Once you are married you realize how important it is to have these. I love being with my husband, but it is nice to go off with the girls once in awhile and do those girly things like watch chick flicks (Breaking Dawn), shop and run races. Wait...run races? Yes, run races.
After running 13 races in 8 months last year, I decided to take it easy for awhile. The Virginia Is For Lovers 14K was not on my list, but then I received an email from J & A Racing a month or so ago and in it was a picture of the medal for this year's race. Sold! They always get me with the hardware...
When C told me that he would be going to Pennsylvania that weekend with his buddies for their annual mountain trip, I decided to see if my two friends that live in Virginia Beach would want to do the race with me. They are not runners but I thought it would be fun if they did the 1.4 miler while I did the 14K. They were excited about the idea and we had our girl's weekend planned!
I headed down to the beach on Friday after work. I should mention that Jess and Emily are two of my sorority sisters. Our other sorority sister, who earned the nickname Shrub back in college, came down with her family for dinner. Jess made Mexican...I carbo-loaded on homemade tortilla chips, they are so much better than the store ones!
We played penny poker and rocked out to The Kangaroo Song by The Big Wu. We even let Shrub's 2 year old take pictures :-)
Saturday morning I was up early. We had been checking the weather all night because they were calling for rain. We got really lucky and the rain held off!
Our pre-race photo!
So while we were waiting to start, the announcer told us that a couple was getting married on the course. They let the bride and groom and wedding party have a 10 minute head start in front of everyone else. They stopped at the half way point, had the ceremony and then finished the race. So cute! I never got to see them but my friends did and they said it was cute.
This race was pretty hard on me this year. I've been having some issues while running and I can't figure out why. My weight is up and I have a sneaking suspicion that my thyroid is acting up again and trying to run with this extra weight is rough. My left leg and foot fell asleep about 3 times and I had to walk to get them to wake up. My right foot was also in severe pain. Last Thursday I noticed that the top of my foot had a bump on it and it hurt really bad, like I had a splinter stuck in my foot. The next day the bump was down and it did not hurt so bad. Then while I was running it felt like someone was slamming the top of my foot with a hammer. This was some serious pain. I pushed on like I always do and tried to make the best of it
Jess and Emily came to see me at mile 5 after they had finished their race and they made me signs! I laughed when I saw this one but it didn't click in my head till mile 7 or so what it was. It meant a lot to me that they made me signs :-)
Sisters really are the best.
I was sooo happy to cross that finish line and not only get inside, but get some food in me and some free beer. Not to mention getting off of my foot. They had a band playing so after we got our beer we sat on the floor and stretched and hung out. We really had a good time and are ready for the next one!
Yuengling sponsored the race. I thought the handle was pretty cool.
I give the weekend a thumbs up!
All pain aside, it was a great weekend. My foot is finally starting to feel better today but still a little tender. I'm really hoping it is nothing serious. I figure I will give it a few days of rest and then try to go for a run and see what happens.
Happy Valentine's Day!
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