My First Major Running Jacket Purchase by NORTHFACE!

When I think of Northface I think of snowboarding gear. I didn't realize they had such a good line of just athletic clothes and accessories.

Yesterday I was at a shopping party at Sports Basement that Bel (Team Challenge teammate) had invited me to and we got to shop around the store for 2 hours and get 20% off and free booze and snacks! It was a lovely time.

I bought this Northface Swift Hybrid Jacket which is part of their Flight Series and I'm super excited to use it on my run today! Often times when running in the early mornings or late evenings it can be really chilly and sometimes rain so I wanted a jacket that could protect from that.


Although this jacket does not have a hood it is water repellent and has zip pockets on the front and a compartment in the back! I'm totally going to use this for my races too! When I run I always have my ipod shuffle clipped somewhere, my camera, my car key, and my cell phone so pockets are a must!

Check out the Northface description of this thing!
Designed for the endurance athlete who prefers to jettison excess weight in the interest of speed, this full zip jacket offers a windproof front and a breathable, stretch knit back and underarm panels for temperature regulation. With flat-locked seams, this technical jacket has strategic seams prohibiting abrasion wherever possible.


Features:
Carbon from Bamboo technology
Windproof body fabric to block the wind, stretch breathable knit back panel and underarm panels for temperature regulation
Flat-locked seams
Reflective trim at shoulders
Two hand pockets
Monkey thumbs
Zip stash pocket on lower back
Drop-tail hem
Imported

I'm hyping it up so I hope it works as well as I'm saying!

It was also 62 bucks instead of 80 bucks and got 20% off! Its all investment I tell you!

Ooohhhh A CAPE!

I love that I was given the Team Challenge Peninsula Team Spirit Cape!


This is a cape that is given to a "spirited" individual on Team Challenge. I am so excited to be the first person to get it! So we are responsible for decorating it and then it gets passed to someone different every week!



Breanne (our endurance manager) gave me a cute tote bag that had puffy paint to decorate the cape but due to my lack of coordination and creativity I chose to embroider my cape! I embroidered right underneath the TEAM CHALLENGE PENINSULA TEAM.. my name spelled out and my blog name! "Anya Ratanawan Live.Run.Donate" and of course in my favorite color pink!


Surprisingly its not that easy to find a place to embroider a single item. After calling several places that I found from Yelp and being referred to different groups and getting different quotes I went with Custom Apparel by Susan Kay! I was able to get a quote over the phone, come into their store, and pick it up in 2 days!

I love the way it turned out and can't wait to rock it at tomorrow's Training Practice! Mentors host a practice everyday of the week except Friday at various places in the Peninsula/South Bay. And of course our group practice on Saturday!

I am running tomorrow rain or shine! I'm hoping its shine tho. ;)

Fundraiser Clinic #1 at Sports Basement in Sunnyvale Tuesday March 30, 2010 at 6:30PM

Yesterday I attended a very informative clinic about different and creative ways to fundraise!


As part of this new adventure of joining Team Challenge not only am I running a half marathon for all those affected by Crohn's and Colitis but also committing myself to raising $2600.00 for the CURE of the disease.

Our Fundraiser clinic at Sports Basement was really informative. There are so many creative ways to ask for money and depending on your comfort level you may like e mails, facebook, or you may want to ask face to face.

Here are some neat tricks that I learned:
- Making a list of everyone that you come in contact with and let them know what you are up to and make sure to follow up!
- Put a deadline on asking for money because its easy for people to forget!
- "Cookies for Crohn's" doing a fun fundraiser- selling cookies
- Putting a link at the bottom of your e mail signature of your donation page

I actually bought a bag of candy and put labels on them that say "Help Anya Ratanawan raise $2600.00 by July for the cure of Crohn's and Colitis and running a half marathon!" With the Team Challenge Logo and my donation site on there. I gave these little candies out to people at my work, my book club meeting, people at my gym, etc. Just a fun way to give out candy and hopefully getting people to donate!


One of my fellow Team Challenge teammates Brian and Bel also posted about how Cisco does corporate matching for $50.00 and up! So for people that work for Cisco or you know work for Cisco hit them up to do a donation so the company could match! Here is the article that explains the step by step. Cisco corporate matching.

You may find that your work does corporate matching too! Ask your HR department to be sure. :) Can you imagine? Pool in money of $300.00 and get $600.00. Amazing!

Also another Team Challenge teammate, Twila owns a Party Lite Consultant business and is allowing Team Challenge members to participate getting 50% of the sales! Check out her catalogue and let me know if you like anything. :)

There are also upcoming events that I can sell tickets for and fundraise that way!

May 7th- One of the Team Challenge Mentors Sean Roth will be playing with his band at Mt Charlie's Saloon in Los Gatos!

June 5th- Indian Dinner- place and price TBA.

So far I am 59% to my fundraising goal thanks to all of you! That's $1530.00 out of $2600.00! I appreciate all the love and support!

I'm so excited for tomorrow's Team Challenge Practice in Los Gatos and of course the one on Saturday at Stanford!

Oakland Running Festival 5k! I BEAT MY PREVIOUS 5K TIME!!

LOL today was a crazy day! In total I probably walked/ran about a half marathon. Haha. Let me break down the day for you. My second 5k! Oakland Running Festival 5k! OH and this blog post is dedicated to one of my dearest friends Cindy N. that pretty much saved my life and kept me sane for my race.

So in the morning of the 5k I went on my first Team Challenge practice at the San Thomas Aquino and walked and that was 3 miles.

My 5k was at 6:30PM in Oakland. I drove up around 3PM so I can go to the Oakland Convention Center for the Health Expo and to pick up my race packet- t shirt, timing chip, and bib. The 5k was SOLD OUT! 1100 registered for it! So amazing!




Talk about an organized race! I got so many e mails about what to expect, what to do, and how grateful the city of Oakland is. This was the inaugural race and it hasn't been in Oakland for 25 years! I'm so excited that I was able to run in this inaugural race and I look forward to doing it next year as well.

The health expo was really neat. Some of the booths that were there and giving out fun freebies were: Geico, Rock N Roll Marathon, See Jane Run, Cliff Bars, TEAM CHALLENGE, At&t Giant Race, etc. So after exploring I asked where Lake Merrit was beause thats where we were running. It was 3 miles away! This was about 5PM so I asked if there was parking around there and the person I asked said it would be really hard to find parking so me and Cindy walked it. I definitely wouldn't have walked if I knew it was 3 miles because originally someone said it was a little bit over a mile AND if I knew there actually WAS parking. haha.


So when I finally saw the Lake it was close to 6pm and I realized I LEFT MY PHONE AT THE CONVENTION CENTER! I was like OMG - how am I going to walk back, find my phone, and do this race?!? I seriously was about to have a nervous break down. What if I don't run this!?! My amazing friend Cindy offered to walk back and get it while I went to the starting line. Thank goodness she actually found it and everything worked out. :)

The lake was so beautiful and running the 5k in the evening was great! The path around the lake was pretty flat and on concrete. We didn't run on the street at all really so we didn't have to worry about traffic. The race was organized and had runners start by their pace time which was good so we weren't in the way of those fast runners. Their were people at the 5 minute pace spot! WOW! This is where I met Jin because we were around the 11 minutes pace mark. We were so excited to do this race! There were a lot of people cheering us on and I had music on pumping me up. My goal was to beat my time! I tried to work really hard for that and IT HAPPENED! I beat my time!!!
33:33 minutes My first 5k at the Chinese New Year Run in Chinatown SF my time was 37:56 minutes. I beat it by 4:23 minutes!! I will try to beat this time on my next 5k run.






Here is a video that my friend Cindy took of me GUNNING it at the finish line because I so desperately wanted to finish strong and beat my time!


At the finish line there was water ready for us, a band playing, and we got two free beers! It was a very yummy light beer that I'd never tried- Miller Genuine Draft with only 64 calories! Oakland Firemen were passing them out as well. Their was also Rib n' Things that had a tent and was selling food and we had to hit that up too! Ribs went well with that beer!


We also got to meet Mark Curry- he was cheering the finishers on! Definitely and local celebrity and representing Oakland well. He was on the show Hanging with Mr. Cooper that was based out of Oakland. I told him that my boyfriend talks about him because they both went to the same high school- St. Joe's! He said "you have the best boyfriend." haha. He was super nice!




All in all the 5k was a success! Even though I had the morning Team Challenge practice, almost lost my phone, walked to the 5k, ran the 5k, then walked 3 miles back to the car. haha. It was so exhausting but it felt good! I can't wait for my next race in April! Its a 10k too! Woo!


Here are the rest of the beautiful pictures from Oakland Running Festival 5k!

First Team Challenge Practice at San Aquino Trails in Santa Clara on Saturday March 27, 2010 at 9:30AM

I was so excited for our first practice! When I showed up at 9AM there was already a parking lot of full people in their work out gear ready to run/walk.


It was neat to meet some new folks and see some others from the kick off party.

Breanne presented a Team Challenge item to the top fundraiser! Way to go! Hearing the successful stories motivates me to keep asking everyone I know to contribute towards the cure of Crohn's and Colitis. I tell them nothing is too small and anything helps!

Breanne also presented me with the Team Spirit Cape! I am so honored THANK YOU! This cape gets past on to someone new each week after that person has tagged it. I have different ideas of what I want to do but I am not creative enough or good with puffy paint to do it so I will most likely get it embroidered. :) I'll post the pic once I do it. I wore it through out our practice run.


The San Aquino Trail in Santa Clara is so pretty. The weather was amazing and somewhat hot already Saturday morning. We did 3 miles and I was so sad that I didn't run it but I had a good excuse! I was doing the Oakland Running Festival 5k! I wanted to save my energy so I could beat my time from my last 5k. Along the trail we were next to a wash that had little duckies swimming about. We also had a view of Great America as well and hearing people scream on the rides. I got to walk with several people and learn about how they got involved in Team Challenge and just talk about different experiences.


I was also rocking my Team Challenge hat that I won from the Kick Off Party at the Human Bingo Mixer! Its super cool!


After the nice run/walk we went to Sports Basement and had a shoe clinic and gait analysis. We had a neat presentation from Josh about the importance of shoes, running socks, and also insoles. Sports Basement had refreshments and snacks for everyone too. We also were able to get 20% off that day! I didn't get a gait analysis because I got my running shoes fitted at Athletic Performance in San Jose but a lot of people were and that's great because being in the right shoes especially for long distances are oh so important.


Here is the video that our coach Randy sent us for those that missed the shoe clinic and gait analysis.

Here are the rest of the pictures! Enjoy!


See you at one of the practices this week- either Campbell Track, Cisco, Los Gatos Trail, or Stanford Track! I'm going to try to make it to 2 to 4 practices a week so I can really get my body ready.

Before and After Pictures!

So I've always been a medium girl. Every time I go shopping I can always bank on getting a medium size and it would work out.

Somehow the transition from being on the volleyball team in high school, to being in a sorority in college, and then a desk job after college my body took a toll. I gradually gained weight. I felt like I was eating the same way - not very healthy but I was still gaining weight! Obviously as I get older my metabolism is slowing down and without the activities of going out all the time or riding my bike through UCSB campus it was all catching up to me.

Its funny how one deals with weight gain too. Instead of working out and eating less which is a sure sign of losing weight. Burning more calories than consuming is key I ADAPTED to it. I started buying bigger size clothes, larges, extra larges. I started wearing flowy tops, no sleeveless shirts, and banning myself from shorts. It was torture! Also looking at all my small friends I always felt jealous like how come I can't be like that.

Well since I start working out 5 times a week, giving myself fitness goals like this week run 5 miles for 3 days, and eating less I've lost weight and feel much better about myself!

I have a little bit to go but I've made progress.

Weight breakdown:
High School 2003: 135 lbs
End of Freshman Year of College 2004: 140 lbs
By the end of graduation 2007: 165 lbs
By the end of 2007: 175 lbs (this was my heaviest)
By the end of 2008: 165 lbs (trying to work out)
By the end of 2009: 155 lbs
RIGHT NOW MARCH 2010: 138.8 LBS!!!!

My goal is to get to 135 lbs or LESS. I'm hoping my training for a half marathon and eating better will get me there. Check out the pictures below.

Running Through Life Blog Giveaway!

Hey guys,

I discovered this really cool blog where someone else is documenting their life of love of running just like me! I thought it was especially cool because she is also a 20 something living in Northern California and her goals of losing weight, becoming more fit, and raising money for Team Challenge is similar to mine but I have joined Team Challenge.

Congrats on losing 55 lbs so far!

Check out her giveaway and enter just like me!