Race Bling

Awesome weekend. It was really a fun weekend and the weather was amazing and I was pretty much all smiles from Friday night until last night. Not that I’m not smiling today it’s just that its Monday and I’m at work which isn’t as much fun as my weekend but I’m not upset or anything. They cannot all be weekends after all.

Friday night I had an awesome workout with Amanda at the gym. Saturday morning we got up, went to the Convention Center for packet pick up for the race we ran on Sunday and then we headed over to the Great Urban Race. Boy this was sure different from anything else we’ve ever done. It was crazy. They hand you this packet with 12 puzzles on it. You must solve the puzzles to get the clues or names of business’s to head out to on your “scavenger hunt”. You then had to google the addresses and then make a route of the best way to go to hit all locations with as little back peddling as possible. It honestly took like an hour to solve all the problems and get our route mapped out. Once we were on foot heading out it got really fun. There were almost 100 teams of 2-4 people competing. What was cool is that we were all going to the same 12 locations so we were constantly seeing the other teams on the street and it totally gave it an Amazing Race kind of feeling. It was honestly a blast.

Once we’d get to a location we’d have to perform a little task to get the proof we needed of completing the task. Tasks were as simple as smelling coffee’s and having to decide which country they were from to blowing a ping pong ball from one red cup to another full of water without using your hands. Basically jumping the ping pong ball from cup to cup. There is definitely a technique to this. Each stop was different and fun. But mostly just running around the city was a great time. We wore a Garmin to track our distance. We’d run stretches and then we’d walk when the sidewalks were crowded. It was a gorgeous day in Portland and it’s a beautiful city so lots of people were out and about. Our entire journey clocked in just a little over 7 miles. Not too bad for an afternoon. All in all, we finished the entire game in 3 hours 16 minutes, just about middle of the pack. I think we were team 46 out of like almost 100. I will take it, considering we had no idea what we were really doing.

It was honestly, obviously, all for the experience of it. I highly recommend such a fun activity to anyone as simply a means of exploring your city in a different way. Pushes you out of your comfort zone for sure. I honestly couldn’t stop smiling or laughing because it was just a good old fashioned good time, plus the other teams were all very nice.

Yesterday morning we had to wake up about 5 AM, to be in the car by 5:30 to get to Portland by 6:30 so we could run a 10k at 7:15. Good times. I am stating to get used to these early mornings, although I never really want to get up, but I always wake up before we start running. Given how many half marathons we run, I often take for granted that a 10k is actually a decent distance as well. I mentally just go, oh, it’s just a 10k, so 6.2 miles. No big deal. 6.2 miles is a decent run. Considering that it never fails it will always take me about 2 miles to warm up. This is why a 5k, 3.1 miles is less than ideal for me. I kid you not; the first 2 miles of any run are pure hell for me. I don’t find my groove until at least mile 2. Seriously after like 3 minutes of running, I always think oh God, this is awful, what the hell am I doing? Why is his so hard? Why is this run so brutal already? And of course, in true doubting yourself fashion, is this the exact moment where running just became impossible for me? That’s it; I’ve lost all ability to run. I mean, when you feel like dying after 3 minutes your mind plays a lot of tricks on you.

By mile 2 I was feeling good and in my groove and then I try and talk down my brain that is telling me I can no longer run, and remind it that I always have issues with the first little bit, that I have to warm up to the run. There are some races/runs that ultimately are more fun or you feel better about. In the end I felt perfectly fine with my time and the actual run itself, but overall this was not that memorable of a race. They did have a half marathon but I don’t think I’d ever run this particular race in the half. It’s one of those races that I might run again in the future if everything worked out and I felt like it, but I also wouldn’t go out of my way for this race. Not that exciting overall. But honestly every run is fun and a good time for me in some way.

We were done before 9 AM, walked around the post-race expo a bit and then decided to swing by Ikea afterwards for a few items. We made our way home and I finally got around to putting together my epic medal display in the hallway. It took me quite some time to figure out the exact way I wanted to display me medals. I researched it for a while before ordering a display and then I have to embellish that with a frame and make it look nice of course. This required trim and paint and a whole process. Since we had time we worked on that yesterday afternoon. I was so happy with the outcome of course I still have lots and lots of medals to earn to actually make it look full but that’s okay, I’m working on that. There is room to grow!

Yesterday was so ridiculously gorgeous outside that we literally left all the doors and windows open, I let the breeze just flow thru the house. I had the radio going and we cooked some ribs on the Bar-B-Que for dinner. Yup ribs. They were amazing by the way. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon and reminded me of how amazing life can be at times. I felt so at peace and content. It was just magical. This is part of living that amazing life that I feel blessed to have. It was just overall what I’d consider one perfect weekend.

This week looks good weather wise and this weekend is Easter. Not that I have any major Easter plans but I’m just happy and excited about life in general. Actually that’s a lie; I’m very excited about this Saturday. It’s going to be a crazy busy day. Saturday morning we are running a half that I have been looking forward to since I first got this crazy idea of running this much. It’s the Hop Hop Half. It is obviously an Easter themed run. You get post-race mimosas in a champagne flute you get to keep along with Easter t-shirt and a giant Easter egg medal as they call it. Post run they have a bunch of Easter themed activities. This makes my heart happy. This is early in the morning and then at 4 PM, we are doing a 5k. Yes, I know, this seems slightly crazy and ambitious and normally I would not sign up for another event on the same day as a half but this is one of my favorite running organizations and they have crazy awesome medals. Plus my sister and brother in law Erin and Matt and my mom are coming and walking this 5k, so I figure we will just walk the 3 miles with them. I can walk 3 miles post a half run. Hello, in San Francisco I walked more than 3 miles after we ran our half so I am sure I got this. I don’t actually plan on running the 5k. I think having my family there walking will also prevent me from wanting to run and injure myself.

Anyhow, another fun thing to look forward to. This is why I am loving my life so much right now. I constantly have fun and exciting at least to me, things to look forward to on the weekends. Aside from actually running and getting awesome medals and the high that comes with that, we meet so many cool people at these events. We are far more social than we’ve ever been and I am quite enjoying the social aspect of them as well.

Tonight its back to the gym for a half hour class and then it’s a full hour of iron power, total strength training class. Excellent fun. Also, the sun is still gloriously shinning down and you’ve just got to smile about that.