Sushi + Cupcake =Perfection

Hello readers! Thank you for the emails and messages over the weekend. I decided to take a 2 day blog break to have a little date time with my husband. After getting in the habit of writing daily, a blog free weekend was a little weird but a nice change of pace. However, I am glad to be back and ready to dish all about our fabulous Saturday date day.

The hubs and I were up extra early Saturday to make the hour’s drive up to Roanoke, Va for the day. I was pretty much thrilled that the weather had warmed up enough that I didn’t have to lug a winter coat around all day. We also popped the sunroof for a bit which was an extra bonus.

You might be wondering why we traveled an hour when there are plenty of good places to grab lunch and shop where we live. Well I will tell you in a word…Wasabi’s. Wasabi’s is a small restaurant in downtown Roanoke. A friend of mine took me a few months ago and I have been hooked ever since. It’s a cute little place with very cozy decor. I think its the perfect place for a fun lunch.

They serve what my friends and I affectionately refer to as “the good sushi” and this trip did not disappoint. In order to stay on my weight loss plan I allow myself one planned indulgence every Saturday. I had been craving sushi for weeks and I knew exactly where I wanted to get it. I was all smiles as I waited patiently for my plate of sushi goodness to arrive.

This little joint filled up quickly but I barely noticed anything after my little plate of heaven made it’s way to the table. 😉

I highly recommend making a stop by Wasabi’s should you ever find yourself in the Roanoke area. It was delish! After lunch, the hubs and I did some shopping. I found some really cute things I plan on taking to FL at the end of the month as well as a complete steal on a “Lucky Brand” necklace. I love a good bargain. Once we were all shopped out we moseyed over to the moves to watch “Black Swan” (totally weird btw but I enjoyed it) and decided to round out our day of fun with a cupcake. We headed over to Bubblecake (my most favorite cupcakes on the planet) and nabbed some cupcakes to go.

Did you eat anything fantastic over the weekend? Tell me about it!

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Girl Food

Since I am going out of town for a few days I decided to meet up with my friend Siobhan (pronounced Shh-uh-vawn….I know some of you were wondering) for a late lunch. I always love having lunch with girlfriends because you can indulge in what I refer to as “girl food”. It is the food or restaurants that your significant other, or just the guys in your life may not appreciate.  Today we decided to head over to Magnolia Foods for some lunch. Magnolia Foods is a great little specialty wine and food shop here in Lynchburg that serves fabulous meals and sandwiches.Everything is super fresh and they have tons of healthy (and vegetarian) options. It is truly one of my favorite spots to grab a quick bite!

I chose a simple turkey on whole grain sandwich with green apples, super spicy mustard, and swiss. YUM! I also picked up one of their famous cupcakes. This was all I had eaten all day (besides 1/2 of a smoothie earlier in the morning) so everything looked great.

Girl talk and “Girl Food” was a perfect way to end the work-week. What is your favorite “girl food”?

 

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Sunday Funday

Sunday is usually my hang out at home, go to the grocery store, maybe see a movie, lazy day. However, today I had a Sunday jam packed full of fun and happy goodness.  I am much too exhausted to give you all of the details but it involved

• A favorite (quick) breakfast
• Traveling to Roanoke
• Brunch at a place I love
• A trip to BubbleCake (which I will not be partaking in the consumption of until later in the week)
• Fall clothes shopping (including some really cute sweaters from The Limited)
• Movie watching with the hubs when I finally made it home.

One of today's fall purchases (LOVE)

How was YOUR weekend??

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How Not to Diet..

My weekend (which was set aside for relaxation) was oddly busy.  It was also full of dieting faux pas. Though it was nothing too serious I think it is always good to take a look at the small things that have the potential to lead to a big derailment.

Friday night went just as planned. The hubs and I had warm spinach salads after work with steak and onions on top and the best salad dressing ever. Note to self- when you hear oodles of food bloggers recommend something- Buy It! I am so glad I did. 🙂

After dinner we headed out to Sweetbrier College for a local production of Alice in Wonderland. I heart Alice in Wonderland so I was really looking forward to the play. It tried (ish) to follow parts of the book but try as I might I just wasn’t into it. I also was wierded out that we couldn’t get cell phone signal out there.

Pretty basic right? Well Saturday is where things started to unravel. It started off well. I went on a short jog to break in my new running shoes (YAY!) and then I did a 4 mile bike ride with the hubs. It had rained the night before so it, for a nice change, was not unbearable outside!)

We started on the trail....

and ended up downtown

The hubs on my pink bike

biking in pink!

I only made it 4 miles which was disappointing in some ways but when I think back to my very first attempt at cycling ever (which was under 1 mile) this was great in comparison.

It was after the workout when things took a turn. Saturday is my flexible day in terms of my eating plan. I had planned to make homemade chicken salad for sandwiches and some strawberry cupcakes from scratch. That is what I had been craving. So after the workout the hubs and I made some breakfast sandwiches and then spent the morning running errands.

After said errand running we decided to kind of do our own thing for the day. I decided to go shopping for some beach necessities and underwear. Another little gem of weight loss is the constant dropping of bra sizes. It’s a pain but I do love an excuse to lingerie shop! No photos though since thats creepy and all. 🙂  I went from store to store  and was literally out for hours. I rarely go shopping alone so I was like a little shopping powerhouse. I should also mention that I wore another one of the NY and CO dresses that I cannot say enough good things about. LOVE them!

When I got home it was dark. I had skipped lunch (oops) and had not had a single drop of water (oops). So I decided the first thing I needed to do is get my 1.5 liters of water and get to drinking.  The next thing that needed to happen was making dinner. Now, in order to make my orchard chicken salad I first needed to make the chicken and let it cool so I could make the chicken salad. Therefore making the chicken first thing should have been the logical choice. But no. I was obsessed with these strawberry cupcakes and buttercream frosting so I started that process first. I made the frosting and put it in the fridge to firm up. Feeling super efficient I start on the cupcakes. Have you ever made cupcakes from scratch. I hadn’t. Apparently it takes forever. It didn’t help that I was making Martha Stewart cupcakes and I had to sift and chop and blah blah blah. It went from relaxing to making me crazy in a matter of two hours.

fresh stawberries for the cupcakes

I had added the last ingredient to the batter when my husband comes in to gently suggest “Maybe we should skip dinner since its almost 10:00pm.” I’m staring at this bowl of batter, no chicken made (never mind cooled), with no back up plan. So, the hubs patiently cuts and cooks the chicken while I fill the cupcake tins. “This will make tomorrow night’s dinner easy” he says.  A half an hour later the cupcakes are out of the oven, the chicken is cooling, the water has been consumed and I have yet to eat on my flexible day. It’s really bad for you to go a whole day and not eat. Its especially bad when you are on a weight loss plan. But, what was done was done and I decided “Tomorrow is another day”.

I woke up this morning with my muscles screaming at me. Apparently cycling tortures a whole different set of muscles than running does. Despite this the hubs was dying to get out and ride his new bike and I needed a Sunday workout. I was all ready to go when the hubs reminded me it had been over 24 hours since I had eaten and I needed to have something substantial. We had eggs and toast (not pictured) and headed out to the trail.

I reached my mini goal of biking 5 miles today!!I managed to get through it pretty quickly even though I was extremely sore in the “seat” area. Any suggestions on how to combat this? But, I felt really proud and oddly worn out after only 5 miles. My next mini goal is 10.

After our ride I decided I needed to get home and ice those cupcakes from yesterday. So then this next no-no happened. I decided since I missed my flexible food day yesterday I would do it today. This is problematic because 1. I weigh in on Mondays and I don’t want an extra salt or a heavy meal hindering that.  2. I hadn’t eaten the day before so my body was all out of whack anyway. 3. Sunday is not my flexible day Saturday is.  BUT be that as it may I still did it.

I did make the choice to only have 1 “bad” meal and in essence the only high calorie thing I ate today was a cupcake. But I will get to that. After the bike ride I iced the cupcakes and it turns out the nearly 3 hours of work was totally worth it. They were fantastic! (and pretty and of course pink!)

I also decided to make the chicken salad so it would have some time to come together in the refrigerator before dinner. For this super simple orchard chicken salad I did the following:

• Cube and cook 1 lb of boneless skinless chicken breasts and let cool. Then to the chicken add 1/2 cup cranberries, 1/2 cup golden raisins, 2 stalks celery finely chopped, 1 small granny smith apple chopped, grated carrot (1), 1 cup light or FF mayo, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 squirt of yellow mustard, salt, pepper, and garlic salt.

After preparing all of the dinner items we decided to head out to lunch and a movie. I wore a very light and airy (ie comfy) vintage inspired dress I picked up in DC a couple of summers ago (when it did not fit at all btw. I just liked it too much to leave it there).

Lunch was a tomato and basil salad with a couple of pieces of fresh mozzarella.  Such a perfect combo!

For dinner I had the chicken salad sandwich (1 serving = 6 points) on a whole grain bun with some baked “fries”. I am also slightly ashamed to say I ate another cupcake. For what it’s worth I am give the rest away to remove temptation from the house but they were kind of awesome (and did I mention even the cake was pink??) 😉

Tomorrow is my first weigh in since this whole “oh lets not weigh for a while and not be a slave to the scale” nonsense so my fingers are crossed its not a huge disaster. I also start my Disney Wine and Dine 1/2 marathon training this week so my blog will have a little more of a focus. I know these past few weeks Ive been all over the place.  I am so excited to have a set goal. My competitive nature kicks in and I am ready to train hard and hopefully lose some more pounds along the way! This will be a fun week on the blog so check back with me and have a happy and healthy Sunday!

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AEP Festival In The Park 10K Race Recap (Sort Of)

So this morning Bryan and I were scheduled to run the AEP Festival in The Park race in Roanoke, Va. There was a 10K and 5K option which I always enjoy. As some of my regular visitors may know, I live about an hour from Roanoke (and these races start early) so time is of the essence. I first want to say this is one of the only races I have done with no email reminder the week of the race with essential information. We had an address given to us when we registered for packet pick-up so that is where we headed this morning bright and early. I started the day with my pre-race  breakfast of a whole grain English muffin with organic peanut butter and a V8 fusion. I think this is going to be my default racing breakfast from this point on.

We drove an hour to the location knowing packet pick up was 6:30-7:30 and when we got there we find out that this was only the location for early packet pickup and regular packet pick up is at the race site. This is not terribly uncommon but we realized we had no idea where the race was. We assumed the packet pickup people would tell us. So after getting out the hubs smart phone we look up the race page on facebook which did not have the information we needed. So, we then looked up the page for the Festival In the Park itself and finally found the address. We plug it in the GPS and I see we will arrive at 7:40. Ahem. The race is at 8:00 so I am thinking worse case scenario we are a minute or two late and we run the 5k instead of the 1ok and The End. We park and full on run to the packet pickup. It is now 7:52. We find a volunteer who is really nice and says” hurry up there so you can catch someone. We are about to start.” So we get to the pick up table to find 1 girl, empty tables, and her basically saying “Sorry we closed down at 7:30” Its now 7:55 or so. So the hubs tries to reason with her (we know now the packets are in her car) and she refuses. So the gun goes off, the race starts, and we are numberless and kind of pissed. There were WAY less runners than I anticipated so that was the one thing that kept me from losing my mind on this poor girl right there. We take some responsibility for being late of course but the information was confusing and it was a “fun run” not the Olympics-They should have just let us run. I did manage to snap a couple of pictures for the blog before the bitterness set in.

Downtown Roanoke

The Race we SHOULD have run. Ahem.

The Park

From what I could tell the event itself was well organized. There were plenty of medical staff, police, etc on hand. The post race food looked good and it would have been a fun area to run in. There is always next year I guess. 🙂 Since I was REALLY upset the hubs suggested we register to run The Uncle Billy’s Day 2 miler in Altavista VA, and The Percivals Island 5 miler here in Lynchburg. I also registered for a 5K on the 19th here in town. My husband won’t be joining me but he will be coming out to show support which is pretty cool too.

End Recap——————————————————————————————————————————–

After leaving the “race” I was feeling down so Bryan suggested stopping in a little town in between Roanoke and home called Bedford for a run. This was a gorgeous park and I will admit it made missing the race a little easier to take.

Bryan has been having some shin issues lately so we decided to do a nice gentle run. Does anyone have any tips for avoiding or nursing shin splints? Even injured the hubs was ready to run with me.

He was even “Running In Pink” (sort of)

Hey pink is pink. It totally counts

After leaving the park we headed home and got showered and changed for an afternoon out. I decided on some black pants, a very Spring-ified ruffly shirt with a cropped cardigan. I of course carried my yellow bag which has been my summer staple. I keep seeing these yellow leather bags popping up everywhere. I choose to ignore the fact that yellow is very in for summer and instead go on under the delusion that it’s all because of this fabulous bag I bought while I was in FL for the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon. I also included this shot because I have not put up a full body progress shot in a while. 🙂

We headed to Depot Grill for lunch. I like the atmosphere of being by the river and the train tracks. It has kind of a cool vibe.

I also love that you can write on the tables and walls with the crayons they leave for you. I of course had to endorse my blog and Bryan decided we needed to make sure our names made it on the wall.

We both chose Smoked turkey wraps with fries for lunch. I have been REALLY craving fries so I had some. Its that simple. Tomorrow I am back to clean eating and the french fry craving is gone.

After lunch the hubs wanted to treat me to a cupcake and who am I to turn down a cupcake? (All things in moderation and I havent had one in weeks. ) Soo we headed over to Tasty Selections where we picked up matching Creme Brulee cupcakes to go.

I spent an afternoon shopping where I (gasp) bought nothing and then ran some errands. Tonight is more errand running and dinner out with my hubs.

I am so so so looking forward to a weird combination of activities tomorrow. First up is an extra fabulous day of brunch, shopping and Sex and the City 2 with a girlfriend followed by urban camping with the hubs pals. It will be interesting for sure.  I cant wait to share it with all of you! Have a Happy and Healthy LONG weekend!

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Blog Love

It has been exactly one month since I created my little blog and I have to say I’m glad I did. It has been a great way to keep up with my weight loss, eating plan, and workouts. It has also been a cool way to get recipes and ideas from other people. My little blog came to be when I started reading Andrea’s blog soon followed by Melissa’s soon followed by Leslie’s. I added another and another and another etc to my daily/weekly reading until I decided I needed a blog of my very own. So The Running In Pink Project was born. Hopefully this creative outlet will continue to grow while I continue to shrink! 😉

I was in a huge rush to get to the office today. Tuesdays are already no fun and I had back-to-back appointments all morning. I grabbed a Cranbran Vita-top and V8 fusion on the way out. I also made sure I had my giant to-go cup of Hazelnut coffee with splenda and fat free ½ and ½.

Recognize that travel coffee cup? It was one of my purchases at the Princess ½ marathon. Truthfully this cup just reminds me that I am bitter about what happened in March and spurs me on with this Disney Wine and Dine ½. No sprained ankle this go around!!

Can I also just say I love my K-cup coffee maker? I HATE cleaning a coffee pot so problem solved with this little gem! Making coffee has never been my best skill so luckily my house has been crappy coffee free since Christmas!

Work was busy and I was actually very very productive all morning and afternoon. I was starved by lunch and really excited to try this new Spinach salad kit I picked up yesterday. It contained Spinach, feta, dried cranberry and pears and spicy pecans. YUM! I added some left over grilled chicken and a balsamic vinaigrette. Maybe I was just hungry but I swear this was the best spinach salad ever (well this week anyway).

After work I was all geared up to hit the trail but sorry I am not hardcore enough to run in the rain. (Never mind that it NEVER ACTUALLY RAINED. It was supposed to!)  Sooo me and my trusty Alice in Wonderland water bottle went over to the gym.

I did a warm up on the track runner elliptical on “cardio train” and some running on the treadmill.

Mile 1 – 13.46 minutes
Mile 2 – 14.14 minutes
Mile 3 – 14.33 minutes

This might look meager and sad to some but it’s not bad for me especially since I hate running indoors. My goal for now is running consistent 12 minute miles. 10 is my long term goal but one step at a time. I am still a beginner. 🙂

After the gym the pups and I were excited that I got to partake in some of my fabulous cupcake from Friday.

Speaking of cupcakes the confectionary I talked about earlier in the week emailed me back and they are a go in and buy a cupcake type place. Twelve flavors daily. I will of course stay away from said cupcake haven but at least I know its here.

Continuing on the week of Bryan’s faves for dinner I made cashew chicken with whole grain rice. This is another modified Rachel Ray masterpiece. Did I mention this week how I LOVE her? Basically my version of the recipe goes like this..

Rice: finely chop ½ small onion, place onion in a drizzle of olive oil, add the desired amount of whole grain 10 minute rice, toast rice slightly, add chicken or veggie stock and bring to a boil. This TOTALLY changed the taste of the rice. Its really good. What is your favorite way to make rice?

Cashew Chicken: Heat a large skillet, add olive oil, add chopped boneless skinless chicken breast (salt and pepper liberally), slightly brown, add in veggies (large sliced onion, sliced bell peppers, mushrooms, grated carrot and whatever else you like), cook up for 5-6 minutes, add soy sauce to taste and let cook out slightly, add chipolte chilli powder and red pepper flake, drizzle in some honey and sugar free pancake syrup, after this has a few minutes to cook
together, reduce heat and allow the sauce to thicken, toss in some frozen organic peas and nonsalted cashews. Once the peas are heated serve over brown rice. YUM!

Tonight I am catching up on blogs and TIVO, doing 20 minutes of organization in the bedroom and trying to find a decent hotel in DC near the Kennedy Center that I don’t have to sell a kidney to stay at. The hubs is taking me to the Broadway touring production of Mary Poppins in July if we can work out our work schedules. LOVE a little Disney magic in DC!

Have a Healthy and Happy Tuesday!

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Cake for Dinner??

Ok so first things first. Here are the pictures of the cutest (and yummiest) cupcakes that I promised you yesterday. Bubblecake is pretty much the “cats meow” when it comes to cupcakes! 😉

Tiffany Cupcake (Isnt it cute! Have to love that Tiffany Blue)

Bry's Toffee Crunch Cupcake

Black and White Cupcake Mmmmm

So they look pretty fantastic don’t they? Bryan ate his immediately while I cut mine into smaller servings to eat during the week. I think its important to still have things we love while we are on an eating plan and I do love cupcakes. Ive said before that cupcakes and baklava are my kryptonite! So you might be thinking “But Sara, Saturday is your splurge day. Why didn’t you have one of these most fabulous cupcakes??” Well I will tell you. I am somewhat ashamed to say I had cake for dinner last night. Ahem. Yes. That was not the intention. I had my healthy breakfast and lunch and did my run. I was geared up to cook for Bryan and I but he had already eaten. Soooo I had a slice of cake. I had the points for it so it was not a huge  issue but of course it was not the healthiest of choices. The cake does have a back story. (Not that this makes it any better). But, my friend Kristen and I have been going to Wildflour to have lunch together for ages. The first time we went I was so excited to see they had a vanilla cream cake with raspberry. I was even more excited when I learned they called it “Marie Antoinette Cake”.  I have a weird little obsession with Marie Antoinette and her time in history so I thought this was really cool. Well the problem is every single time we went to eat at this restaurant they never had this particular cake offered on that day.  So it became a little joke where I would go check in the bakery section and come back laughing because yet AGAIN they did not have it. Yesterday was the first time I ever set foot in this restaurant without my friend Kristen and I am explaining this story to my running pal who tells me “You should go see” and it was there.  So last night I had a slice of cake that I have waited TWO years for and it was worth every calorie. What is the weirdest thing you have ever eaten for dinner?

Today it was back to business with the eating plan. After a breakfast of eggs and toast my “fun” Sunday workout ended up being yard work.  There was nothing fun about it but I feel certain I got my workout in. Yard work is tough! I came in for lunch and decided to have some peach Greek yogurt and some Bear Naked granola and a banana (not pictured). I heart the Bear Naked products. Its good stuff.

Bry and I had planned to see a movie but I decided to spend the day getting organized. It also gave me time to think of my “hill” goals for this week.

• Switch up the breakfast routine. Starting on Tuesday I am going to try a couple of new things for breakfast. The meat in the mornings is making me feel sluggish but I still need the protein. I’ll be making my first Green Monster this week. Do you eat anything with the monster or is it a stand alone meal?
• Increase my run to walk intervals as well as bump up our Saturday running distance from 4 to 6 miles.
• Find 4 new songs to add to my “running” play list. Any suggestions?

I was craving veggies tonight so I decided to make a casserole packed with them. The recipe is simple. You cook up 1lb of super lean beef or turkey or soy crumbles with 1/2 lb mushrooms, a medium diced onion, a ton of chopped broccoli, and a ton of chopped spinach (with salt, pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes, and garlic). Then you drain this mixture and pour back into the pan. To this you add 1/2 cup of minute whole grain rice-uncooked (the 10 minute version), 1 can of cream of whatever soup (I used celery) and 3/4 cup of fat free sour cream (or whatever kind you like). You mix this all together and pour into a casserole dish. Sprinkle a little cheese on top (I used 2% mozzarella). I baked it on 350 for 30 minutes. If its still a little “soupy” then bake another 5-10 minutes. Then serve. You get tons of veggies and its really a quick dish in terms of prep.

All of my pretty veggies cooking up.

Pre-baking

1 yummy serving of casserole

Since my day has been spent happily working my night will be spent happily looking through the magazines and catalogs that came this week.

I just love getting catalogs. Do you have a favorite catalog that you LOVE to look through? Visit my blog later this week when I am giving tours of my kitchen (and fridge!)

Have a happy and healthy Sunday friends!

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Susan G Komen- Race for the Cure 5K

Happy Saturday!! Today was the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure 5K in Roanoke VA. This was actually the inaugural Race for the Cure in Roanoke so keep that in mind when I get to some criticisms of the race. I really hate to have any because it’s a wonderful cause and it was a really nice morning but there were a couple things that need some rethinking before next year.

Since I live about an hour away from Roanoke I got up super early, packed a Luna Bar and a V8 fusion and headed over to meet up with my running buddy. I have to say I was pretty chipper for 6:00am. Of course I was wearing pink. I didnt have a “proper” pink running shirt so I picked up this light weight cotton number from Target last night.

We thought we had more than enough time to make it to Roanoke by 8:00 when the packet pick up ended but due to insane amounts of traffic and no police direction there was a HUGE line of cars trying to get through a stop light and we ended up parking at around 8:15. To be fair they had anticipated 1500 runners and I saw at least up to 3012 on the race bibs, plus family members, plus volunteers. It was pretty big for a local 5K.  We made it to packet pick up and we got our numbers and packets. The only thing in said packets was a shirt, a piece of paper asking people to recycle (ironic yes?) and a course map. The pin pictured was handed out at the finish line.

Once we had our packets and got settled we walked around a bit. There were several booths set up with various community vendors. There were 3 races going on The competitive run 5k, the noncompetitive run 5k and the 1 mile fun run/walk. We opted for the Noncompetitive run 5k which I feel like was a good choice.  We had a chance to stretch, talk, get our timing chips attached to our shoes and watch the competitive run.

The competitive run took no time at all and it was our turn to line up. There were a few staff members leading stretches which was nice except that one of them was going down into a stretch that is dangerous for people who arent super warmed up. So I thought that was weird. But there were oodles of people in this noncompetitive run which made it really fun. Plus today was just a beautiful day here in VA. Check out that second pic- So nice out!!

After my disaster last week my running buddy was determined not to let me freak out again. My confidence was pretty shaken so we decided to stick to 1 minute of running followed by 1 minute of brisk walking. This might not seem like much to someone who has been running a long time but it was just what I needed for today. One issue we had is that strollers were allowed (both running and non-running). This is fine, but I feel strongly if you arent using a running stroller you should start in the back. There were huge groups of strollers making it really hard for the runners to get around. Also, there was no chip activation at the start. So we lost 3-5 minutes at the beginning because we were near the back. I really didn’t like that.

The first mile was fine until we saw a sign that said “2 way traffic”. It turns out the fun run was joining our course but in the opposite direction. That was not well thought out at all. You had runners trying to get their stride and avoid these stroller barricades and then we had to also smoosh together to avoid the fun run walkers coming in the other direction.

The second mile was a lot better with the exception of a confusing “turn around” at the halfway mark.  I will say that this mile was prettier than the first with a creek/river to watch and a bridge and the mountains. After the 2 mile mark there were cones that said 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 etc and it was driving me a little batty but the volunteers were super nice and there were tons of people out showing support.  The last quarter mile was fun because there were tons of people cheering at the end and I do love the part where they say my name!

I managed to keep the decided pace through the entire race and even though I didn’t set the course on fire with my speed, I felt great about what I did today. We estimate that we shaved several minutes off last weeks time which made me feel even better! We decided we needed water ASAP and we could not find it. Finally, we asked someone who pointed us to a tent that was on the other side of the finish-line so we had to cross back over. We grabbed bottles of water but passed on the bagels and bananas which were the only 2 options. I LOVE to have an orange after a race so I was a little bummed.

At this point I remember that I wanted a picture of me at the finish so we head back over to take that. That was not my time in the background. I just wanted to throw that out there.

So here is my pro and con list in regards to the event itself:

Pros:

• This was the inaugural race in Roanoke for a great cause.
• The turn out was awesome
• The volunteers were nice
• The runners/crowd were supportive
• Parts of the course were beautiful

Cons:

• Getting people into the event was disorganized
• The course was strange in regard to the “two way traffic” issue
• The stroller barricades making it  hard for people to get around
• The after snacks were very limited. If you didnt like 1 of 2 items you went snackless
• It was hard to find the snacks/water and there was no direction with where to go.
• The timing chip issue.

I feel that the turnout may have been bigger than what was planned for which is great. I just hope they will make the needed changes next year to make it even better. Overall, it was a really fun morning. After the race we headed over to Wildflour Bakery and Market for lunch. I had a fabulous grilled turkey sandwich with balsamic onions, tomatoes, pesto,  and lettuce with a small side of Greek pasta salad. YUM!

We were stuffed but I can never resist a trip to BubbleCake for treats so we headed over to get some cupcakes to go. Nothing is quite as fabulous as a cupcake!

Mmmm cupcakes!

YAY!

I got a Tiffanys cupcake (so cute) and a black and white cupcake and a toffee crunch cupcake for Bryan. I will be sure to post pictures before I cut them into 3 servings each as per my diet. 😉 Hey a cupcake is still fabulous even in thirds!

We finished the day with some shopping. Macys had some cute summer shirts and lots of yellow accessories-YAY! Overall a wonderful day and maybe the coolest thing was Everyone was Running In Pink!!!!! 🙂

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