The last vice - food

This weekend, I ran what will most likely be my last race for quite awhile. The Sole of the City 10k.



I had a really rough week of running last week and that tends to really shake your confidence. I barely made it through an outdoor 3 miler, so I was pretty concerned about doing double that distance in the race. I could always just walk it, but I'm really impatient and that takes forever.

I took two days off from running (Thu and Fri) and just did the bike trainer and boot camp instead. My friend Alex is injured, which sucks but works out for my selfish interests, because he ran with me almost the whole way (including walk breaks). The conversation kept me going and I finished well below my goal 12:00 minute mile pace. Official time - 1:11 - a 11:29 pace and only 23 minutes slower than when I PR'd this race last year!

The best thing to do after a race is a road trip. It is known. We went and visited my blogging friend Kari in Connecticut. Sometimes the internet helps you date, sometimes it helps you find BFFs. Except now she doesn't blog so I don't know what to call her.

We used to run marathons in matching outfits. 

Since we're both in the family way, we wanted to enjoy one last freedom filled weekend together (she's due in less than a month!). Since this last hurrah couldn't include our usual favorites - running and drinking - we focused on the one vice left to us: food.

When we arrived, Kari and her husband Mike provided a delicious takeout Thai dinner. I wouldn't have expected to find the best Thai food ever in a small New England town, but so far, that's been my experience. We had waited too long to switch drivers, and I ended up driving through the nightmarish NYC bridge traffic. I needed all my energy to keep us alive and not end up in a straight jacket doing so, which meant I had never eaten lunch. That was actually fine, it just made the Thai food taste even better (hunger is the best seasoning).

It's important to learn from pregnant women further along than you. All 4 of us really wanted ice cream after dinner. I offered to go pick it up with Eric, but Kari pointed out that husbands are, by law, required to bring their pregnant wives ice cream at any time, so we were able to guilt them into going.

Sunday morning, we went for a gorgeous walk along the beach (just the girls).

Then the four of us went to this amazing breakfast place and stuffed our faces beyond belief. It has pancakes approximately the size of bicycle wheels.

We spent the day at the apparently famous Mystic Seaport (we'd never heard of it but my dad and my stepfather both had). It's, as you might expect, a seaport, and also one of those recreated old timey villages.



We are so gorgeous.

I felt like kind of an expert, since I had actually taken a boat ride and watched my students help sail the boat earlier in the week.

Lots of boats.

I feel the need to explicitly state that I captioned the above picture "just the six of us", and that was to mock people who refer to their fetus as a person. Sarcasm doesn't always translate in instagram captions. I will never discuss doing anything "with" my baby until he or she is actually, you know, a baby, like a separate person from myself.

The ship below was a blockade runner and snuck goods into Georgia during the civil war. If you know why that's awesome, you are my people.

It's not a visit with Kari unless we make a ridiculously rich and decadent dessert. This time it was buckeye brownies. Buckeyes are a popular peanut butter/chocolate candy in Ohio, and our resident Ohioan (that's a legit term, Google it), Eric, approved this brownie.

Obviously, I had major concerns about going out of town the weekend of the (probable) Purple Wedding. Kari and Mike are also huge fans, so they secured a spot for us to watch (her parents house) well in advance. It was all I hoped it would be and more.

Once Game of Thrones starts airing, I feel like my life is divided into fans of the books/show (I'm ok with either, reading isn't for everyone), and people I have nothing to talk about with for the next 8 weeks. It's my firm belief that those people are not experiencing one of life's greatest joys.

On Monday, we took a different route home, recommended by Mike, and hit no traffic. It knocked 2.5 hours off the trip and we were happy and life was wonderful and we even did some errands with our extra time. Then we both had grad assignments due by midnight (but, really 9pm for me because like I would stay awake until midnight) so we basically sat at respective computers and didn't speak until the next morning.

Do you like doing cheesy touristy things when you travel? I don't think I need to explain that we love anything cheesy.