And the MojaMix winner is...

Velma from Running with Boys! Congratulations!

Velma, send me an email at felicehalf at yahoo dot com and I'll hook you up. I hope you enjoy it!

If you're wondering, the vacation is going well. We rent a house with four other families so there are 10 adults and 8 kids. It's chaos but the weather has been great and we've been having fun. I also went for an enjoyable run yesterday and was able to check out a bit of this pretty beach town.

Have a great day!

~ Felice

Vacation here I come!

I'm taking off today -- heading slightly south for a week's vacation with the family. So, posting and commenting will be light this week but I will post the MojaMix giveaway winner on Tuesday. If you haven't entered, you have until Monday at midnight to do so.

In the meantime, my biggest recent news is that I was profiled on the Freihofer's Run for Women blog! (You can check me out here.) And, I had some good runs last week but I skipped out on a planned double so my overall mileage was down. Not to worry. I'll make it up. I'm bringing running gear with me on vacation and I hope to get in a few relaxed runs while we're away.

Have a great week, everyone!

~ Felice

MojaMix review and giveaway -- and a big congratulations.

It's Friday and I have a munch-rific review: MojaMix premium custom-mixed cereal.

Have you heard of MojaMix? It's a cereal that you create by choosing all of the ingredients using their web site and the finished product is shipped directly to you. Lauren at MojaMix asked me to check it out and let you know what I thought and I happily agreed to do so.

The MojaMix web site (here) is easy to use; you pick a base, add dried fruits, add nuts and seeds and then you're done. For my mix, I started with the Grains A Plenty (wheat, oat, rye and barley flakes with puffed rice) then added dried apricots, cranberries and apples, and finished with pecans, pistachios and chia seeds. Yeah, I know. I went a little crazy.

It was worth the craziness. The dried fruit and nuts are all high-quality and quite tasty. I'm a pecan fanatic and my mix was filled with large, fresh pecan halves. And the cranberries were huge! Lots of yum.

The only down-side to the cereal is the cost. My mix would have cost about $8 for 12 ounces (plus shipping). Now, as I said, I could taste the high quality of the ingredients and I know that you have to pay a premium for that. In my opinion, quality food is worth the price -- I'd rather have a little of something that is good and good for me than a ton of junk. But that's me.

Interested in MojaMix? Today's your lucky day because I have a free mix to give away!

Here's how you can enter to win a free bag of MojaMix:

Required: Go to MojaMix, check out the ingredients, and let me know your favorite one in your comment.

You can get an additional entry for any of the following:

• Tweet about this giveaway, making sure to include @MojaMix. You may use the following to tweet: "Win a cereal with the ingredients of your choice from @MojaMix. Go to http://thehappyrunner.blogspot.com to participate."
• Mention this giveaway on your blog.
• Become a fan of MojaMix on Facebook (facebook.com/mojamix) and mention this in your comment.

You can enter until midnight (EST) on Monday, July 27th. I'll announce the winner on Tuesday -- from vacation! Yep, I'm just that dedicated :-)

* * *

Remember way back when I hosted the Strands giveaway and mentioned their contest to send one runner to the Hood to Coast Relay? Just indulge me and shake your head, "yes." Thank you.

Well here's the thing. Beth from Shut Up and Run won the contest! She's going on an all-expenses paid trip to Oregon to run the relay! Why does this make me so happy? I'll tell you why: She read about the contest here, on The Happy Runner. Woo hoo! I feel so proud . . .

Congratulations, Beth! Can't wait to hear about the race.

On that happy note, I wish you all a happy Friday and great weekend!

~ Felice

Embracing the Long Run Dragon.

Today's topic at Runners' Lounge for Take it and Run Thursday is slaying the long run dragon: "What are your best tips for getting through the long, hard, hot, hilly, sweaty, torturous but enjoyable runs?" You'll notice I changed the topic a bit in my post title and you'll see why below. And you'll probably think I've really gone and shown my Super Running Dork side this time and I'm OK with that.

Now, before I share my tips I have to say that I cannot wait to read what others have written because I'm not great with the long runs. I tend to psyche myself out and then not do them. It's something I'm working on and one thing that I've done actually works so I guess I'll make that my first tip:

Draw on past long runs when you feel your confidence wavering. When I don't think I'm up for the challenge of a long run, I remind myself that I've run 9.5 miles on the treadmill in my boring basement, 12 in 19-degree weather, 18 in the hot, hot heat of August and, most important, a marathon. I can handle whatever long run is on my schedule -- I've done it before.

But getting out the door only gets you, well, out the door. The miles are still ahead and can be tough. So my next tip is to find an interesting route to run. I can't handle laps for long runs, I have to look at fresh landscape (unless I'm stuck on a treadmill). So I plan my long runs to take me over routes that are as interesting as possible. It makes the miles go faster.

My last tip is one that I try really hard to use (but don't always succeed) for every tough run, long or not: Embrace the run. Hills? Embrace them; they are your friends. Heat? Embrace it; at least it's not cold. Longest run yet? Embrace it; you're building endurance. You know what I mean. Going into a tough run with a positive attitude will take you far. My failed runs are the ones that I told myself would be too tough -- too cold, too long, too whatever. I'm working on this tough run embrace. Sometimes I only manage a little pat on the shoulder, but I'm getting there!

Run long and happy, folks!

~ Felice