Reached a Goal

Good morning. I can't believe that it is the last day of August already. Where does time go these days? 

I'm looking forward to Fall. It is my favorite season because 1) changing colors 2) cool, crisp air 3) pumpkin flavored things 3) my birthday 4) Thanksgiving. Today is a sign that Fall is coming. It is raining and windy outside and probably in the low 50's. A perfect day to work from home, drink coffee, and get a TON of work done without being distracted at the office. 

I had one goal for August - run 80 miles. I did it! I ran 87 miles actually. Hooray! I'm not even going to post my swim and bike mileage cause they're SO low. I probably fit in 4 rides and 2 swims the whole month of August and that includes my triathlon...whoops. That's okay though, because I'm doing running events all of September, so I needed to focus on running. BUT I love cycling and swimming to, so I've decided I need a plan of action to make sure I don't keep skipping those workouts.

Here is my plan for September:

Monday: Run, Bike (Brick), Lift lower body

Tuesday: Swim, light run, Lift upper body

Wednesday: Long run

Thursday: Bike, Swim, Lift

Friday: Off or Xtrain (elliptical, long walk)

Saturday: Swim, Long bike

Sunday: Run

I'm going to make keeping to this schedule my goal for September, but I already know with the races I'm doing, it will get adjusted a bit. But I want to mainly stick to 4 day running, 3 swims, 3 rides and 3 days lifting. This is doable, especially because I can split my workouts into morning and evening.

Do you have any goals for September? Still can’t believe it’s SEPTEMBER tomorrow…

A friend just sent me this picture and I had to share. Enjoy.

Other parts of life

Hey blogsters. Hope you all had a good Monday. Mine was so-so...was super busy at work.

I posted my final times from the Lake Samammish Triathlon on my race schedule page. I'm very proud of them - especially my 5K time. I ran it at an 8:00/mile pace! Oh my goodness - I'm not slow anymore!

Anyway, I had planned a bike ride in the sun after reading an article that Patrick over at The Road linked to about calorie burn during running vs. cycling. It said it is easier to burn more calories on the bike because the varied wind resistance and speed you go. Running however, only burns 110 calories per mile no matter how fast you run. You should check out the article. Anyway, this got me motivated to go ride - fast!

BUT, I had a doctor's appointment this afternoon and afterwords I wasn't feeling working out AT ALL, so I gave in. Aaron was happy too, we got to spend the afternoon together, go to happy hour, walk around town, and make dinner. Good quality couple day. : )

Sometimes, you just have to give into LIFE and go live. Although I consider training a HUGE part of life, other things are equally important and I need to give them their time too.

I'll be back at working out tomorrow, but for now we're watching Valentine's Day. Sorry for the lame post.

Lake Samammish Triathlon recap

It was an early morning this morning. Transition at the Lake Samammish Triathlon opened at 5:30, so I woke up at 4:30 to get my stuff together and make my way from Seattle to Issaquah.

It is a little weird getting to the race area when it is still dark which made me think – why is this race starting so freaking early? 7:00am start time?!

Anyway, I played with the set up of my transition for a few minutes….I feel like I couldn’t get it right. It was the way I had set up my transition for the past two races, but it just didn’t feel right.

I went for a warm up run (just 5 minutes) then hopped in the water to warm up a bit, literally. The water was warmer than the air, so it felt nice to stand in the water while the other waves started.

Swim area. Start on the right, swim to the bouy, turn left, swim to the next buoy, turn left and head to shore.

Aaron and our friend John came to be spectators which was awfully nice of them considering they had to wake up early too. Thanks guys! And thanks for being my photographer!

John

My wave had the best swim cap color.

Swim: My wave was the first women’s wave and it consisted of women 25-35 which splits into two age groups 25-29 and 30-34. I put myself front and center of the pack because I hate having to swim around people and I’m an okay swimmer, so I felt good up front. The swim (.25 miles) went pretty well, nothing major to report.

My wave about to start.

 
My uncle, Eric coming out of the water.

 
Out of the water – post swim cap hair always sucks

Running to T1

T1: Yup, transition was set up weird. I set my stuff on top of my towel, and I should have let my towel free from other objects. Oh well, got on my bike and was on my way.

Bike: I felt super strong on the bike. It was a relatively flat course with some small rolling hills and I just powered through it all. I passed a lot of people on the bike – yes! Oh, and I went into the race thinking it was a 12 mile bike ride…nope. It was 14.5.

My aunt, Marianna on the bike

T2: Did what I was supposed to and went on my merry little way. 

 Trying to find my rack – I am so bad at remembering where my stuff is…

 
Aaron is being very supportive at this point by saying “Go Faster Megan, Go Faster.” I sure was trying to go faster.

Run: My feet were asleep for the first bit, but finally warmed up and I was able to run normally. The great part was that my legs didn’t feel like they had just rode 14 miles – they felt like they wanted to tear that run up. I tried to tear it up, but the majority of the run was on this grass road with uneven terrain and I was being a little timid with my foot placement because I felt like I was going to roll my ankle. The 5k run FLEW by – I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t a full 5k.

So happy to run!

 

 
John Curley from Evening Magazine!

Just finishing up

I finished at 1:19:45. Woot! Under my 1:20 goal AND I had to ride an extra 2.5 miles. I’m happy : ) I placed 5th in my age group. Not sure how many were in my AG though…I hope more than 5…

My aunt and uncle did well too – my uncle got 2nd in his AG!

Aaron likes to take really close up pictures – obviously, this was my daily sweat.

Me and Eric

 
Had to do my “tough” pic, but I just look hunched over and weak… : )

Eric getting his award

I’d do this race again. It was well organized and on time. The bike course was also well managed with police, so there was no interference with traffic. It was however, a little pricey - $85 and all you get is this paper weight type award. No t-shirts.

Race results aren’t posted yet. I’m very curious to see what my splits are. Don’t you worry – you’ll hear about them when I get them.

It was a fun morning and even more fun because I had spectators and my family did it too. I’m going to relax at my parents house for the day and eat their food.

Getting ready for race day

Yo! Happy Friday fellow sweatters. I believe this workday will be a short one due to the overtime I worked the past few days which is just perfect because I need to prepare for race day tomorrow.

With a couple of triathlons under my belt, I have semi-developed a routine to get ready for race day. I thought I'd share it with you in hopes that I can share my expertise novice knowlege with you and get some feedback from all you triathlon experts out there.

Day before:

• Do any last minute tune ups on bike - pump up tires, lube chain, etc. If I'm feeling into it, I'll clean my bike, so it looks extra good.
• Layout everything you need to bring to the race according to sport. Put all swim stuff in one pile, bike stuff in another and run stuff in yet another pile. I like do separate out the sports because it is easier to see if I'm forgetting something. You can also have a "misc." pile for stuff you need, but isn't related to a sport like towels, sunscreen, camera, food, post race beer.
• Eat well. No beers, no junk food, stay away from 5star at Thai restaurants and high fiber foods. I like to eat a sandwich for dinner the night because I know they stay just fine in my tummy.
• Hydrate all day. Gulp down that H2O
• Get to bed EARLY. Due to pre-race jitters, it is more than likely that you'll have a hard time falling asleep, so allow an extra hour or so to fall asleep.

Morning of:

• Get up with more than ample time.
• Pack up car.
• Eat breakfast. Try to do this at least 1.5 hours before the race starts, so it can digest. You can always have a Gu or blocks right before the race if needed.
• Hydrate. I try to have 1 glass water and a few sips of cytomax at least an hour prior to the race. (I've only done sprint triathlons, so if you're doing a longer distance, you'll probably need more liquid)
• Things to not forget: goggles, helmet, sunscreen, sunglasses, body glide, towel - obviously there are other things you need, but these things for some reason slip my mind sometimes...

At race:

• Get to race site when transistion area opens. This may be an hour or 2 or 3 before the race starts, but I always like to have enough time to set up transition plus do other things.
• Set up transition and get anything you do not need OUT of transition. You don't need extra crap getting in your way.
• Warm up - The last two races I have ran 7-10 minutes to warmup and it's worked just fine.
• Go to the bathroom. For obvious reasons.
• Get in the water before start time. Allow your body to get used to the temperature so it isn't a shock when the gun fires. Swim around, adjust goggles.
• When it is time to start, set watch, say "good luck" to fellow racers and GO!

This is my little routine - not tried and tested, but it works. Do you do anything special to get ready for a race? I'm open to suggestions!

I do have a time goal for the Lake Samammish Triathlon. 1:20 to complete a .25 mile swim, 12 mile bike, 5k run. Let's see if race day addreniline will speed things up. *fingers crossed*

3 things thursday

Oh goodness, it has been a long few days. I feel so out of the loop not having time to get caught up on my Google Reader. Do you ever feel like that?

1. Thank you ALL for the great comments you've been leaving lately - I LOVE all of them. I wish I could reply directly to each of them, but Blogger doesn't have that functionality. I hope it's something they adapt soon. So, if you do leave a comment, thank you SO SO much!

2. 2 day sales conference - check! All done and everything went really well. Just 3 loooong days at work. Might try to sneak out early tomorrow. : )

3. During the sales conference I was able to squeeze in 3 workouts. I worked out Wednesday before work with 30 minutes on the elliptical and 10 on the bike. Wednesday night between the conference and the night event I fit in a 3.3 mile run in 29 minutes. And lastly, this morning I ran 3.1 miles and did some weights before the conference. There was a lot of food eating during the events - solid meals that I'm not used to eating, but with the working out that I did, I felt less guilty eating the BBQ, Italian food and deserts... : )

With the running miles I have put in this week, I have exceeded my 80 miles in August! I'm at 81 miles - woot! That doesn't mean I'm going to stop though - I love me some runnin'!

Running with my fisherman

Yeah right! Aaron does NOT run. Period.

After a nice 10.5 hour day at work, I needed to clear my brain of all things "Sales Conference" and sweat. But I also wanted to spend time with Aaron. Toss up. Why not run with Aaron?! I asked him if he would ride his bike while I ran, so it'd be a very leisure ride for him and I'd get the motivation of "running" with someone.

I did 7 miles with Aaron motivating me with mantras like "dig deep Megan." I don't think I could have done the whole 7 miles without him - thanks Aaron! I even kept a sub 9 minute pace the whole way! Woot.

I have a Sales Conference at work to attend the next two days and they are really cramping my workout style. The conference itself is from 7am to 5pm and then we have a dinner event afterwords until 8pm. I can't not workout, especially with my race this weekend, so I'm sucking it up and getting up at 'o dark thirty to get a sweat session in. I know it'll make me feel a lot better getting up and getting it out of the way instead of not working out at all.

How do you juggle work/life/workouts when time is tight?

Later Gators

OWS with a blogger!

With my upcoming race this weekend, I decided I needed to see if I could still swim since the last time I swam was the end of July... I met Diana from Diana Tries-a-Tri at Padden for an OWS.

The funny thing is, I didn't meet Diana though blogging at all. We worked together in college, stayed Facebook connected and then found out each other were getting into triathlon's AND both of us started blogging - instant reconnect.

 Diana

 Me - my hair isn't always that fantastic...

Old school PKO (inside joke, well it isn't really a joke...)

We swam for a good 20 minutes and probably did around 1200 meters. I could tell I hadn't swam in ages - my shoulders were insta-tired. Good thing this Saturday's race is a short 400 meters. I'll be out of the water before my shoulders get tired.

When Diana and I got into the water this guy also standing in the water said, "There are a lot more hard core swimmers here today." Then turned and looked at us. I think it was the wetsuits - they make anyone look tough.

After the swim, I went to the Y to get a good iron pumping sesh in to make up for yesterday. Luckily no old men in my way tonight - pumped iron in peace! I also spinned for 30 minutes on the bike then ran 1.5 miles. A mini triathlon today!

Stick a fork in me, cause I'm done.

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I did add myself to the Healthy Living Blog list and I have to say that it is a pretty awesome resource to find fellow bloggers. I especially like the "find blogs by location" ability. I'm going to stalk all the Washington health bloggers now. But seriously, check it out. I know there are a bagillion blogs to read out there (my reader is getting out of control), but you may find something totally radical.

2fer

I remember when I worked in retail – a deal that was “2 for $9.99” or “2 for the price of one” was also called a “2fer.” I never liked that term, but it was the first thing that came to mind on my 2nd (!) run today.

Earlier, I went to the Y and did a treadmill 5k workout with speeds up to 7.1! That is fast for me on the TM. I usually stay around 6.4. So it was a quick run followed by a few weight machines. I wanted to lift more, but there were a bunch of old men in my way and I was getting frustrated, so I left and ate Casa que Pasa instead…what?! It was lunch time…

I then proceeded to lay on my couch, watch 3 episodes of True Blood (which gets crazier by the episode) browse some blogs, facebook stalk and eat cookies. This took up the majority of my afternoon… Felt pretty dang lazy at that point and I knew if I didn’t do something else active I would have a hard time falling asleep.

I thought I’d just go out for 2-3 miles, something light considering I ran earlier, but my leggies felt fresh, the evening was perfect, so I just kept running. I ran for about an hour, so probably ran around 6.5 miles. I didn’t have my Garmin, so I don’t know for sure…

So the daily mileage total is 9.6 miles. Woot! I have heard that people sometimes split their long runs into 2 shorter runs – will that really give you the benefit like 1 long run would? I remembered that Runners World did an article on running twice a day – check it out here. Apparently, splitting long runs into two is okay because you’re still racking the mileage… I do have to say though, there is something really gratifying about seeing 9 miles on my garmin instead of seeing 3 then seeing 6 later. Ya know?

Update on the 80 miles in August: 66.55 miles. I have 9 days to run 13.45 miles. I think I can do that. In fact, I should probably do a long run this week for half marathon training which will eat up most of those miles…maybe another 9 miler?

Do you ever run a 2fer? I feel that it is a lot different from doing brick workouts for triathlon, do you?

Kirsten and Roy got hitched!

Hey! I’m back to technology! The wedding was in Glacier, WA and it is probably one of the last places that doesn’t have cell service. But I think it’s for the better because I can really unplug when I go there – no computer, no celly phone, nothin. Just fresh air and nature.

The wedding of my two friends Roy and Kirsten was absolutely amazing. It was outside right next to a creek and the ceremony was beautifully put together.

I realized when helping prepare for this wedding that not matter how low key you want a wedding – everyone still gets a little stressed out. I was just a bride’s maid in this wedding and I was stressing out. I can’t imagine how I’d be if it was my wedding…

But the party was a TON of fun – good beer, friends, food and music. I was able to get up early Saturday morning and go for a 45 minute run which felt great, but didn’t go on my bike ride this morning because it started to rain a bit and I was super tired from last night’s festivities. I think I’ll go for a ride later this afternoon though.

Here are some photos I took at the party… enjoy.

Beautiful flowers

Me! My hair could not keep a curl…boo. 

Me and the bride, Kirsten

Snow fresh from Mt. Baker to keep the kegs cold

My fisherman

Sishkabobs!

Deserts! So. freaking. good.

Roy & Kirsten

What have you been up to this weekend?

Yet another race

Yo bloggies! Hope your Friday is going just radical - mine sure is. I have to give a shout out to all my new friends that found me from Skinny Runner - holla!

I just registered for another race! I'm playing the game How many races can I squeeze into the next month and I'm winning. I have an event, or two, every weekend until the beginning of October except Labor Day weekend. Gotta fit 'em all in before it turns into that gray part of the year called "off season."

I registered for the Lake Samammish Triathlon on August 28th. It is a sprint - 400m swim, 12 mile bike and a 5K run. Short and sweet. I'm mostly doing it because my aunt and uncle are doing it too and I was supposed to race with my aunt in the Danskin Tri last weekend, but since I'm a klutz and fell, I didn't get to race with her. So it's make up time! Should be a good time - I hope my parents can come out and cheer me on - they've never seen me race before.

Alrighty - back to work. I won't be posting again until Sunday, so have a lovely weekend. Get your sweat on!

I’m pretty much famous now

Happy Friday internets. Sadly, one of my favorite things about Fridays is that I get to dress casual at work. Is that lame?
Last night, Team Sweat (Rebecca and I) reunited after a week long hiatus for a bike ride. Besides a couple casual bike rides downtown, my bike hasn’t been ridden in a week. I was a tad skeptical on how my knees were going to feel being that bending my knees while riding bikes is required, but I felt just fine. I can however, feel the negative effects of not riding as much in the past couple weeks…I’m not gonna say I feel out of shape, just a little more winded.
We did 22 miles, averaging 16.1 mph. Forgot to check how long we were out though.
The rest of my night was filled with preparing for wedding weekend. I had to: bake 2 deserts for the rehearsal dinner, buy shoes, buy nail polish and pack. And I’m still not ready to go. I have to scramble after work to throw everything in my car, including bike stuff, and hit the road. Weddings are stressful – I can’t even imagine how stressful they are if they’re your own wedding!
Since I can’t get a sweat sesh in after work today, I got up and ran a 5K before work. I ran it in 27:11. Running early in the morning for me is more than just running. It sets the tone for my day, or at least I hope it does. The day gets started on the right foot (pun intended) and something about that cool morning air is invigorating. Do you agree?

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Regarding the title of my post – I’m (practically) famous now! Sarah at Skinny Runner featured me in her Cat Lady Blogs today! Thanks Sarah! So if you’re finding me for the first time via Skinny Runner, welcome! One question for you: What is your favorite way to break a sweat?

3 Things Thursday + an Extra

ONE: I have to apologize. I feel that my bloggie posts have been lacking interest lately. I think that I feel the need to post ALL THE TIME, but really, I should only post when I have something radical to say, or have a super sweaty workout. Either way, I promise more interesting content for my beloved readers.

TWO: My friend Kirsten’s wedding is on Saturday, so I’ll be spending Friday-Sunday in Glacier, WA for all the festivities and doing bride’s maid duties. I’ve been trying to figure out when I can fit in a workout without disrupting wedding stuff…I know if I don’t workout all weekend I’ll be a grumpster. I’m thinking run Friday morning before work, so I can make the rehearsal dinner after work, take Saturday off, then ride part of the Ride 542 route with Aaron’s aunt Sunday morning. Do you plan workouts when you’re away for the weekend? Or do you just take the weekend off?

THREE: Had 2 more good runs since the last time we chatted. I ran 4.15 miles last night and did another 4 miles this morning. My knees are feeling alright, yet my right knee will not scab up – it is still an open wound. Gross. I’ve already gone through one package of bandaids!

EXTRA: I just updated my About Mego section, check, check, check it out! I’ll eventually add some pics in this section too.

Bachelorette fun

Hey! Last Friday was my good friend Kirsten’s bachelorette party. I think this is my first bachelorette party I’ve been to. I have been to my sister’s, but I was underage, so I couldn’t fully participate. : )

We started out the party with a fun hike to the top of Oyster Dome. All girl hikes are so much more fun than doing them with boys – lots of girl talk, gossip, wine drinking, etc. It was fun to do something active to start the party out, even though I fell at the last bit of the hike…

View from the top of Oyster Dome

Ashley, Kirsten, Caitlin, Annie, Me

We all then showered and met up at Boundary Bay for dinner and beers. After dinner we proceeded to some bars to dance and drink some more. : )

I am a professional self portrait taker

All the ladies

Luckily, Kirsten is an avid water drinker, so I drank A LOT of water throughout the night which resulted in NO hangover the next day. Thanks for being such a responsible drinker, Kirsten!

Bride-to-be, Me and Bri drinking stiff long islands

This coming Saturday is the wedding and it is going to be SO much fun. Can’t wait!

In fitness news, I CAN RUN AGAIN! Since my fall on this hike, I have been restricted to the elliptical and walking to get my exercising. I tested running last night and ended up doing 3.6 miles in 32 minutes. Awesome. Going to continue my normal running schedule as of today… well I don’t use a schedule, I’m just going to resume regularly running…

Update on August’s 80 mile challenge: 41 miles down, 39 to go!

Do you have any goals this August?

want to run!

Hey blogtown. How did your Monday go? Mine = okay. I was really yerning for a run today, but my poor little knees are still not into the pounding of the pavement. Still needed to get a sweat sesh in, so I went to the sauna-like YMCA and did some HIIT on the elliptical. I officially hate the elliptical. SO boring - even with Lady Gaga radio on Pandora!

I did some upper body weights too. Couldn't do any lower body because my knees aren't really into bending right now.

I did happen to run across the street without thinking about my knee and it actually didn't hurt too too bad. Maybe I'll be able to participate in Running Tuesday tomorrow?! The month is more than half over and I still need to get in 40+ miles to reach my 80 miles in August goal. I know I can do it, especially with some of my longer half marathon runs on the calendar in the next few weeks.

My really hot BF (he is looking over my shoulder) is calling my blog a blah, blah, blog. He's so sweet, right? Well he is because he just made us really yummy turkey burgers, salad and a blueberry/rhubarb "bluebarb" crisp for desert. So sweet, my boyfriend, that is. The crisp too though...

We're bouts to go for a walk to cool down and digest. Peace out homies.

No racing for Megan

Hello blog world. I’ve had an interesting past few days. Let me quickly recap:

• I FINALLY got to pick up my fisherman on Friday morning – hooray!
• I took most of Friday off work to pick Aaron up then go on a hike for my friend Kirsten’s bachelorette party
• The hike was good exercise – but I totally ate it and fell smack down on my knees at the end of the hike.
• Knees were bloody, bruised and swollen. Lame.
• I did NOT race on Sunday – I couldn’t run 10 steps, let alone 3 miles. Super lame.
• I could still walk just fine, so Aaron and I went on a hike Sunday.

I’m pretty disappointed in my clumsiness. Although I may have not been mentally into the race, I was still looking forward to it. I’m going to get my entry into the race deferred until next year, so I at least don’t loose out on the entry fee.

Not doing the race did allow me to hang out with Aaron the whole weekend, which was the positive note of me falling down.

We went hiking at Lake Ann yesterday which I’ve done many times, but it’s always a good hike. 8 miles round trip.

I would like to get in some exercising tonight, but running is still out of the picture, so I’m going to try my bike, or maybe resort to the elliptical. But if neither of those work, I’ll go on a good walk at least.

Who falls down when they’re 25?! I feel like I’m 7 with my bandaged/scabbed knees. Ugh.

    

3 Things Thursday

I missed out on 3 things Thursday last week, so I’m happy to be back!

1. I got my hair did last night. Really just a trim and got my bangs cleaned up. But for some reason, I still pulled it back in a pony tail for work today…

2. I DID NOT get to pick up my fisherman last night. Boo. Due to foggy weather conditions in Sand Point, the plane coming in from Anchorage could not land, so they’re trying again today. However, the flights today are booked with other people, so they’re trying to get an additional plane in to take the peeps that missed their flight yesterday. This is making me frustrated, but I can’t imagine how Aaron and his buddy feel – they just want to get home so bad! So I have no idea when Aaron will be here. I’m not going to set an expectation either, cause I’ll probably just get disappointed.

3. After my 9 miler yesterday, I woke up with great feeling legs, thank goodness. I rolled my muscles out with my Stick – love that thing. But to my surprise, my shoulders are sore. Mostly near my shoulder blades, so maybe my back. This was probably caused by bad posture on the run – slouching and having rounded shoulders. I try to think of what my chiropractor told me awhile ago…he said as awkward as it may feel, stick your chest out to prevent bending from the waist and stand as tall as your can. That is hard though after 9 miles when my body is tired. How do you keep good form/posture on a long run?

Feeling sick after 9 miles

Hey blog world. I just ran 9 miles – success! I decided I’d run 3+ laps at Lake Padden because I wanted to be able to run by my car and grab gels, water, etc. when I needed to. But the down fall of running at Padden is that it is hilly, the loops is only 2.6 miles and I know the trail so well that I knew how much farther I had to go to finish a lap…which was all I thought about.

I took a Hammer Gel at mile 5.2 and some H2O. Grabbed some more H2O at mile 7.5 then an electrolyte tablet when I was done. Felt pretty good the whole time besides a little knee aching and some slower paces, but I’m just happy that I finished all 9 miles. Thank goodness! Here are my splits:

Mile 1: 8:55
Mile 2: 9:15
Mile 3: 9:04
Mile 4: 9:23
Mile 5: 9:36
Mile 6: 9:13
Mile 7: 10:12 (a few walking breaks)
Mile 8: 9:28
Mile 9: 9:27
Average pace: 9:24

I got home and felt like crap. I don’t think I consumed enough calories on the run. My Garmin said I burned over 1,000 calories on the run, do you think that is correct? I weigh 140 lbs and ran for 1:25. Either way, I felt like I was going to pass out after I took a shower, so I shoved some protein down and now I feel a tad better, but not 100%.

I like that I have been doing my long runs during the week and not pushing them off until the weekend. It makes longer runs seem like just another mid-week run instead of this crazy workout I have to do on the weekend. Maybe it is just a mental thing, but I has made doing my longer runs easier.

Here are some more fun pictures from my vacation. These are from our visit to the Vince Shute Bear Sanctuary. Basically, you get put in the cage while the bears roam freely and grub on food.

The best part of seeing the bears was my nephew Grayson’s excitement. He thought they were the coolest thing ever. SO cute!       

Don’t worry, I still have a TON of vacation photos to share. : )