Coming up for Air

I can't believe I have not posted anything in over two weeks, so here's a quick post to catch up.

Photos

The daily photo project has been keeping me really busy. I can't ever do anything halfway, so after the first few they required a bit more planning. One of the photos inspired me to break out the legos and now they have consumed my life :) I still need to upload photos from the past few days, but you can see what I have so far in my 31 Photos in 31 Days Album. Check out the other pics in my Flickr Photostream too because I've been having way too much fun with legos :)

The word "Lego" written in Braille

Real Food Challenge

homemade granola

I took the 10 Days of Real Food Pledge starting on Saturday, which focuses on eating whole foods following these rules. We eat mostly this way already, with the exception of some vices (ice cream and candy), so this forces us to really pay attention to labels, and avoid heavily processed foods or things at restaurants that seem healthy but aren't. So far this has not been too difficult, but we've made all our meals at home. We'll see how we do when we go out to eat. One big challenge for me is bread. I love it so, and thankfully I found a great local source at the Winter Park and Maitland Farmer's Market. I really need to just make my own, but I keep putting it off. What I did do was make my own granola this week using this granola recipe from The Food Illusion, and it was amazing! I will never buy it at the store again. 

Running

I haven't been running much because of the foot and the knee twinges at me every so often. The last time I ran was last Tuesday. Something came up preventing me from running on Thursday, and then I got distracted over the weekend by legos, volunteering at the Celebration of Running 5k, and dealing with my broken iPhone. I have no excuse for yesterday; I just can't seem to get back into the groove of waking up early to run, and having to run in the dark doesn't help. I've also ditched all my racing plans for the near future, so there is no pressing motivation to follow a running schedule. I can surely tell that not running affects my mood, and I was a little down yesterday. I realized that it wasn't just the no running, but that all these little things have been happening that are out of my control and I don't like it when I'm not in control :)

Bike Commuting

I have been biking quite a bit on errands and to work testing out a new route for a UCF Bike Bus we're organizing. I'll post more details and a link to the site when it's ready, but check out this article at Commute Orlando in the meantime with some of the footage Keri took on our first test ride last Friday: Bike Bus: Reclaiming University Boulevard for Human Power. It went much better than expected, and we did another test ride this morning that went even better. We even picked up our first passenger today! We're getting pretty excited about the possibilities of this bike bus.

Social Cycling

We've been participating in and helping organize some social rides with Commute Orlando that have been a lot of fun and had great turnouts. The first was an S-Cargo ride to the Maitland Farmer's Market on a Sunday morning. We had over 2 dozen people, including some children, pets and inflatable penguins! Check out my S-Cargo Photo Album to see how much fun we had, and the S-Cargo video at Commute Orlando.

Last Friday we went on a night ice cream ride from the Cady Way Trailhead to Twisted Bliss for a yummy frozen treat, then rode through downtown Orlando. It was quite a site to see over a dozen bikes all lit up. Riding down Orange Ave in the dark on a bike gives you a totally different experience and perspective than in a car. It is awesome! Check out my Ice Cream Ride Photos on Flickr and Keri's Ice Cream Ride video at Commute Orlando.

Tomorrow night we're riding with the group to City Arts Factory for the opening of What Moves You?, and art exhibit about transportation including the Orlando Bike Kitchen. Check out this post for more details: Ride to City Arts Factory.

30 Days of Blogging and Photos

Today marks the beginning of my attempt to blog and take a photo daily for the next 30 days (2 items on my 101 things in 1001 days list). I figured this would be a good time to start so I can document the weeks leading up to my first marathon, and give me something to do while I cut back on running. I also plan to do a "Day in the Life in Photos" on marathon day.

My photo for day 1 is on the right. It's nothing too exciting, but there you have it. I took it with my iPhone while walking to El Coqui to treat myself to some well earned mofongo, only to be disappointed that they no longer sell it for lunch :(

I have no idea what I'll talk about for 30 days in a row, but we'll figure it out. If you have suggestions for topics or questions you'd like to see me address here, bring it on in the comments!