8/17 Enter to Win and Kale Trail Update
Enter To Win 
Exciting news. I have the opportunity to give away two tickets to this year’s No Beast Feast. No Beast is a fundraiser dinner for the Dearborn Animal Shelter. The meal is sensational and entirely vegan from the rolls with butter to the dessert buffet. Local restaurants and chefs come together to create a menu that creatively celebrates plant based edibles. If you want to simply join us for the No Beast Feast, you can purchase tix here, $45 each in advance.
Dr. Kerrie Saunders, appropriately known as Dr. Food will share her wisdom about plant based foods. There will also be auction items, canine/ feline family members to adopt and a complimentary beer and wine bar. It is a fun time. The event is September 14, 6PM-10PM at Park Place Banquet Hall in Dearborn, Michigan.
If you would like to win two tickets for No Beast Feast, please tell me in the Blog comments section or on Exploits Facebook page, why you would like to win. Enter to win starting today through Thursday August 3oth. A winner will be chosen at random from the entries. I’ll post the winner on Friday August 31st.
Having a beautiful vegan meal while helping to support homeless animals is the best way ever to spend a Friday night.
Kale Trail Update
I am three months and 1 day away from my second half marathon. We are doing the Women’s Only Half Marathon in St Petersburg, 
Florida, the same race we enjoyed so much last year. It was like being as pampered as I could only imagine being while running a half marathon. The course was breathtaking, the swag was unbelievable and there was as much Gatorade and GU gel as I could possibly consume in any given 24 hour period.
There was live music along the course, a huge celebration with linen covered tables over-looking the ocean, and a medal as gorgeous as any piece of jewelry waiting for me as I crossed the finish line. Really worth a year of training in my eyes.
I have realized that part of me feels more afraid of the Run this year than I did last. I sometimes slip into familiar feelings of self doubt and negativity. These feelings fit snugly and are comfortable in their discomfort. It is much easier to play and replay the same damaging internal dialogue I have always played. Changing it requires me to acknowledge the horrible things I can say to myself and then say, ” That isn’t true. It has never been true and I am no longer willing to think that way.”
That requires courage I don’t always have and it is difficult to admit this dialogue exists and to actively change it. I have found that those negative feelings, being played over and over affect everything from the things I put in my body to the people I choose to share my life with and mostly, whether or not I am willing to believe in myself.
But what I have realized is that I don’t have to settle for the same thoughts or beliefs that I have always held. Nor do I have to live within the confines of my learned and practiced negativity. I can try on new experiences and new ways of believing in myself until they too are comfy and familiar.
The half marathon is an excellent way to spend the day in one of my favorite parts of Florida. The half marathon is also an opportunity to re-record my internal dialogue to something empowering like, “Sherry, I am proud of you. You are a strong, vibrant and healthy woman.” I can continue to replay the same inner dialogue or I can take every opportunity I can find to re-record it to create a more loving relationship with myself. Practice makes perfect so I am going to keep running, keep trying and keep recording anew.
Have a delicious day.
Tags: Dearborn animal shelter, enter to win tickets, Kale Trail update, No Beast Feast, plant based diet, vegan fundraiser dinner, vegan wannabe
