Baltimore Ten Miller X3

Friday night, Ashley came to Baltimore for our pre-race slumber party. Eric was working at the bar, so we had the whole place to ourselves for pillow fights.

We enjoyed some pizza and wine. I don't usually drink before races, but Ashley brought this really delicious Cupcake wine (that's the brand, not the flavor, unfortunately) that I couldn't resist. She was nice enough to bring me my own bottle as a birthday gift! I don't know why I've been holding out, because drinking wine pre-race only gives me another excuse to blame poor performance on. 

I really had to idea what to expect from the race, so I decided to try and just stay with Lily and not look at my Garmin. My main goal was to avoid going out too fast and hating the whole thing like last year.

Should have stayed with her.

We ran the first mile in 7:36, but it was mainly downhill, so I felt ok. After that, we ran the next few miles around a 8:30-8:40 pace. It felt like that "comfortable hard" pace that I've heard you are supposed to aim for in tempo runs.

Then, for some reason, after the mile 5 marker, I fell apart. I got freaked out that I was totally out of breath and couldn't hold that pace for the second half of the race so I fell back and let Lily go ahead. Mile 6 was my slowest mile, 9:03. After that little freak out, I started feeling good again, and picked up the pace again back to where I'd been holding it, even for the last two miles, which are famous for their terrible hills. 

My official time was 1:26:41 (average pace 8:40), so I'm really mad because my course PR from two years ago was 1:25:50. I was less than a minute away from beating it, so if I'd just stuck with Lily I would have been fine. I'm upset because it was all mental - it wasn't that I couldn't keep up, it was that I was worried I wouldn't be able to down the line. 

We hung out for awhile and waited for Eric - he ran the race on less than an hour of sleep after something like a 12 hour shift at the bar!

Then we found a bunch of friends who were listening to the post-race band and had some beers (well, everyone who likes beer, aka everyone other than me). We got to ride down this sweet slide.

Notice how there are all children....and then me and Carolyn.

After the race, we got bagels, and Lily treated me to a birthday pedicure (don't worry, we showered first)!

My BFF Casi and I have birthdays 5 days apart, so we often celebrate together. This weekend was right in the middle, so we (mainly, she) planned a birthday scavenger hunt. We split into two groups and had lists of things to find and photograph around the city. Some were general (a mullet, a smartcar), and some were specific (an Elvis statue, a pagoda in the park).

Since we were the birthday girls, we demanded to be on the same team. We drew all the other names out of a paper bag and handed out gold or silver beads to designate the teams.

I lucked out and Eric was the last person drawn for our team, and I got REALLY excited.

Silver

Gold (aka winners)

 Berger cookies were on the list so I tried to thwart the silver team by hiding them behind hamburger buns.

It was really important that everyone know it was my birthday.

 The scavenger hunt ended up being quite a little workout with all the fast walking to different locations. When we finally met back up, we were starving, and went out to a great Indian place for dinner. I refueled with so much garlic naan. 

I'm only posting this picture to get opinions on my finger - doesn't it look freakishly long?

 No night out is complete without some dancing.

Being nearly 30 now, we didn't have quite the wild night like we used to back in the day. I think we hung out chatting until nearly midnight before I put my hair up and begged Eric to take me home.

On Sunday, I think my butt was only off the couch for approximately 2% of the entire day. In my defense, I was doing grad work (and reading some blogs and Games of Thrones).

Don't worry, my real birthday isn't until tomorrow, so if I haven't yet received your gift, you still have time.