Runs With Mascara: travel

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Dana Ran Here

Dana on Gellert Hill on the Buda side of Budapest.

The "Hell Yeah!" Statue that greets you after the climb up Gellert Hill.

Castle Hill home of the Royal Palace and Mathias Church.

If it isn't clear from a 2 week break in blogging and posts of me all over the world, I been a bit busy. Hi all, Dana here! So a work trip took me for 2 weeks to 5 countries in Europe. The visits were to Hungary, Serbia, Italy, France and Ukraine, in that order! The goal was of course to get work done, but the real goal was to get in 100 miles of running and complete all push-ups since the push-up challenge is still going which meant 728 total push-ups while I was there. The spoiler: DID IT! I was able to run two 20 mile runs, one in Serbia to the Monastery I posted last and one through Kiev. Multiple other runs were fantastic and posts are to follow. The biggest problem was when my luggage was lost and I had to take a few days off from running and buy all new running attire from shoes to hat to bra to hand held water bottle. (I think that is a whole other story for another post!) Anyway, the photos above are my first day of the trip in Hungary about 1 hour after my plane landed. I got right out to see the sights of the old city and was rewarded with a hot rain, a statue that said, "Hell Yeah you run those hills!" and views that I just could not capture on my iPhone. You have seen Serbia, next post, Italy (no running, just some amazing shots of food since this was where I had no clothes or shoes only the sweatpants on my back!)

Friday, July 1, 2011

Push Up Challenge

Runs with Mascara has been participating in a Push Up Challenge. The challenge is one push up added each day through 80 days. So you do one push up on day one. You do two push ups on the next day, then build up and up and up. We need something to balance all this running!
Today we are on day 33 so this morning I did 33 push ups in sets of 5 since my arms are so sore!
So far we have recruited bunches of friends and co-workers into this challenge and by the time we are done everyone I know should have buff arms and back. The best is that with all this work/play travel Team RWM will have done push ups in 10 countries and 7 states by the time 80 days are up.

Until we have pictures of ourselves doing push ups in Kiev or Serbia or Bhutan or Hawaii you can see what our push-up contest looks like in the office. YES, we do push ups in our work clothes since missing a day is just not an option!

Co-worker, Rachel getting push ups done between work!

Excited to be done for the day (and no one saw her sneaking in the work out!)

About Runs with Mascara

Who is Team Runs with Mascara?

Runs with Mascara is Dana Katz and Samantha Pinney - training partners and friends for the past 3 years; adventurers with a flair for musicals and running skirts, and a generous respect for looking good when sweating hard. While they’ve had many adventures across the West, one of their more epic spans was a week they spent racing from the Bizz Johnson trail marathon in northern California to rappeling in Arches National Park, to biking the White Rim Trail in southern Utah to running the Moab Half Marathon. This is their first race endeavor as a team under the name RWM.

Samantha Pinney overcame the malls of her New Jersey youth for an obsession with the outdoors that carries her from skiing to ultra running to outrigger canoeing and whatever adventures she can find. She can’t imagine life without running skirts, flip flops or beanies and wields a kettle ball as deftly as she does a mascara wand. She competed in the 2010 Crossfit Team Games, has multiple top 10 finishes to her name but can’t throw a softball to save her life. She’d like to be a better surfer.

Dana Katz is a recovering triathlete and cyclocross racer turned ultrarunner. She eats hills for breakfast that she doctors with homemade concoctions of flaxseed and ginger granola in her ongoing quest to create ridiculously healthy and delicious meals. Dana is a globetrotter who in a recent span ran a ½ marathon in Brazil, a trail run in Sweden, a marathon in northern California and a harried loop amongst the monuments of Washington D.C. before boarding a plane. She doesn’t leave home without her running skirt and snacks. Don’t let Dana’s easy-going, amicable personality fool you: she trains like a warrior and competes with a vengeance.