Three Zero

Hey friends! Is it just me or is this week flying by?! I haven’t even gotten up a post about my fun birthday weekend. We must fix that, stat.

I was up bright and early Saturday morning to head to RW to run with my training group. We had 11 miles on the schedule and this week everyone was in survival mode, as the humidity was much worse than the previous week. The good news is that everyone completed the run! Tough conditions, but hopefully now everyone is a little bit stronger because of it.

Check out what the crazy humidity did to my braid. Yikes.

Daniel took me birthday shopping Saturday afternoon. He decided that it would be fun to spend the day together and let me pick out a few things that I wanted. I ended up with two new pairs of running shoes, a running tank, a cardigan for work and scored a cute Patagonia dress and skirt on major sale. Sweet!

I decided a while back (probably last year on my birthday, actually) that I wanted to run 30 miles on my 30th birthday. Birthdays can be fairly anti-climactic at this point, so I wanted to do something “epic” (for lack of less cliché terminology). I ran the idea (get it?) by my coach, and he was supportive of the plan as long as I broke it up into two runs so that I could rest, rehydrate and refuel in between runs. Sunday was the big day.

Sunday morning Daniel dropped us off across the bay and we made the 16 mile trek back across. This is the “special occasion” route. We have run it for Rebecca’s birthday and wedding weekend and now also for my birthday. The route is rather hilly, but has some very good bathroom and water stops along the way.

We survived! I headed out for two additional miles once we made it back, just to cut down on the miles later in the day. We celebrated with coffee and lots of other hydrating beverages.

I got some good rest Sunday afternoon and then later that evening, Daniel and I headed out to finish the remainder of the birthday miles. I was really expecting those last twelve to drag out, but they seemed to fly by and we enjoyed some quality time together. When we got back along the bay, the sunset was absolutely amazing! I had a little extra motivation at that point, because I really wanted to get back in time to get a picture of the sunset before it disappeared into the clouds.

Success!

I ended up with 30 miles for the day at 8:21 average pace. My dad said that I needed to do one more mile “to grow on” so that I didn’t have to repeat this nonsense again next year, but I decided against that. Not gonna lie though, I think I might have ultra marathon fever now. Perhaps a 50K sometime in the near future? We shall see.

When we got back to car, the first mandatory stop was at Sonic for a route 44 cherry limeade and the second mandatory stop was at Cold Snap for a rather large serving of frozen yogurt. I went to bed tired and happy. Bring it 30!

Monday was my actual birthday. Despite having to work (shouldn’t you get the day off on your birthday …), I had a really good day! Daniel and I plodded through 5 miles that evening, just to test out the legs. They weren’t moving very swiftly, but felt surprisingly good otherwise.

Tuesday evening, we met up with some of Daniel’s college friends who were in town for the week. They invited us over for a shrimp boil and we had a really good time hanging out and visiting with them. I was really enjoying hearing stories about my husband’s crazy college experiences. He is a mess.

And the food was incredible!

Well, that pretty much catches us up on the exciting stuff. My brain is toast, so not a whole lotta deep thoughts today, but lots of fun has been going on around here. I hope everyone is having a great week. Gotta run!