A few days after last Friday’s Orlando Women Runners’ Bunco game, one of the girls, Marisa, invited me to stay at her home the night before this week’s Saturday run at Blanchard Park since it was a bit of a drive from my house. I’m so glad she did because I probably would have slept in had I stayed at my own house the night before.
As soon as I arrived, I dropped my bags in the guest room, and we decided to go to Royal Thai since I had never tried Thai food. Yay for a first! I’ll give everything a try at least once (when it comes to food).
I ordered wonton soup and the Pad Thai with shrimp. So much flavor!
Over dinner, we discussed the history of Celebration and how it was Disney’s responsibility to create what Epcot was supposed to be. When Walt was alive, he had the idea that they would create a self-sustained community of tomorrow, and in turn, Disney would be allowed to have their own police and fire departments, electric company, etc. Since Disney did not create the original idea of Epcot and built a theme park instead, they had until 2004 to build Celebration.
We also discussed men, marriage, and kids and really got to know each other.
I’m usually not a dessert person but since I was too busy at work to eat breakfast or lunch, I ordered one anyway. We split the bananas with coconut ice cream and the black sticky rice with coconut. The bananas were lightly fried in a wonton wrap. They went perfectly with the coconut ice cream.
The next morning was my first run with the OWR (Orlando Women Runners) at Blanchard Park.
I wore my new running skirt from Target and loved it!
Once everyone was there, we introduced ourselves and grouped up depending on pace and mileage desired. I grouped up with Marisa, Kimberly, Meesha, and Maggi as we all were comfortable with 2/1 (run 2, walk 1) intervals with 4 miles as our goal. A few of our walk breaks were a little longer as the sun blaring down on us and the humidity was around 90%, and it was only 7:30am.
Including our warm-up and cooldown, we covered 4 miles. The run/walk portion was around 3 miles, and we did it in 44 minutes, a 14:39 pace.
It was a beautiful trail, winding around a river.
Not only was this my first time running with a running group, it was my first time ever running with a buddy since I was on the high school cross country team. It was so much fun to chit-chat during the run and start to build new friendships. It also helped the time fly by.
While waiting for everyone to finish, we gathered in the parking to relax and unwind.
(Doggies and kids are welcome!)
Once we knew everyone survived and made it back to their cars, five us decided to drive on over to Panera for coffee, breakfast, and girl talk! It was seriously the best time I’ve had since moving here. I couldn’t stop laughing. We even made the busboy blush, but he did keep hovering by our table to eavesdrop in our conversation.
It’s been so exciting to meet new people here in Orlando and form new friendships. Everyone here has been so welcoming. I love my new town!
