Diana contacted me about it since she lives in Charlotte. I love meeting other bloggers because we always have stuff to talk about! Although The Chic Life is more of a food blog and she's not a runner, it was cool to chat about whole foods + healthy living with her. It was also nice that our boys could chat over some beers + cake + sports :) I hope we can all meet up again sometime when we're in Charlotte or they come to Charleston. (Thanks for supporting my cause guys!)

Diana was kind enough to let me steal her pictures, because if the above pic is any example, my point and click Nikon had nothing on her DSLR. You can read her recap of the night here!


All for a cause!!


The spread! Her pictures make it look much more chic than it was :) I guess that's her specialty though, right? I need to take some tips on that...

We had a beautiful flower arrangement donated by Willow. If you live in the Charlotte area and need flowers, this place is amazing. It's run by Tricia whose tag line is "organically inspired designs." We picked this up at her studio, which is run out of her gorgeous house in the Baxter Village area of Ft. Mill right off of I-77. Thanks Tricia for the fab arrangement!


We had two cheesecakes, this one is a chocolate cinnamon flavor. It was so-so.

This was strange indeed, some sort of frozen strawberry treat. It was actually pretty good. We dubbed this one the "ham and cheese" dessert. I've never seen or tasted anything quite like it.

YUM. My mom's blueberry pound cake. We had a little mishap making this. My mom was mixing everything up and we got flustered and distracted by some visitors and she forgot to add the sugar!


We had it all ready to go and were about to add the blueberries when we were like, hmmm this doesn't look right. We had to throw it out and start again. I guess there really is a method to the madness of adding ingredients in the stages that recipes call them to be added. But the second time was a charm as this was definitely the star of the evening.


And it's safe to say that this lemon topped carrot cake came in second. Delish!


The second cheesecake was a Bailey's flavored Irish Creme cake. Yuck!! I love Bailey's but this was nasty.

These were little chocolate marshmellow pies. Looked weird, but tasted great! Reminded me of chocolate Moon Pie's or Mallowmars but 100 times better. (I hate Moon Pies too.)

All in all this was a fun and relaxing evening, and although I didn't raise over $500 like I was hoping to, it was nice to see my family and of course to meet The Chic Life + Chic hubby!

..and I might have a giveaway of sorts in the cards as well. Some of the items I gathered for door prizes I still have, so stay tuned!

Team in Training Update
My running fundraising total for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is $2,612. Which means I only have $888 left to raise to meet my goal! If you can donate anything I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks to the following bloggers/online buddies for donating to my cause even though we've never met in person!

• Ross K (my first donor and largest donor to date)
• Anthony L (third highest donor!)
• JennieBinSC
• Nicole B (Running Bebe)
  
• JoyRuN
• MaytonH
• Jennifer B
• Meredith (Balance for Mere)
  
• Eugene M
  
• NY Wolve (**Updated to add...inadvertently missed this donor! Hard to keep the real names and the blog names together when looking at my donation sheet :)
  

I missed the group run this weekend unfortunately, and didn't have a chance to make up the 14 miles on my own. We are moving this Friday so this week is pretty slam packed but I did a nice 6 mile run last night and plan on doing a few two a days this week to get ready for the madness that is going to be WWR NEXT WEEKEND!

Dessert Fundraiser this Saturday in Charlotte, NC Area!

Hey y'all! Just a quick update for anybody out there in the Ft. Mill, SC/Charlotte, NC area!

I'm holding another dessert night fundraiser this Saturday, July 25th from 7 to 9PM at my mom's house in Fort Mill, SC. She lives about 15 minutes outside of Charlotte so it's pretty close for any of y'all in the 704 area!

We're gonna have all you can eat desserts, coffee, Bailey's (yum) and hopefully some wine if I can get it donated, in exchange for donations.

I raised about $500 at my last dessert night for my Team in Training fundraising campaign and I'm hoping to shatter that number with the help of my mom at this event!

If you're in the area I would love to meet you! We're going to have plenty of desserts and some fun giveaways as well :) I've got a few "marathon inspired" donations from local companies so far that I'm either going to auction or raffle off...you gotta stop by to see what they are!

If you wanna indulge, shoot me an email for the deets: ChasRunner at gmail dot com

Have a fab Monday!

***Edited to add***

Awesome local companies making this event rock!

• Charlotte Running Company
• Carolina Pilates
• Kairos Yoga
• Willow Florist
• Birds of a Feather
• Starbucks Coffee
• Carswell Bakery
  
• Sayago's Hometown Cafe & Creamery
  

Photo Friday: Dessert Charity Night

12:30 AM Wednesday night: Monkey bread FAIL.
(Do not use spingform pans and Grands biscuits for monkey bread. It will turn out like this. One.Big.Fat.Buttery.Fail.)

5:00 PM Thursday afternoon: Monkey bread REDEEMED!

The spread! Sorry for iPhone pics...
Monkey bread, lemon raspberry pie, blueberry pound cake, cupcakes, mini cheesecake bites (with Reeses in the middle!) and cookies. Holy YUMZA!

Between the donations under my door and last night, I raised approximately $450! Which brings my total up to over $1,000!
(I haven't exactly counted everything, so that's an estimate.)

We didn't have a crazy turnout, but everyone who came donated generously as we stuffed our faces and watched the MJ coverage.

A big thank you to those of you who came :)

Have a good weekend! I'm off to do some hill repeats after work!

The big day is here!

Well it has been a busy week, and it's only going to get busier.

Had a GREAT solo run last night (my first run on my own since...um, too long ago) over the bridge. I'm still not where I want to be with speed or endurance, but I felt pretty good throughout the 5.5 mile run. I really, really needed a solid run yesterday as Monday and Tuesday I didn't have the time to hit the streets. (Tuesday night was our TNT social, it was fun! I even got some goodies for having over $500 in my fundraising account!)

I think my average pace last night was 10:02? Not bad. I took one short walk break. I need to be getting these shorter runs down in the 9-9:15 range though! I think I can do it.

What I did realize during my run was that just running the bridge (over and back) is not going to be sufficient for hill training (it's the only hill in Charleston. Truth.) If I learned anything with my first marathon, it was that this flatlander definitely needs to step up the hills!

So starting next week I will be doing hill repeats up the steep side of the bridge once a week. I figure a good workout would be to warm up for a mile and then do maybe 4 x .5 mile repeats? I would either jog or walk down the hill between repeats, then afterwards cool down for a mile. I'd say from the bottom of the hill to the peak, it's maybe .5 to .75 miles. I guess I could start with that and see if I could make it/need to add more.

Also, I tried my new shoes out again, this time I took out my old insoles. That helped a lot! But I still need more arch support so as soon as I can afford to order some new Superfeet I think that will make all the difference!

After my run I hit up the Teet for some last minute supplies for my dessert-a-thon tonight! Then I headed to Cupcake to pick up the cupcakes they donated for tonight's event. I'm glad I'm not a cupcake fiend because if I was, I would imagine it would have been hard to resist one of those last night...

I also stayed up baking/cleaning/arranging until past 1 AM! Needless to say I was struggling this morning. I still have some last minute things to do (and bake) before people start arriving at 7, so I'm hoping to leave work a bit early to finish things up.

In other news, we found an apartment! It's fantastic and actually a lot bigger than the one we have now for about the same rent. Plus, now we will have a washer/dryer AND a dishwasher!! Yeah, we live in a really small and older apartment so those luxuries have been a thing of the past for the last year...not any more! It is really nice and we are both super excited. We will be moving at the end of July!

We have a lot going on at work today so I will be busy busy 'till closing time. Hope to see some of you tonight! (Or either, see your beautiful names on my donation page :)

I wasn't going to post today but...

...I had a KILLER workout last night with my TNT group that I just had to share.

Coach Barbara is amazing, and incredibly fit. She has a daughter about my age but is WAY more in shape than I am! She's run over 30 marathons (including Boston) so she pretty much knows her stuff.

So I ran to and from the practice last night which was a little less than 2 miles from my apartment. (I almost had to sprint there because I was running late, so I was pretty tired before it even started.) We immediately got started on this killer workout.

Basically, you do each conditioning exercise for one minute. We did this on a track and used yoga mats for some of the exercises, and other things (fences, curbs) for some of the stretching and leg lifts. Check it out!

***UPDATED TO ADD: If you want a Word doc of this, let me know and I can email it out!***

1 Minute/1 Hour Conditioning Workout
By: TNT Coach Barbara Halpern

Cardio (10 Minutes)

Easy running
Skipping
Chase (R/L) - Running sideways, shuffling heels together)
Fast grapevine (R/L)
Walking high leg kicks (R/L)
Walking alternating lunges
Backwards running
Forward easy run
Bleacher or bench step-ups (Step up right, step up left, step down right, step down left, repeast with left side up first) 2 minutes

Strengthening (20 Minutes)
Side-lying leg lifts
Side -lying leg circles -two directions, as big as you can make it
Side-lying, top leg forward toe-taps
**Do all of these for a total of 4 minutes, then repeat on other side**
Pelvic lifts up -on back
Pelvic lifts- right and left
Standing heel taps (R/L) - We used a curb for these, one leg on curb, other foot heel tapping the ground, about 4 inches down

Standing rear leg lifts (don't touch up leg to ground)
Standing rear bent leg lifts
Standing rear bent leg pulses
**Do all three then repeat on other side**

Core Strength (10 Minutes)
On back, limbs form X, R arm to L foot touch (then reverse)
Pike - Arms touch straight legs
Elbow to knee bicycle crunch

Tibetins (head lifted, straight legs lift, legs down, head down)
Oblique twist "chasers" with straight legs (Arms out, R leg down to R hand, L leg follows, L leg up, R leg follows, then reverse)
Plank
Superman
Swim (Just like superman, but use arms and legs to "swim," R arm up, L leg up, reverse)

Stretching (10 Minutes)
Standing single-leg balances (Eyes open and eyes closed, R/L) - This is to strengthen our ankles so they're less likely to twist!
***

Might be kind of tough to understand, so if you have any questions about a specific exercise, email me!

Also...so excited about my dessert charity night! Yesterday I found out that a local bakery, Cupcake, is donating cupcakes for the evening!

Woo hoo now I don't have to bake as much :) Thanks go out to Kristin, owner and cupcake extraordinaire, who is also training for an endurance event!

Have a great Thursday folks, almost the weekend!