Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Backtracking to Memorial Day Weekend


I have been such a slack blogger so I am trying to play catch up! Let's backtrack to Memorial Day weekend! We went to the beach for the weekend with Michael and Lauren! We had a fabulous time hanging out on the beach and eating fabulous food!!


 Snapping a pic or two before heading to dinner!

On Sunday we headed back home to get some rest because we had plans on Monday to go ziplinning!!! My mother-in-law gave us all ziplinning passes for Christmas and we all finally found a time that worked and we headed to Asheboro, NC!





Richland Creek Ziplinning Tours was an awesome place with great staff! We had such a wonderful time!!! 

Cheers!,

Photobucket

Virginia Wine Country Half Marathon Race Weeked & Recap


The weekend of June 2nd, I piled in the car with some of my girlfriends and we headed to Virginia for a weekend full of running, wine, good food, and great company!!


We left Thursday around lunchtime and arrived in Loudon, VA! It was a pretty uneventful trip with only a few stops along the way! We grabbed a bite to eat, had a few beers, and hit the sack! 

Friday morning we got up and went for a short 4 mile run around the hotel we were staying. We hopped on a run/bike trail which was very nice and pretty. I wish our hometown had more of these and respected runners and cyclists more than what they do!

We went to the expo and picked up our bibs and waited for the rest of our group to arrive and then we hit Panera Bread for lunch! We also detoured to the outlets by our hotel to get in a little shopping!

Waiting around at the expo at Landstowne Resort. It was such a beautiful place!

We went to an early dinner and then got in the bed pretty early for our 4:45 wake up call! 

The race was about a 20 minute drive for us so we all piled in the car. It had rained on us a good bit the day before so the winery parking was flooded and very muddy. This held up traffic and backed things up a bit. We were nervous we wouldn't make it to the start. Thank goodness we are planners and left early enough!

A few of us before the race!

The race was delayed about 30 minutes because of the traffic back-up and late shuttle buses from the hotels. This made me pretty antsy I will admit.

The race finally started and my first two miles hovered at around a 7:30 pace. This was right where I wanted to be. There were hills in this race. I knew there were going to be hills. I was not prepared for the whole race to be rolling hills, which it was. I started to really feel the pace getting to be at about mile 8. I few miles around this point too were on gravel roads. I hate running on that type of surface. I blame the gravel for slowing down too.

I kept thinking as I started getting towards the end of mile 10 that I could not wait for this race to be OVER! I don't know that I have ever felt that way, not even during my first marathon. 

It was a tough course. I didn't run my best. It was my first time traveling that distance (7hrs) to a race. I had a terrible upset stomach that morning. These are all the things I blamed my not so good race on! 

Official Time - 1:42:35

We all have those races and we are not all perfect! This was one of mine. After the race was over, we waited for everyone to finish, went and got our super cool wine glass and hit the wine tasting area!!

Our crew after the race!

After we left the race, we hit up this local pizza place and it was delicious. I drowned my sorrows into this huge veggie calzone that was out of this world good!!

We got back to the hotel and hit the hot tub with snacks and beer in hand!


We hit the town for dinner and dancing for a while that night and sadly I did not take any photos! :( 

We got up early on Sunday and had breakfast and then hit the road back to Flo-town! It was a great trip!

Photobucket