Hilary in Transition

In January, I was told about this new thing called “GymPact,” which makes you put real money on the line for real results. Their schtick is that you “commit” to going to the gym the upcoming week a certain amount of days. When you go to the gym, you use your iPhone app (right now they have no Android option), and you check into the gym for at least 30 minutes. When you’re done, you just check out! It uses the GPS connected to the phone to verify that you’re at the place you say you are. They also don’t allow home or office gyms because they can’t verify it. You can check-in at any gym, and they go in at midnight and check that it’s an actual gym.

This idea is created by Harvard graduates who said they were paying too much for a gym membership they never used. Thus, if you go the amount you say you will, you get real money back– all for free to sign up! You’re probably wondering how you get paid though! The people who don’t go to the gym get charged, and you get portions of that depending on how many days a week you committed- the more you go, the more you get. It varies from week to week but it’s usually between 50 cents and a dollar per share. Another common question is do your personal stakes (mine are $5) affect how much you get paid? The answer is no. The stakes are for your own personal benefit and I think the incentive of going more days per week makes you earn more is a good idea.

What’s required, you might ask? You will need an iPhone, a credit card, a Paypal account (down the road a little bit) for the real money you earn, and a gym to go to! They won’t charge your card unless you miss days. You set your own stakes, but the minimum is $5 per day missed. You can look and edit your profile right from your phone or online.

Here are some screenshots from my own pact! It shows you at the top how many days you have to go, how many you’ve committed to for that week and what your stakes are, and your news feed from your previous workouts and pacts completed.

They also account for sick days and other unexpected excuses– but you have to get a doctor/company note and send it to them to verify. You cannot change your pact for the upcoming week after Sunday at midnight. After that, you’re stuck for that week. You can also take leaves of absences if you know you won’t be working out due to vacation, etc. but you have to make sure you do them before the Sunday night cutoff.

You’re also welcome to try it as a “trial member” which just means you check in at the gym and complete the pact, but there are no monetary stakes or rewards– but what’s the fun in that?!

Another common question is the problem of outdoors workouts. They say that you can check in at a park and run if you’re going to stay in the same general area, but they can’t do any type of traveling workouts or places they can’t verify a gym or workout location. I personally have not tried that, but supposedly that is an option for those of us runners out there! I like to use it for gym cardio sessions, strength training, group fitness classes, and swimming!

At the end of every week, on Monday or Tuesday, they send you an “attendance report” as shown above. It just summarizes how much you earned or lost that week and what you have for next week.

I think this is a great motivational tool- who wants to lose money!? So far, I have not been charged. This is my third week doing it and I just keep upping my amount of days committed to see how much I can earn! It’s not much, but it’s fun to get paid for going to the gym. The people are great! You can report any problems or issues you may have with it and they’ll get back to you personally. They want to form it for you- the gym goers.

This is my personal review of the product so far and I love it. It’s almost a game, but with real consequences and rewards! I suggest you other bloggers out there give it a go!

Right after Ragnar Relay, I jumped into Spring semester immediately.

I’m taking 13 credits this semester:

Looks nice, doesn’t it?

ADV3008: Principles of Advertising
SPC2608: Intro to Public Speaking
ASL1120: American Sign Language 2
MAR3023: Principles of Marketing

I’ll just go over my first impressions after Week 1.

ADV3008: I love the professor for advertising. He’s a PhD student with real world experience. He’s reasonable, but respectable. I think he’ll make the class that has the potential to be really boring, pretty interesting. After the first couple classes, I can say that his lectures are relatively interesting for a 9:35 class. I had the option to take it later in the day (and have no early classes at all), but I head he was a good professor and I took a chance. So far, I’m happy with my decision. This is a class on the list of “cognate courses” which I need 15 credits of for my major. I already did 5 credits last semester, and this is 3 more.

SPC2608: This is probably going to be a difficult class for me. From the just the first week and going over the syllabus, I don’t think the course material is going to be very hard. I just fear public speaking and I know I will be out of my comfort zone in this class. The class is taught by another PhD student, and I’m not particularly fond of her. She seems a little pompous, and doesn’t make me feel comfortable in a class I already don’t want to be in. But with that, she seems nice otherwise. The class is required as a “tracking course” for my major, which in UF-Talk basically means its a pre-req for my major. I’ve been trying to get the class for the past few semesters, but a lot of majors require it and they are small classes based on the nature of the class so it’s been difficult. I could be judging too quickly, so I’ll give it more time. Hopefully I’ll get better at public speaking and it won’t be too bad of a course and everything will be fine and dandy.

ASL1120: This is basically just a continuation from last semester’s ASL 1. Same teacher, same room, same format. This is perfectly fine with me though, because I love Dr. Tuccelli. I think he’s an awesome professor and has a very distinct passion for his course. He makes it a fun and interesting class as best as he can. I like silent meals and I can’t wait to get better at ASL this semester. He has made arrangements at a local school to either sit in elementary school deaf classrooms or participate in classroom activities. I’m excited to see what this semester will bring!

MAR3023: Another online class. I have a love/hate relationship with online classes for sure. It’s nice not having to go, but then… you don’t have to go and it’s easy to just put it off. I’m a little behind on lectures because I was focusing on my Maverick application last week, but I’ll take some time and catch up. I have watched some of the first lecture and she seems pretty nice, but there is a very slim possibility that I’ll ever meet her. I have a feeling this class will be a lot like Management that I took last semester. There are 3 exams and that’s it (even less chance for me to mess up in the class). This is a little scary since there are few opportunities for points, but I’ve heard it’s easier than MGMT. There are going to be Smokin’ Notes for the class also. I think that marketing and advertising will go very nicely together. It appears that I’m a PR major or something with all the classes I’m taking: public speaking, advertising, and marketing! Time will tell with this class.

With no Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes, I chose to work Monday mornings (10-12:30 at SWRC) and Wednesday evenings (6-8:30pm at BORC). I didn’t get a chance for a third shift again at the shift draft because we still have a lot of OAs (my position). Last semester and over winter break, I vowed that I would take more opportunities to get involved. I applied to be a Maverick at my apartment complex because it’s really great experience and it’s what I want to do for a living: event planning/hospitality. I love working with people and getting people together just to socialize, bond, and have fun. I think that people need more of that in their lives. Human contact is necessary for survival, whether people choose to admit it or not. Anyways, I made it past the first selection process and I have a group interview tomorrow. They’re only choosing one person though, so I don’t know how much competition I have. If I get the job, that’d be great! If not, at least it’s more experience in applying for jobs/that process. It doesn’t hurt to apply and take a chance.

I also joined an Intramural soccer team. The past couple semesters I didn’t get on it in time or I just didn’t want to participate, but I feel like I should do it at least one semester. It’s a co-rec, co-ed competitive team I think. The downside of it is that we play at 11pm on Wednesday nights. Why so late?! We’ll see how it goes. I think it’s pretty informal so we’ll see how it goes. We might have a practice tonight.

I also found a Honors Fraternity that I think I want to join. I’m going to check it out next Monday when their rush starts. Their focus is on academic, social, philanthropy, etc. and it seems like it’s a pretty welcoming group of people. It’s worth a shot to check out! Like I mentioned before, it doesn’t hurt to check things out. More on that later after I go to their Meet Night.

In other news, I went on a trail ride with Dylan and Erica. I miss horseback riding so much sometimes. I asked the people to canter and they let me in the ring. I’d forgotten what it was like, and it was harder than I had remembered, but that was also probably because of lack of experience since I was in middle school. Strangely, my quads hurt from gripping the horse (this is a little sad that I’m sore), unless I’m supposed to be? Then I win!

That’s my recap!

Back in October, I put together a team through Trigators from an all-call email. We gathered 6 guys and 6 girls ranging from early 20s to 30s. The weekend started by all of us driving down to Miami from Tampa, Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Boca Raton. We met up the night before and ate some dinner after some debate since we were trying to satisfy all types of eaters and desires. After dinner we went back to the hotel and prepared for a new adventure! I couldn’t sleep at all that night- which was not a good sign because I knew I was in for a couple days of sleep deprivation.
Tramp Stamp-ede!
We got ready to go by 9 am, and headed over to Dunkin’ Donuts for some breakfast on the go. Then we went across the street to a Publix to get snacks and hydration for the coolers in each van. We grabbed stuff like bananas, gatorade, water jugs, PB&J, etc. that we could eat on the run.

After we loaded up the coolers with proper goodies, we decorated our vans! The more artistic girls helped write on the vans the design that was on our shirts (made by my friend Jon). I passed out shirts too, which everyone loved!


Walking to Check-In

Our team in order of runner number! I’m #11

Trying out the tattoos


After we killed some time getting ready at the parking lot, we went to Key Biscayne. It was a beautiful start line. Van 1 checked in, did their safety training, and Brad and I made everyone take tons of pictures! (You can never have enough!) The water was beautiful and it was a perfect morning. Diana was our first runner, so we all waited to cheer her on at the start. After that, Van 2 (my van) went to get lunch at Panera in Coconut Grove. I parallel parked the mini van!
The slap bracelet that was our “baton”
Putting our tramp stamps.

Van 1 (Nish, Diana, Clarissa, Emily, Jeff, Brad)

Van 2 (Me, Ryan, Amanda, Alex, Allison, Stefan)

We went to the first major exchange (from runner 6 to runner 7, therefore switching vans) at the Miami Zoo. We were there for at least 4 hours, just killing time. A word of advice for people doing Ragnar in the future is to bring something to do (laptop, book, music, silly stuff, etc.) because there is a lot of time to kill between vans, depending on the speed of your team and when you start. Our team started at 1 in the afternoon because we were one of the faster teams (we were #7 in the mixed division!), but other teams started as early as 7am. At this exchange they gave us Krispy Kreme, but some people later regretted eating the donuts (no comment). We did our safety training and got ready for our first legs. It was crazy because the sun was setting and we hadn’t even started our first legs. We had a LONG way to go!

That’s right, I’m the captain!

Finally, our runner 6, Clarissa, got to the exchange and handed off to Amanda. She had a 4 mile run, so we hurried off to the next exchange. Traffic was bad in Miami so we worried she’d beat us there. Luckily, she didn’t and we kept the ball rolling with Alex. These exchanges went super quickly because everyone on my team was incredibly fast (especially compared to me), and their first legs were pretty short. The van had directions on how to get to each exchange, which generally followed the running route. It was cool to see all the runners because they had reflective vests, headlamps, and tail lights on (since it was dark). Each exchange had least a few vans and there were barricades with reflexives and lights for us to know it was an exchange. They were on random roads, some main and some off in the middle of nowhere.

They gave us air freshener for our van… how appropriate!

Van 2 getting ready to go! This is before any of us had started!


First exchange from van 1 to van 2

Our first minor exchange (runner 7 to runner
I was runner 11, so I was getting super nervous by my leg. It was 7:15pm and very dark when I finally started my leg. I was so worried I was gonna get lost I wrote the directions on my hand, but when I wanted to look at them, they made NO sense. I had to trust the signs on my route. For the running route, you went straight unless otherwise noted by a blue sign that gave directions like left, right, cross the street then left, one more mile to go, etc. I ran in the middle of nowhere, Homestead. There was a canal on my left and right and the main road was to my right but I was separated from it. People would drive by in Ragnar vans and honk and wave. It was encouraging but I was literally by myself- no one in front of me or behind at all. I turned and I was running next to the plantations and when I finally came up on my exchange my team was waiting with the van and it was exhilarating!

Finishing my first leg!

Checking off my first leg on the van!

At that point it was chilly, and we drove to the next major exchange which was from runner 12 to runner 1. It was at the Homestead Miami Speedway. Runner 12 got to run around the actual racetrack for a mile and a half. They also had free chiropractor services. I got an adjustment and stretched out. It felt good after being in a van all day. When we finally traded with the other van, we went to a pizza joint (one of the only places open at 10:30pm). Our next runner was projected to run around 3:30-4am, so we ate and went to the school that the next major exchange was at… or so we thought. We had quiet time from 12:30-2:30, and I got a little light sleep in, I think.
Around 3am, our other van said that they were “at the school” and by that time, all the other vans that were around earlier had left and we looked around for our other teammates and there was no sign of them. It wasn’t until that point that we realized we had been sitting at the wrong school for 4 hours! We sped to the next exchange in hopes of beating our runner there, but unfortunately she had to wait 10 minutes or so because we were at least 2 exchanges behind her. We dropped our runner off for her 10 mile run and she was off. All of my van members’ stomachs had been bothering them… it must’ve been the pizza they all shared (I had pasta!). So at every exchange everyone would grab the Huggies wipes and toilet paper and go to the portapotties!

Ryan prepping for his bathroom break

Chilling in the van in the middle of the night.

One of the vans at our exchanges. I thought it was pretty awesome!
It finally was warming up by the time my second leg started. It was right at sunrise and I didn’t have to wear the safety lights!

This was what I was looking at as I started my second leg. The whole time, I was wishing I had a camera because there was such beautiful sights. At that point I was running along A1A alternating between bridge and land. Some of it had running paths but other times I was running on a gravelly shoulder– the gravel was dangerous because my ankles kept rolling. I pushed it on my second leg and all I could think was “get through this” “faster faster” and I felt like I was going to throw up by the end. After Ryan (runner 12) was done, we grabbed some breakfast at a local place called The Wooden Spoon. It was packed! I saw lots of Ragnar runners getting some home cooked breakfast while we were there. By that time it was around 10:30am. Ryan, Stefan, and Allison wanted to take a “shower” and freshen up before their last leg so we went to a beach on Marathon Key that was just beautiful.

After their showers, we had a ways to go out to Key West. The last 6 legs of the race were short (only about 20 miles total), so we drove a while though all of Van 1′s legs.

Me driving across the 7-mile bridge!
Once we got to the next exchange we waited for a about an hour or two just stretching and talking and mingling with other vans. Eventually we left, and Amanda started her last leg in great pain.
This is one of the last exchanges before the finish. Never a dull moment with Ryan.
My last leg was supposed to be 3.5 but Allison gave me her leg which was 2. I decided I was going to run hard for the team for the last two miles. I ran about a 9 min/mi pace, and BOY! was it HOT! It was 2:30 in the afternoon and everyone was just dying of the heat. It was like a Florida summer, but in January! I didn’t want to stop or slow down because all I could think was “it’s a measly 2 miles! Pound it out!”
But I finished it strong, and here I am marking off my last leg on the van!

All that was left was the finish. We let Ryan start his last 5.5 miles and drove ahead so we could meet up with Van 1 and run in all together through the finish line. We were all wearing our pink shirts (except Ryan who refused to run with a shirt). We were like beasts across the finish line and I think that it was a little shocking that the whole thing was finally over. When we first started the 27 hour race seemed daunting and we couldn’t even figure out which day was which at this point. At the finish line they called for Team Captain, and I got my very on team captain hat (FL Keys style!) and I passed out medals. The medals double as bottle openers which apparently is their trademark because they say “you deserve a beer” at the end.

Gotta represent! GO GATORS!

The ending area was pretty impressive. Only a block from the Southernmost Point in the Continental USA!

That’s the finisher’s party! We didn’t really adventure into it though, which I am a little sad about. After the race, we went back to our suites and took well deserved showers, got something to eat, walked down Duvall Street, and crashed around 11:30pm. I fell asleep within minutes. It was the best feeling ever, I have to say.

Overall, I think the entire experience was amazing! There were definitely points were I said, “why did I think this was a good idea?!” but mostly I think it was fun to bond with people I barely had even met before let alone spend days with. I’d probably do it again, maybe with a new group of people to switch it up a bit. I thought the race course was very scenic, so I’d probably do the FL Keys again, though somewhere more exotic to me than FL would be interesting too, I bet. I would definitely get a bigger van, just to be part of that giant white vehicle parade going down the road one right after the other! I’d also go all out with a theme and potentially minimal costumes. Some vans even did this thing where they would “tag” other vans with a magnet or a paw print, just to see how many they got. It’s really a great feeling being part of something so huge– there were 500 teams there!
I made a list of Dos and Don’ts with a couple of my teammates on the drive back to Tampa.
If you’ve done Ragnar, feel free to comment and add to them! I’d love to know your experience!

Do…

• Train for your legs
• Decorate your van
• Hydrate the entire trip
• Pack lots of snacks
• Expect to share things with your team mates you wouldn’t normally share
• Bring febreeze for your van and other stinky things
• Bring extra sets of running clothes for worst-case scenarios or just to feel fresh
• Dress up and go all out with your team theme
• Bring toilet paper, Huggies wipes, and hand sanitizer (and learn the portapotty etiquette
• Expect and plan for a wide range of temperatures and weather
• “Kill” (or pass) people and keep track on the outside of your van
• Bring a minivan, regular van, or 12 passenger van
• Be prepared to take others’ legs due to injuries, exhaustion, etc.
• Van support for your team members at night and on long legs
• Have alternates in case of last minute drop outs
• Do a mixed team with even number of girls and guys (it creates a nice mix)
• Discuss goals of race prior to starting race (i.e. having fun, getting a good finishing time, etc)
• Bring car chargers for your phones, iPods, Androids and something to do in the car in case you get bored and can’t nap
• HAVE FUN!

Don’t…

• Expect any type of sleep for at least 24 or more hours
• Eat the Krispy Kreme that they give you
• Bring an SUV
• Let the lack of sleep get to you

I definitely think that Ragnar Relay is something runners should do at least once in their lives! Glad I did it!

Happy New Year, Blog World! Finally 2011 comes to a close and I am so grateful. I’ll be honest with you, blog people, last year was not a good year for me. Though it definitely had its ups and happy times (which I will try my hardest to focus on), it had many more downs. Just for kicks, I’m going to go into my Top 10 memories of 2011.

10. Trying a completely new and different haircut

Before:

After:

9. Exploring Gainesville more and finding the beauty of living in a new(ish) city

8. Participating in three triathlons and two half marathons (ING Miami Half Marathon, First Watch Sarasota Half Marathon, Dunedin Sprint Tri, Top Gun Sprint Tri, and Suncoast Sprint Tri)

7. Becoming involved in myTeam Triumph

It’s a great organization that I can see myself growing within and spreading across the state of FL to especially the collegiate triathletes. It’s within my area of interest which recently has been planning and organizing events, with the endurance and multi-sport concentration. I also have been working with people with disabilities for the past year and getting involved with ASL. This non-profit organization is right up my alley!

6. Getting my new road bike (and paying for it myself)

5. Going to NC with three of my closest friends

4. Living at University House in my first apartment with Erica and Catie

3. Going skydiving (for free!)

2. Discovering the Deaf world and studying ASL

After I took the class “Exceptional People” in Spring 2011, I decided to take ASL 1 in Fall. I absolutely loved it! I’m already signed up for ASL 2 for next semester. There’s just such a fascinating culture that goes along with the language. Deaf people are proud of who they are and their language; it’s something to admire and get invested in.

(I love ASL)

And the best memory from 2011 was…

1. Finding happiness within myself and just being me!

This quote pertains to my journey to happiness at this current moment:

Now that I have recapped some of my favorite memories from 2011, I’m going to look forward to 2012. I’m not going to try to make a bunch of resolutions that I won’t keep, but here are some things I would like to keep in mind as goals for next year:

1. Keep journaling/recording food and exercise on MFP as consistently as possible. Just being aware of how many calories I am taking in, burning, etc. keeps me accountable even if I’m not “good” every day. I’d like to push myself to lose the weight I’ve unfortunately put on the past year or so, but healthily. Losing weight and being healthy is a lifestyle for sure- I don’t want it to be a “diet” because they never last. I just got to keep myself interested and excited about it so I want to do different things (i.e. try new classes, add strength, change up my races).

2. Challenge myself more in my classes/school. This includes going after the potential leadership minor. It looks like I could possibly get it but I need to talk to an advisor when I go back for Spring 2012 semester (in 1 week!!)

3. Explore new groups of people and different groups through UF. They are there when I’m in college and I should take advantage of them while I am still in school. Maybe I’ll meet a few cool people while finding new hobbies! Sounds like a win/win situation to me!

4. Continue to feel motivated with my running, biking, and swimming. I always feel like such a poser saying I’m a triathlete or runner if I haven’t been training much (or *gasp!* at all). My philosophy on training and being any type of multi-sport endurance athlete is that if I’m not having fun doing it, something needs to change to make it fun again. I consider triathlon a hobby (not just a sport for competition) because it’s my source of entertainment and fun. I always want to try to make it fun for myself and others around me. Part of the reason I’m attracted to the triathlon world is that people feel a sense of camaraderie, and I want to do my best to keep that alive!

At the moment, those are the only goals I can think of.

I want 2012 to be an adventure of a year, and hopefully a good, fun, and exciting adventure!

For Christmas, my sister bought me a Camelbak for my hydration woes. Today, on a short two mile run I wanted to try it out. Katie helped me out since she bought one for herself a couple months ago. We filled the bladder and tried to fit it as snugly as possible.

On the run itself, the first things I noticed were the bouncing and the sloshing. I think that next time I would need to try to get as little air in the bladder as possible. I also noticed my back as much hotter than usual. I didn’t like those two aspects, but it was nice having water readily available.

One thing that I was worried about was that the straw would get in my face, bounce, or somehow be annoying to me, but it really wasn’t at all. That was a plus. I might need to string it differently so it’s not at a weird angle.

I also noticed that I felt like extra weight was attached to my body by the end of the two miles, leaving me more fatigued than usual. However, I could also credit that to the usually hot weather for December or the excess food that I ate yesterday for Christmas. Either way, I think it’s definitely something to train with if you’re using on race day.

Overall, I give it 4/5 stars for a first run experience and I definitely think it’s worth it to have that hydration in tow especially during hot Florida weather!

Man, I never thought I’d say this, but I am birthday-ed out! I have been celebrating my birthday since Friday! On Friday night we had a Masquerade Party at our apartment party because all the girls of 1313 had birthdays between November 14th (Erica and Catie) and November 22 (mine)! It was a lot of fun and I’m glad that every was a good sport and wore a mask at least at the beginning. Most of the girls ended up wearing black, surprisingly! We got some pictures before too many people showed up.

I borrowed Sophie’s awesome mask for some pictures because it was so much cuter than mine!

The birthday girls!

On Saturday night, the birthday celebration continued with my “friends” birthday dinner. We went to The Top restaurant in Downtown Gainesville. I’ve heard such good things about it, it’s unique to G-Ville, and it seemed like a decently priced place to go that was nicer but not too fancy to fit in a college students’ budget. It was a little bit of a stressful experience though. On Saturday there was a home game at 1pm (which we struggled to win… c’mon Gators!). The restaurant opened at 5 on Saturday and they don’t take reservations on the weekends. People were worried about coming home from the game, changing, and making it to my apartment by 5. I was hoping to get there early before much of the crowd arrived. By the time we got there, it was super busy and the wait for 11 people would be 45 minutes. We decided to stay anyways. I think we got lucky because I don’t think it was actually 45 minutes. We got seated, ordered, but then the food took forever. Not the best service, however, the food was very good when we finally got it. I got a mushroom ravioli… YUM! Everyone else was generally happy with their food except one of my friends ordered steak and was disappointed about it’s overdone-ness. After that we got some gelato and went home. Successful night in the end.

My sister Katie came to Gainesville on Monday night, spent the night, and then we both drove home together on Tuesday! Tuesday was spent packing, driving, and celebrating my real birthday. It’s not much of an exciting birthday- only 20 years. Two decades… not a teenager anymore. Woo!

LOOK! It’s my first minute of being 20!

Charlie (Katie’s cat) is my travel companion!

My parents got me Sperry Topsiders a week and a half ago when I was home. They’re super cute and I love them but I got horrible blisters trying to break them in so I haven’t gotten to wear them too much which makes me sad!

They look like this:

I wanted them because I own no closed-toe shoes other than my running shoes and bike shoes. This means I can wear them to work and to keep my toesies warm in the winter (at least more so than my flip flops which is usually my only choice no matter what).  

Tuesday night, after birthday candles and cupcakes, I went out with my friend Phil to California Pizza Kitchen. Best pizza ever. It’s my favorite and I usually only for my birthday unless I happen to be in Tampa. We also went to the beach and walked around and got some Larry’s Ice Cream on St. Pete Beach.

Since my mom had to work Tuesday night, we moved our family birthday dinner to Wednesday (today), and we went to Arigatos! Hands down, one of my favorite restaurants. It’s an experience to say the least, and it never disappoints me. After all this birthday eating, I am so NOT ready for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I feel like I’ve eaten enough for days. Good thing I’m not one of those people that looks forward to all the Thanksgiving foods!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’ve got the Turkey Trot 5k in the morning and more eating to do! Thanks to everyone who made my birthday special!

Today I drove to St. Augustine for a field trip for my American SIgn Language class. It was for an open house the Florida School of Deaf and Blind was having at their campus. My professor, Dr. Tuccelli apparently started this show (one of the staff members told us while we were waiting for it to start) at least 10 years ago when he worked at the FSDB and they continued it after he left to be a professor at UF. The staff member also mentioned how he was in a low paying job and really moved up when he started teaching at UF. I thought it was funny because Tuccelli is a little bit of a celebrity in the Deaf community around the state of Florida. People know him and love him and I feel so honored to be one of his students! I hope I don’t disappoint him!

So when the show started they introduced the school and basically said they do everything everyone else does and more. It was really interesting. It’s a boarding school so most students live at the school during the whole week and go home on the weekends. At the end, they took a poll and most of their parents don’t sign at home at all and usually the kids will talk to their parents and read lips as best as possible. One of the girls went deaf when she was 9 for no apparent reason and I got to ask her how that feeling was and she said it was scary because she could tell she was going deaf. Her grandmother also went deaf when she was 15 so they think it runs in her family. A few of them said it came from a high fever when they were younger. Another interesting thing was they had ranges of hard of hearing and deaf-”deaf” as they would say. They also interact a lot with the blind kids at the school, by fingerspelling into their hands or talking. One of the other girls (who is actually in the first video) says that she’s going to St. Augustine High School next year because she doesn’t feel challenged enough (she’s a junior).

The group that you see in the following two videos (these are only snippets of the whole performance- my favorite parts) is the Deaf Dance Troupe. They perform all over the state including the capital. They sign and dance to songs because they either sort of hear the music, feel the vibrations in the floor, follow other classmates, or watch cues from their teacher. However, it’s not just from all those things; they practice an hour and a half five times a week after school! They were very impressive and I just absolutely had to share this experience with the blog world.

Oh Darling in ASL

This couple were pretty much the main stars of the show in my opinion. This song was absolutely adorable and they are actually a couple in real life!

Without You in ASL

Has it really been 4 weeks since my last post?! Wow, so much has happened it’s hard to keep up! Pretty much every week and weekend has been filled with doing something. I’ve bought some Groupons over the last few months and I need to use them before they expire but I can’t seem to find a free weekend to use them!

I’ve been doing some festive, October-related activities this month and gone on a couple adventures!

A couple weekends ago we went to a corn maze festival (of course, because of a Groupon). Wannee was up for the weekend from UCF and we made a mini trip out to Belleview (spelling?) and it was a little tiny “festival” meant for local families in the area. It was still fun though. We walked through the corn maze and took a hay ride. It got us into the October spirit!

The next day we went tubing at Ichetucknee Springs, which is about 45 minutes north of Gainesville. We went with Mike, Erica, Wannee, and Sophie because our other half of the group bailed for some reason or another. It was still fun. The weather was absolutely perfect for tubing- the air was warm, but not hot, and the water was cool enough to make it refreshing. The major drawback from our tubing trip was since it’s “off season” the trams aren’t running and you have to walk to the tube launch and walk back from the exit. Both ways took us about 30 minutes to walk and we were bare feet on a gravely road with lots of twigs and acorns. I chalked it up to building calluses for my triathlon the following weekend! But, boy did my feet hurt for the next few days after that!

We bought a waterproof camera for the tubing trip, but when we took the film (yeah- REAL FILM!) to be processed they said somehow the film was defective so our pictures pretty much look like crap. I tried doctoring them as much as possible so I have some photo evidence.

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Last weekend, I went back to St. Pete for the Suncoast Triathlon. It was one of the collegiate-scored races, so I earned a couple points for UF by participating. I wasn’t trying to break any records, but I still had a fun time and to me, that’s all that counts. I am going to do a full race report with more pictures on a separate post.

Other than the triathlon on Saturday morning, I got my bike tweaked fitting-wise in Clearwater and while I was up there I visited the Y. Unfortunately, they had just opened and only one of the aquatics co-workers was there guarding. The pool looks absolutely beautiful! At the end of summer, it was resurfaced and repainted and everything looks a million times cleaner now! I’d actually want to swim in it now. I just could NOT get over how pretty it looked. Let’s hope they can keep it that way. I also visited my friend Audra who used to coach swimming at the Y. We got a pedicure and it was absolutely lovely and well-deserved after the triathlon and walking on gravel the past weekend. We got to catch up a little bit and I miss talking to her more often but she’s so busy with graduating that it’s hard!

This week, my roommates (Catie and Erica) and I geared up for the upcoming Halloween weekend by picking out our pumpkins at a pumpkin patch and carving them! I did a triathlon pumpkin this year which I’m pretty excited about. I am not an artist whatsoever, so I picked out an image and had Erica draw it on larger so I could carve it. But it was my idea! There will definitely be more festivities for the holiday this weekend and we’re just beginning. I still have to debut my costume! More on that later!

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Oh! And my lovely parents stopped by Gainesville on their way back from NC to see me and my apartment (since we’ve made it all cozy).

Other than staying busy with fun stuff, I have been getting more involved with things at school… namely myTeam Triumph and Ragnar Relay. Both are through a branch of TriGators.

My Team Triumph is something I became apart of back in April. Basically, it’s a ride-along program for children, teens, adults, and veterans with disabilities that would not normally be able to take part in an endurance event like triathlons or marathons or any type of similar race. The organization was started based off of the father-son team Dick and Rick Hoyt.

Back in April, one of the Trigators had organized some Trigators and other collegiate athletes to take 4 “Captains” (the persons with disabilities) through the Cocoa Beach Sprint Triathlon. I wanted to participate, but was unable to physically. I volunteered to be a photographer instead. It was still an amazing experience even being on the sidelines.
Just recently, through a series of connections a Florida Chapter of myTeam Triumph has been created! The president is based out of Tampa (conveniently!) and I am part of the Board of Directors as the Collegiate Coordinator and Social Media Manager. Check out our page on Facebook!
We have our first mTT officially affiliated 5k race coming up on 11/11. I am an Angel for this race and I’m trying to fundraise money because our chapter needs equipment to pull these amazing Captains through the race. A set of triathlon equipment costs $3000! If you’d like to support me, I’m accepting donations.
Here’s my fundraising page for mTT!

In addition to mTT, I have organized a team for Ragnar Relay: Miami to the Florida Keys in January. It’s a 200(ish) mile relay race with 12 people per team (6 for an ultra team), where you run for about 24 miles switching off at different legs. Apparently, it’s something you have to do at least once in your life! I’m super pumped because it seems like my team gets along really well and it just sounds like fun! I’m Runner #11!

We are “Tramp Stamp-ede” (not my idea, but I was completely out-voted). I’m just so excited for running to the Keys! As you may expect, I’m already planning out the photo-ops!

I’m going to a Suncoast Triathlon race report on a separate post because this one is definitely long enough, you think?
Final note: you should donate to my efforts with myTeam Triumph! Even $5 gets us closer to more equipment and more equipment equals more opportunities for these special participants!

As I am sitting here, writing this, I can smell our brand-new cinnamon broom and I can see our baby pumpkins sitting on our TV in the living room. The air is crisp and the past two days the weather has been absolutely unbelievable! Fall is quickly approaching us– it’s already October!– and soon the obnoxious heat will be gone, replaced by the cool air and changing leaves.

The city of Gainesville is recovering from our embarrassing loss to the Roll Tide, while I am perfectly content with my weekend.

Friday started early because I got up early to wait in line for BEAT t-shirts. I met some friends in line while waiting for Sophie to get there. She stopped at Starbucks because she was hungry, but they had to warm up the oven so she ended up getting there later than expected. It’s all forgiven though because she brought breakfast! Thanks, Soph!

The time actually passed relatively quickly somehow and I didn’t take out any homework, music, or even my laptop. It took about 40 minutes once the line started moving for us to get our shirts.

Guess which shelf is mine…! (It’s the messy one)

After that, Sophie and I ran errands for groceries and other random things. I came home, exhausted for some reason, took a quick nap and then Erica, Sophie, and I headed off to the soccer game. We are getting points for Rowdy Reptiles, and I finally have enough for a shirt, which will be mine next Friday! Yay!

Saturday was GAME DAY in the Swamp! Erica and I woke up to do Tailgating Green Team, which is the recycling crew on campus. We did the 10am to 12pm shift and passed out recycling bags to tailgating groups. It was surprising how many people are out that early, and in full-force too! Anyways, if I do another shift, I can get a shirt! (Yet another one for my collection)! Later that day, Erica and I met up with Brad, David, and Adam for a little bike ride. We went through campus a little getting cat calls like “YAHHH, you RIDE THAT BIKE!” then, we went on the Hawthorne Trail but Erica wasn’t feeling great so we just rode to the overlook and back and went home while the guys kept going through the hammock.

We went home, showered, and walked to the Alumni Hall because we thought there was free food. Turns out that’s where all the ALUMNI go to tailgate… There was no one under 60. We ate and walked home because there was nothing for us to do. By that time, the game was starting which went well for about 3 seconds. Then, it was just sad. Nia and Dylan came over to watch the game with us. It was a very chill night and at that point I was glad I had sold my ticket earlier in the week. I made the price of the ticket back plus $45 dollars for selling my student ticket. I know I could’ve made more, but the deal was done. Oh well!

This morning, Erica and I slept in a little bit, then woke up and ran 4 miles. At 10:15am, it was still 55 degrees and absolutely perfect running weather. We ran past University avenue along the bars and stadium. It was disgusting when we were on the way out- as if a frat party took over the whole city of Gainesville. Bottles, cans, trash, Lacoste shoes, coolers, cups, etc. everywhere! Just gross. The streets were dead and no one was out. When we came back in half an hour later, the clean up crew had done pretty well with beginning to clean it up. 2 hours later when we passed the same road again, there was no trace of a day of partying at all! It was amazing to see the progress they made so quickly! Anyways, the run felt good and I felt accomplished.

Catie, Erica, and I went to the soccer game and got a voucher for the free soccer “frat” tanks that they were giving away and went to the grocery store. We made it back just in time to get in line to redeem our voucher and we were actually pretty much at the front of the line and thank goodness too because the line went out of the soccer stadium and into the street! We got the tanks and headed home.

I finished my book, Stupid and Contagious, by Caprice Crane and it was awesome! I’ve been reading it all semester, slowly in my spare time but this weekend I really got into the last bit of it and couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended! The author is witty and hilarious and I think I’m going to get another one of her books, Forget About It. I also read on her website, that she is making Stupid and Contagious into a television series soon to be on NBC. That could be really interesting!

Anyways, the girls of 1313 had dinner as a family tonight and we are all just chilling at home on a relaxing Sunday night watching old Disney movies!

Here’s a cute picture of Erica being pathetic in her moment of stupidity, which is too embarrassing to share online. If you want the story, you’re welcome to ask her!

Have a good week everyone!

Official 26.2 training starts in 8 days! 10/10/11

Sorry I have been so MIA recently! Let’s recap!

Vegetarian/Pescatarian Challenge:

Honestly, I can’t really gage how well it went because I got sick the first night. Instead of meat, I wanted to replace it with sweets and overall terrible foods. I felt awful the entire 4 days, and when I was getting better, it was over! I would like to try again another time but I think once I start my official marathon training (more on that later) I will also start the challenge sometime during the 18-week plan for the 26.2! Next time, I will do it for a longer period of time so I can really get a feel of what it’s like. Perhaps for 2 weeks?

Marathon Training:

So it has not been happening. I have not been long running. I haven’t been running at all. I was on a roll until I got sick a couple weeks ago and couldn’t shake the cold. While I was in Tallahassee this weekend with Katie, we discussed our training plan. We have decided to review and do the 18-Week Hal Higdon Plan- Novice 2. I’m mostly going off its suggestions for long runs and hoping to run at least 2-3 times during the week between 2 and 4 miles. I’ll update my GoogleDoc marathon training plan about it. I’ve also decided to take off the Women’s Half Marathon in November, and the St. Pete Beach Classic Half in January from my calendar and add Ragnar Relay – Miami to the FL Keys in January! It’s a great opportunity, and we are putting together a TriGator team to do it. I’m super excited! I’ll know more about that in a couple weeks! I even ordered my FAVORITE type of energy gel, Agave #9 from Seattle! They sent it first-class, free shipping! I got it in like 2 or 3 days tops! They are awesome and they are going to motivate me to run my long runs!

Bat House:

This is a tradition on UF campus. We have the bat houses by Lake Alice, and every night just as sunset starts, they come out! It’s over 100,00 bats all coming out at once. It takes about 20 minutes for them to all come out. They fly out all in the same path out over the road and into the lake area. They just disappear after that. It’s crazy! Sophie and I went the other night on a whim because neither of us had seen it happen.

UF Football Game (vs Tennesee):

Despite me feeling like crap, I went to the game a couple weeks ago. The pictures speak for themselves. We won, by the way! Go Gators!

After the game, I had some nice tea! It made me feel SO MUCH BETTER. I’ve been drinking it every couple days, but it has caffeine so I have to be careful not to drink it before bed.

TriGator Picnic at Lake Wauburg:

I organized this little shindig for the Trigators as a social event. We grilled hamburgers, veggie burgers, etc. and played some frisbee, football, etc. Everyone seemed to have a really good time. It was nice to have people thank me for putting something together. It made me have confidence in my potential career!

My Visit with Katie:

This past weekend, I drove to Tallahassee to see my favorite big sister Katie! I arrived in around 12:30pm, had lunch with a friend from high school, and came back to discuss our plan for the next couple days. We went to the Mission San Luis because of my nostalgia. Let me explain… In fourth grade, my school took a trip to the state capital. We also visited the Mission which is in Tallahassee. In April, I went to visit St. Augustine, and I swear that this mission place was there. I was really mad that I couldn’t find this mystical place that I visited back when I was 10. Katie told me about this Mission place near her place in Tally, and I realized that everything made sense and I was thinking of there! So, when I was there, it was on my list of places to visit. We went there as they were closing, so we really didn’t see much, but I got to see my mud house (below in the pictures). We talked to the actor/docents, and they explained to us how it had changed in 10 years. They do archeological digs and build the village as historically accurate as they can find according to documents and fossils. None of the structures are original because the Spanish burned everything down in 17-something, but it looks pretty awesome! They even make their own nails as seen by the blacksmith (in the pictures)!

After the mission, Katie and I went to this artsy little village called Railroad Square. We went in a couple shops, including a thrift shop and knitting shop. We also did photo shoots with the colorful buildings! It was a little hippy community. It was awesome. Here are some of our pictures we took!

This hat is what I called “16 dollars worth of awesomeness.” Too bad I didn’t buy it!

My “moo” face!

Katie was startled by the train’s loud whistle.

As we were leaving, we saw the train tracks. I’ve always had a fantasy photo shoot on train tracks. Therefore, we HAD to stop! Plus, Katie wanted the Tally sign picture for herself. What do you think of our pictures?

After visiting Railroad Square, we went home and chilled for a little bit while we decided what to do. We had decided to go to Three Guys Pizza for dinner since they have the BEST garlic rolls. Yum Yum! Katie paid with cash and got 6 extra!

We settled on bowling at the student union, getting frozen yogurt, and getting a movie as our nights’ plans. What a lovely little sisterly bonding night! We discovered that we both are awful at bowling! I was awfully excited to get a spare. We rented “The Town” with Ben Affleck which was pretty good. Long and serious though. The next morning, we got up reluctantly and ran 4 miles really slowly. It was 9am, and already getting very hot. It was a good run though, I like challenging myself with hills and powering up them despite my fatigued legs. I even went on a run on Monday morning through a hard hill because I was on such a runners’ high. Getting myself out of bed tomorrow morning will be the challenge! Man, do I want to sleep in tomorrow since I have no class! We’ll find out…

On Sunday afternoon, I was off on my little road trip back home. Me and trusty Lucy have been everywhere together! When I got home, I ended up going to bed at 9pm and sleeping soundly till 8:30 the next morning. Talk about exhausted!

Anyways, now I am all caught up! I am going to bed soon, in hopes of waking up somewhat early to run!

Namaste!