10 Miles and a Wedding!

This past weekend was awesome!  I had a 10 miler on the training schedule for the Long Beach half (19 days away!!!) for Saturday morning, and I knew I had to get it done early because the weather was going to be almost-record-high HOT (Yesterday it WAS a record of 113 in LA!)!  The forecast for Long Beach on Saturday was 98 degrees, and it ended up hitting 105!
Friday I mapped out my 10 mile route along the beach from LB to Seal Beach and back, which was beautiful and very pleasant...yay for ocean breezes.

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:00am (I hit snooze for 30 or so minutes), got dressed, put on my Garmin,  and packed up my iFitness belt with my ID, credit card, Sharkies, bandaids, chapstick, and my phone.  I finally headed out the door, and after abut a mile or two my legs felt warmed up and powerful.  It was such a beautiful morning and so many runners and cyclists were out.  Around mile 4, a cyclist passed me and yelled "Looking great keep it up!  You got it!"  That definitely gave me a little pep in my step to keep going strong.

This cracked me up as I ran along the Marina!  "No Pirates Allowed!  Arggg"

I stopped a couple times, once to pee at Starbucks and a couple times to stretch (my hip started to get stiff around mile 6).  Around mile 6.5 I met an awesome family who was on a long training run too.  Shannon, the mom, had just completed San Francisco and her California Dreaming Series and was training for the Long Beach 1/2 with her daughter.  Her hubby will be running the full.  We talked for a good five minutes until we parted ways...their long run was 22 miles, yikes!!!  Our paths collided again around my mile 8.  That was when I started to get tired.  I was beginning to feel the sun's warmth, but I played a little game with myself to keep going:
"Run to that stop light up there...push to the light, push to the light."  I made it to the light.
"Keep going to that stop sign...push to the stop sign up ahead."  I hit the stop sign, then, 
"Run to the tree up there."  "The blue car..."  and so forth.

You get the idea.  Basically I gave myself little goals that kept me going those last two miles until I hit mile 10!  By the way, the last leg was a super steep uphill and to have that at the end totally wore me out! When I was done, I was so tired and felt kind of light headed so I walked a cool down mile before heading home for an ice cold shower.

10 miles:  DONE!

I felt so great after tackling that 10-miler though!  It was one of those runs where everything seems to fall into place.  Not only did my legs feel great and my mind was clear and strong, but I passed probably a 100 runners who were so friendly and motivating!  It was a happy Saturday morning for all :)


After my awesome run, I had to get ready for a wedding!  My bf's dear family friend was getting married  that evening in Marina del Rey, so I got ready and headed to my bf's house and went with his parents.  It was the most amazing wedding!  The bride (family friend) was absolutely stunning, and the groom looked like he was on Cloud 9.  My bf and I thought of some pretty brilliant ideas for our own wedding when the time comes ;)  We're pretty pumped!  We had a blast dancing the night away with his parents and the wedding party!

Sunday was brutally hot, so we stayed inside as much as we could with the exception of going to Ruby's for peanut butter chip shakes!  We LOVE Ruby's shakes.  We also tried the new Nutter Butter shake...AMAZING!  Later I met with my study group for B-School...we have a midterm next week in Accounting so it's busy busy busy!  And I'm still loving it!


It was such a fun and very productive weekend!


xoxo