Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge 2012 Kick-Off

It's that time of year again! Time to gear up for the holiday season! And in order to do that, I am participating in Amanda's (RunToTheFinish) Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge (HBBC). This year is going to be better than ever. Amanda has rallied a ton of sponsors and will be giving away some awesome gear throughout the next 7 weeks!

New to the HBBC? You can check out the details here, but in short it's a way to motivate participants to focus not only on Family and Fun during the holidays, but to also maintain a Healthy (maybe even HEALTHIER) version of who we are/want to be.

There is still time to join in on the fun and prizes by clicking here; if you do, please add me as your referral!

My goals during this year's HBBC are to focus on eating my fruits and veggies daily and to maintain my steady workout regimen. By setting these goals, as well as having the carrot of the awesome HBBC prizes (which are amazing, by the way), I know I will have a HEALTHIER and HAPPIER holiday season.

What will your goals be?

Speaking of goals, I've got to get to the gym!!!

Back to the Pavement...err..dirt!

Two things of note have occurred this week: ME and I signed up for our first triathlon in a few months and I ran for the first time since my last race....in April!

Race selection first. ME has been itching to get back to racing...me, not so much. I’m not sure what’s been the deal, but I haven’t been the most excited about races recently. I think it’s a combination of having to compete in all of the races alone that ME and I had signed up for together last year when he deployed to Haiti for a few months. Then, we’d trained for the Miami ING marathon this January and two weeks before the race, I flared up with plantar fasciitis and was unable to race. Then, again, we signed up for the Nautica SoBE tri because ME wanted to and, yet again, the Army called and I got to compete by myself (although thankfully a great friend competed as well, so I wasn’t alone). So, I really do enjoy competing in triathlons and running races, but I was just burnt out a little bit. But, I’m feeling ready to get back on track and so ME and I signed up for the Houston Triathlon on 23 Sep. 

ME and I ready to go

With that decision, it’s now time to start focusing our training on swimming, biking, and running again! Yesterday, our friend Amanda at RunToTheFinish, posted a great note about how we all GET to run. So, when ME suited up for a run on the hottest (as of that time) day of the year to run out at Memorial Park, I took her motivation and threw on my skirt (why run in anything else?) and hopped on the back of the scooter and we explored Memorial Park. It only took us 30 minutes of running in the shade of wonderful trees and up unfamiliar hills (c’mon, we’ve been in Miami for 2 years!) to realize we were actually running on the mountain biking trail! But, we now know where all the runners are and we’ll hit them up next time we get the urge to venture out.

Trying to get motivated for the run.

Having not run, except the 10k in the tri, in about 8 months, I felt like a rookie, I couldn’t get my ipod to track my run, then couldn’t find a comfortable spot for my ipod to attach, and my headphones kept falling out and/or I was getting tangled in the cord! But, we managed to have a great run and enjoy the day and the scenery (and maybe even those nasty hills). I won’t say it felt great, but it felt decent and I won’t be so afraid of getting out there anymore for fear of the PF flaring up again.


What motivates you to get out and exercise or train? Is anything currently holding you back?


Beat the Heat and get out there and exercise...and don't forget to rehydrate!

~ Samara

Things I’m Thankful for Today:

~ Exercise for the fun of it

~ Crafty solutions for the satellite dish

~ New ideas to save $$

~ Multi-national style dinners that actually come together