Week 3, THE WEEKEND edition!

Saturday-35 min cardio- I had the ENTIRE day to do whatever I wanted. My “me” days can vary, but this one I started off in typical Nikki fashion-sleeping in. Sleeping in used to mean 11:30, 1pm, 3:00pm sometimes in college, these days it means waking up between 8-9:30 and refreshed un-interupted sleep. *ahhh*** (blissful sigh). I spent my morning with a little less leisure than I usually give myself on the weekends, I didn’t even make myself a big glorious breakfast as i usually do. I threw together a cold brew latte, put a blueberry coconut TIU protein bar in my bag and headed out.

My list of to-do’s included:

Lilly Pulitzer sale
Pick-up packet
Trader Joe’s for wine accompaniments
35 minutes of cardio
lay in the sun if i had extra time

(Tough life, I know)

It was probably about 9:30am by the time i went out the door, and I had until 4:30pm to do everything and shower and get pretty for my night out with Greg’s lady cousins.

Now, I was never in a sorority, my friends in high school didn’t wear Lilly Pulitzer, and I never knew this brand existed until a preppy co-worker of mine while I was still in Connecticut over heard the name and in a preppy possessed daze explained “LILLY PULITZER! I LOOVEE HER Stufff!”. Still meant nothing to me until I started watching Southern Charm, I love Bravo the channel (probably the same way that girl loooveeees Lilly), and some of those girls wear it and look so damn cute.

So any ways, they were having an event and I know how crazy these Lilly girls are and can get, SO, that was my first stop. I walked in and everything is brightly colored, and clean. The store was set-up with tiny foods and cakes- all complimentary and…champagne!! I will say, I held strong to my diet and treated myself with a bottle of complimentary water, no snacks or champagne….Seriously, I love tiny foods and bubbly, it was difficult. I tried on a few dresses and GTFO of there as quickly as possible. I will say the staff was super sweet (maybe because I was spending money, maybe because we are now BFFL) and asked me if I was going on vacation, and all those cutesy questions that make you feel special when you spend money. Love those Lilly girls.

I flew into sephora and got more of my under eye highlighter, because…well I need it for when I want to that I’m wearing make-up but you don’t really know fresh look, as opposed to my go-to I’m not wearing make-up, I’m a ginger so I look a little sick fresh look. GTFO of there, and into my car.

Packet pick-up Charm City Run- Fly in get packet/swag bag. Get back in my car.

I have and will admit, I always go over-board when hosting an event, buying food for an event, or anything with food. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach and well….logic. So in Trader Joe’s they have the best cheese section. I also picked up olives, and a variety of crackers and meat to go with it. Thinking I was missing something (over 7 varieties of cheese that i actually had), I went to fresh market to look for one specific cheese and it was kind of amazing, I walked in and walked directly to it, looked down and there it was Mango-Ginger cheese SWOON. Once I felt I had enough cheese and other random snacks to go with it, I headed home.

As I unpacked my 10 varieties of cheese I just had to laugh, because I bought 10 kinds of cheese, and crackers, and chocolates and olives for FOUR tiny women.

I put all the cheese into the fridge, put on my work out gear, and headed downstairs to do a spin class in the big screen in my apartment building. Greg and I had just done this class, and I know how hard it is, so I was kind of looking forward to it. 35 min of sweat and me talking back to the instructor on screen, I did it. Super sweaty and feeling pretty good.

As you can see from the pictures, I nailed it! Sweaty, determined and I’m figuring out a new signature athletic hairstyle (previous rant post).

I decided even though I was super sweaty I would not wash my hair for the evening but do the dry-shampoo thing. I have coarse, dry hair so given all this new fitness in my life washing my hair almost every day is messing with it.

There was no time to lay-out today, but thats ok I knew I would be getting some sun the next morning.

The ladies came and picked me up at 4:30pm as promised and I had a cooler full of cheese, la croix- to cut the wine with and stay hydrated. I am always super prepared and I have to say, I was not prepared for the sun. We sat directly in the sun until it went down, and being the fair ginger-baby I am, I need SPF-24/7. I did however, bring bug-spray and a variety of 10 cheeses. It was great to get out, have some girl talk and eat cheese and crackers for dinner. I limited my wine to 1 glass, plus the tasting because I had a 5k to run in the morning. Oh, I didn’t tell you! I registered for a 5k a few weeks ago after one of my really good runs, where I didn’t cry or feel heavy.-Get to that in a bit.

I would say the evening was a success. Even though I was literally sweating to the reggae band playing, I didn’t get a sun-burn and I had a genuinily lovely time and was so relaxed. Looking at this picture maybe I should change the blog name to The Tall Ginger…hmmm no.

Sunday-5 mile run!-– Yes, I registered for my 5k. I was totally hoping Greg would be around to drag my butt out of bed and drive morning Zombie Nikki to the race. Not the case. I didn’t think asking Greg to stick around for that purpose and miss out on time with his nephew and dad for a dude’s weekend, was a good enough reason. So I planned ahead, and picked up my packet Saturday. I have a real skill of picking paces with great swag. Thats why I picked this race, the baltimore women 5k classic. Great swag, ladies only race…nuff said.

I laid out all my running stuff Saturday before I went out for my girls night out, and threw it on and headed out the door. The race start was 8:00am, I left the house at 7:15-later than I had originally planned. I still got to the American Visionary Museum at 7:40am, where I a- found parking 2 minute walk from the start line, b-5 minutes before the shut down the road from car traffic!

In my past life, living in CT I would go to literally 90% of my races by myself. I had friends that would do some holiday races with me and longer distances like 1/2 marathons, but mostly I did it by myself. I felt too guilty asking my family to get up and watching me almost have an asthma attack, and my boyfriend at the time wasn’t very supportive. Going to this one on my own brought me back to Miss Independent Nikki, traveling alone, running road races in weird places all for me. It felt really great making this happen on my own, kind of re-building my runner-self.

With 10 minutes left before the race started I made sure my playlist was ready, and I was in the correct time corral-*Note*- many runners put themselves in the wrong time corral and either are too slow for that time and people have to go around you, don’t even notice there are time corrals, or put themselves too far back and have a lot of passing to do.*

I put myself in the 11-12 min corral, because yes I ran 1-10 minute mile, but that was only 1, and I was getting faster, but it was seconds faster, not minutes. They played the national anthem, and we were off. Women of all shapes and sizes; tutu’s, running skirts and shorts galore!!! I just felt positivity surround me, like the air got lighter, it was easier to breath and every else felt exactly the same way.

I would say for my first 5k in a while….I nailed it. After the 5k was over and I asked a stranger to take my picture (above), i went home for a victory shower and brunch with Greg’s mom Lori. We went to Bread and Circuses, which always has amazing food. I ate half of this:

Now if you paid close attention to what I wrote above Sunday was a 5 mile day, I had only run 3.1 earlier, so I still had 2 miles to do later in the day. Even though I had showered, pretty and clean I went for a two mile run on the DREADMILL. According to nike I only ran 2.0 miles, according to the treadmill I ran 2.41…lifes not fair, now is it? I would say the treadmill was correct, because my pace was well below what I had been averaging that week.