More like vacation at Cape Cod, MA but I like "life on the Cape" more for a blog post title! Back about a month ago already I took a week off and headed up to Cape Cod with Kyle for a much needed vacation. It is gorgeous up there and the perfect balance of activities, relaxing, ocean time, and sea food. Here are my favorite things we did on vacation: kayaking through the Nauset Marsh. Beach time at the National Seashore - especially seeing all the seals! Yoga with one of my favorite teachers who used to teach at Tranquil Space. Day at Truro Vineyards and South Hollow Spirits. Pretty safe to say this was a great vacation spot and the weather was perfect, we would definitely come back and have already talked about other things we would want to check out like whale watching and walking through the dunes. Plus I just love the ocean and will never say no to a vacation that includes the beach! Some other random things from vacation that I should definitely mention: BEST. BREAKFAST. SANDWICH. EVER. from Mike and Patty's in Boston (seriously I would go back to Boston just for this sandwich). Ran the Cape Cod Canal 10k, Kyle checked Massachusetts off his list. Used AirBnB for all lodging and worked out great for us. Ate my first lobster roll, was good but not sure worth the market cost of lobsters.
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It's still a little hard for me to believe that I run occasionally for fun. I haven't done a ton of races and I'm not always the most consistent with running on my own but I still enjoy it and have been a runner off and on for almost 3 years. I purchased my first pair of real running shoes April 2012 (which I still use) so I'm thinking it's definitely time to get a new pair asap! Over the past 2+ years I've done a few races which I've mentioned in past posts but I just want to list all the ones so far. It really helps having a bf who is running a race in every state to bump up the number of races I've done so far. I haven't done everyone Kyle has but I do like signing up for the vacation races as a fun way to include some exercise into a trip. Race 1: Cleveland 10k 58:07, 9:21/mile Race 2: Columbus Color Run 5k untimed Race 3: North Carolina Mountain Run 3.6 miles can't find time Race 4: Portage Lakes Duathlon Race 5: Alexandria Turkey Trot 5 miles 51:58, 10:24/mile Race 6: Savannah Bridge Run 5k 31:50, 10:14/mile Race 7: Fingerlakes Glassfest 8k 50:10, 10:05/mile Race 8: Cape Cod Canal 10k 1:11:00, 11:25/mile Up next repeating the Alexandria Turkey Trot 5 miler. It's such a great way to start Thanksgiving and that means I can eat more pie...I mean turkey! We'll see if I can beat last years time, although I'm pretty inconsistent on my mile pace and I was definitely the fastest my first race a few years ago *side note I actually trained consistently for 2 months for that race.
I took off for the long Memorial Day weekend and headed to the Fingerlake region in New York. It was partly so Kyle and I could do the 8k glassfest but it was also for some much needed R&R, wine drinking, and just fresh air. Brittany and Dustin also drove up for the weekend so it was a cute little couple's weekend! The drive was 5-6 hours but included a Sonic pit stop and wasn't bad, and there was NO awful holiday traffic so that was good. We stayed at a B&B in Watkins Glen with our race being 25 minutes away in Corning. Watkins Glen is at the southern point of Seneca lake so we had awesome access to a ton of wineries around the lake. It was a beautiful area. I have to say the town was not anything too amazing, but was a good place to recharge and just have a quite and simple weekend. We found a couple yummy restaurants, my fave being Nickel's Pitt BBQ mmmm. We went to quite a few different wineries and I found some pretty good ones, but it was crazy how cheap the tastings and wines were up there. Tasting's were anywhere from $2-5 and some refunded all of that if you bought a bottle. They had a large variety of wines at alomst every stop and they pretty much said "pick 6" for the set price, which was good some of the time. However I really like a "guided tasting" where they really go over the wines so I can learn more about them. But I will definitely go back, I mean wine is wine! Along with lots of food and drinking we did check out the Watkins Glen State Park which had a lot of pretty water falls and we ran our race. The race was an 8k (about 5 miles) and went really well with Kyle being super speedy finishing in under 35 minutes, and I finished at around 50 minutes. My goal was to finish by running the whole thing so I was really happy, even with the temps starting in the 30s when we got to the race, but was probably 40s when we ran.
May was a super fun month with a lot of celebrations all around including Kyle, my mom, and my dad's birthday along with mother's day! I wasn't able to celebrate in person with the parents but I was still able to wish them well and I will just have to celebrate extra hard the next time I see them. Kyle and I had a fun weekend in Pittsburgh celebrating (which of course included the now yearly tradition of banana pudding!) We also checked out Wigle's whiskey garden & barrelhouse for some drinks and music. I found a super could chalkboard map made for tracking what states Kyle has completed a race in. It also has hooks for medals and clips for his bibs. I think it turned out super cool and it's fun seeing Kyle excited to fill in the states! I found it on Etsy from the York Sign Shop if anyone is interested, they have a lot of cool products and the quality is awesome.
I completed two races in the fall/winter of 2015 with Kyle, one was in Savannah which helped Kyle check off another state in his quest to hit all 50 and the other was a 5 mile turkey trot! I was a little nervous about both since one was 5 miles and I had not run much lately and running in the cold is never fun and then the Savannah race was their bridge run with a 5.5% grade hill. Both ended up being pretty good races and I was glad to be active the morning of Thanksgiving before indulging in a yummy meal. The Savannah race was fun and also part of a fun getaway weekend to explore the city and see one of my best friends get married (more of that in another post!) I'm still not into a lot of running currently with the cold weather and all, but who knows maybe come spring I'll be wanting to get my running shoes back out, but one thing is certain I will be cheering on Kyle as he hits more states this year!
I'm signed up for a 5 mile turkey trot on Thanksgiving! and then a 5k bridge with a huge hill on December 6th! Sooooo I guess with these races coming up I should probably try to remember how to run or try to like running again. I barely trained for my duathlon and I don't want to repeat not training if possible. So my calendar is made and it's time to get back at it. I have a 4 week running plan starting this Friday to get ready for my 5 miler and then the 5k should be a breeze the week after. Wish me luck I may need it especially with the cold fall rushing in quickly.
I took a quick hiatus since the end of March and went a on a fun vacation in North Carolina. Needed some fresh air and a spring reboot! I will have some more posts coming soon, I am switching up things with my hours so will be adjusting to new routines and all but hopefully that means consistent posts. Including some from my vacation, but here's a quick bit on it. The vacation actually ended by doing a 3.6 mile race which included running up a hill. (Actually felt/looked more like a mountain and increased 1,000 feet in elevation!) It was super tough and I definitely had to run/walk parts since it was steep and I didn't prepare much, but it was beautiful and fun to do, good end to a trip that included a lot a lot of food. My time was around 43 minutes, so not super fast but the inclines were killer so I'm happy. And Kyle finished at around 32 minutes so he kicked my butt! Here's just a few pics from the race but more to come from Asheville, NC. |
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