Running and Biking and Baseball

I had a really fun weekend. And by weekend, I mean Sunday.

Saturday, I was pretty much down for the count due to female issues. Boooo...

Thankfully by Sunday I was feeling much better, so I decided to tackle the St Patty's Day virtual race.

As far as I can tell, there is no specified distance for this virtual race, so I attempted to push myself with a 10K. I'd been pretty crampy (TMI??) the day before, so I wasn't sure how it would go. Plus, I decided to do a 5K route twice instead of mapping something new. This is usually too mentally difficult for me, but it would allow me to end after a 5K if I needed to.

I DIDN'T! In fact, continuing and starting the route over seemed like just about the most natural thing ever. Woot woot! There was a brief moment about 43 minutes in that I started to hit a small wall, but I jumped right over that mother and crushed it.

I'd never run a 10K in under an hour, so in the back of my mind that was my goal.

**drumroll please**

I FINISHED IN 58:18!!

My previous PR was 1:04:54. Virtual races totally count for PRs, right? :) The best part? I didn't even feel like I was pushing it all that hard - even though I did get super sweaty.

I even had enough energy left over to finish my 7-Day Arm Challenge, and bike to a spring training game - about 5 miles from my apartment.

I started this run a bit lot later than I really should have, so we ended up leaving for the ball game later than we'd hoped. In fact, by the time we hopped on our bikes, the game had already started. Oops!

We're not die hard baseball fans by any means, so it wasn't really a big deal to us that we didn't get to the game until the 3rd inning.

You can't really tell from the picture, but we were watching Cubs vs Rangers. It was a fun game. Sorry to all you Cubs fans out there, but they really didn't seem to bring their A-game. Both teams, actually, didn't seem to be very alive out there, but the Rangers at least seemed to be a little more awake.

All I could think about, though, was an ice cream cone. I really wanted one! A nice soft serve ice cream cone. Mmmm...

They didn't have any, but they did have Ben & Jerry's. It would have to do. LOL.

The final inning was probably the most exciting! The score was 8-5 Rangers and the Cubs were up to bat. Bases were loaded. Two outs already on the board.

Would he hit a home run? With that single hit, the Cubs could win. So exciting. Unfortunately, the batter struck out. How embarrassing. :D

Our bike ride home was nice and easy - other than a few dick-ish motorists. Please, please read and share this post on sharing the road! So many times we have to just shake our heads at how ridiculous motorists can be. *sigh*

How was your weekend? 
Any running or biking or baseball for you?
Tweet

And now for NASCAR

I know, I know. I promised you this post on Tuesday. Well, I didn't feel well Tuesday morning, so I opted to sleep in a bit and then I decided to go for a run after work. The sun was shining; it was in the 70s, and I still had about an hour or so before sunset. I simply couldn't resist getting out there for a run.

NASCAR was super fun, but getting there was not.

As we were leaving the CeeLo show, I remember checking the time on my phone. 1:51am. By the time we finished unlocking our biking and getting all set to go, it was after 3:00am.  No, we're not that slow, Daylight Savings Time started, and our phones automatically sprang ahead. :)

By the time we biked home and got everything situated, I ended up going to sleep around 4:00am. Unfortunately, Jeff didn't get to sleep until after 7:00am. It was definitely going to be a LONG day.

Earlier in the week, my brother randomly messaged me on Facebook saying he was in town for some training and wanted to know if I wanted to get together. So, I naturally invited him to come to NASCAR with us. Had I looked up the time of the race, I probably wouldn't have. Nor would I have gone through the trouble of snagging an extra ticket for him. I'd gotten free tickets from work. I love my job!

If we didn't have plans to meet my brother, we probably would have skipped going.

We ended up leaving about 20 minutes later than we'd wanted. It probably would've been fine except traffic was BAD!

At the first sign of delay, I texted my brother to say we were about to get stuck in traffic. I kept sending him little updates, but the data gods weren't with us and our messages to each other weren't being sent/received. So frustrating!!

We finally met up shortly after noon (when the race was supposed to start), so we missed the driver introductions. Since none of us are true NASCAR fans, the driver intros really would've been nice to hear.

After finding our seats, we started picking out our favorite cars by the colors. :) They were still doing warm-up laps, so we didn't really miss anything.

It was super loud and super exciting! Even though we didn't really know who any of the drivers were (except Danica Patrick, of course). It was fun to watch the cars make their laps, but it was also fun to watch the board with the rankings. :D

After about 50 laps, we left the stands in search of something to drink. I was super thirsty! As we were walking around everything smelled so good! The more we walked, the hungrier I got.

My brother and I settled on roasted corn on the cob.

I was really surprised at how much it filled me up. Well, I may or may not have eaten more than half of Jeff's fries as well. He'd ordered a basket of chicken fingers and fries.

Our quest for food took about 75 or so laps before we got back to our seats. We finished our food, analyzed the rankings of the cars, and then made the decision to leave early to try and beat the traffic on the way home. A caution flag came out around lap 190, and we decided that would be a good time to head out.

We were so lucky we left when we did! There was an accident just before the race ended, which affected the race traffic by hours. So happy we weren't stuck in that!

Have you ever been to a NASCAR race?
How do you feel about leaving an event early in order to avoid traffic?
Tweet

Race Day!!

 The much anticipated race day was yesterday, July 21st! I love the Torchlight 5K. I don't know what it is about running around downtown Minneapolis, but I LOVE IT!! It has been 3 years since I last ran this race, and I didn't want another year to go by without running it, so I convinced some of my friends to join me.

Naturally after pushing myself and training about 3x each week for the month or so before the race, I didn't feel prepared at all to run. My previous two runs were DIFFICULT, to say the least. Come race day, I was really nervous.

So, of course, I woke up with a slight tickle to my throat! The nerve.

Then, I had scheduled a doctor's appointment. That may or may not have been the best idea. But it allowed me to go into work late, since I knew I would be staying late for the race.

When I got to work, I found out that we had an extra ticket to the afternoon Twins game. Would I like to go? Oh yeah.  

Twins game

 It was actually very cool to be in the new stadium. It was a very fun atmosphere. So much energy. 

We're gonna win Twins. We're gonna score!

The Twins beat the Cleveland Indians 6-0. Four runs were made in the 3rd inning and two more in the 8th. The other innings were a little slow but still fun.

During the 4th inning, we went to grab some food and use the rest rooms. Yes, I took a picture in the bathroom. I thought it was fantastic to see that they installed toilets with dual-function handles. Flush up for #1; flush down for #2. Yeah, I'm a dork.

Energy Efficient toilets. Cool!

After the game, it was back to work for me. Around 5pm, someone assumed that I had left for the evening, so she turned off the light in my section. I was too lazy (and it wasn't that dark), so I continued to work without the lights for another hour.

6pm. Time to change into running clothes and head toward the Basilica. My friends Bre and Tacy (Lisa couldn't make it; she was not feeling well come race day) hitched a ride with my husband down to the race (parking can be a real pain!), and we all met together at the race start.

We ARE ready to run!

Even Sallie came out to cheer us on! Here she is waiting for us to finish our race.

Just a-chillin'

The best part of running a race? FREE FOOD!! There were around 4,000 people who ran the race (I think), so the lines for the food were incredibly LONG, but free food is free food, so I'm definitely not gonna complain about that!

In line for post-race food. Love it!

We had to get a banana shot!

Bananas!

So much good food. Where do I put it all??

Mouth full, Hands full

Overall, it was a fabulous day!

Twins game was totally awesome, plus it was a WIN for the home team!!

I was nervous about the race for absolutely nothing!

Running with friends is so motivating. I only walked briefly for a water break.

We kicked out a 10:05 min/mile!

Super!

I was totally shocked.

And happy!