Happy Memorial Day! I hope those of you here in the U.S. are enjoying your day off and remembering the real reason for the holiday today, too.
I’ve had a wonderful long weekend so far. I don’t think I’ve EVER had a weekend here in Chapel Hill where I was able to just relax and not worry about homework or studying or have 20934820938 things to do. It’s been pretty amazing 🙂
Yesterday, I spent the entire day from 2 p.m. until 9 p.m. at Jordan Lake!
I absolutely love lakes — my great grandparents used to live in New Hampshire near a lake, and when I was little my family would visit them for a couple weeks in the summer and spend long, relaxing days at their boathouse, playing in the water and taking out the canoes. I loved it, even though the water was always freezing 🙂 NC lakes are MUCH warmer, I discovered yesterday!
My grad school friends Lauren, Lauren, Jill, and I met up with my high school friend Hilary and her hubby Brent at Jordan Lake (about 30 minutes from Chapel Hill) at 2 for a little swimming and sunbathing.
Jill, Lauren, Lauren, and I wanted to do an open water swim and brought our caps and goggles with us, too. I am doing my first triathlon in late July, after all! I figured the lake would be good practice (even though my triathlon is actually in a pool… lame).
We make caps and goggles look hot, right? 😉 Everyone was definitely staring at us like
“who are these idiots?” Oh and yes, I totally swam laps in my bikini. No big.
Our open water swim was kind of a bust, though — there wasn’t that big of an area roped off to go swimming, and there were a ton of boats around so it wasn’t really safe to go far outside it. Boo! We ended up just doing a short-ish out and back swim around to one of the other beaches and calling it a day. We’ll come back another time when it’s not so crowded 🙂
Instead, we relaxed on the beach and hung out in the shallow water when we got too hot. We also ate lots of watermelon. Is there anything better than a juicy slice of cold watermelon on a super hot day? I think not.
CHOMP.
Around 5, one of the Laurens, Jill, Hilary, and Brent headed home, and the other Lauren and I headed to meet some of her friends for a BBQ at one of the other beaches nearby! We had a blast — swam a little more, ate some delicious food, chatted, and struck up a late-night beach volleyball game with a random family before leaving the lake at 9 when it closed. Such a great day 🙂
The fun continued this morning with a run over at the Tobacco Trail!
It had been WAY too long since I’d run there — apparently the last time I was there was in January for an 8-mile half-marathon training run with the girls! It looked really different today — very lush and green!
I ran 2 miles out and back for a total of 4 miles. It was nice because the direction I went was mostly shaded!
It was such a treat to be out running at 10 a.m. on a Monday with no agenda and nowhere to rush off to after. When others ask me how they can get more into exercise, one of my biggest tips is to treat exercise as something fun, not a chore! Even if I’m just fitting in a quick workout, I look at exercise as my “me time”. Whether I’m out working out with a friend and getting in some socializing, or just working out on my own and taking the time to think and relax, I always treat exercise as my special retreat. I was happy to see a lot of people out on the trail today. There were lots of families out biking or walking together!
Since the sun has gotten so intense lately, I’ve taken to rocking this cute Under Armour visor when I run to try to protect my face a bit. It’s made especially for running in hot weather and does a good job at wicking sweat away — my high school bff Jenny gave it to me a couple months ago 🙂 Thanks again, Jenny!
I ran the 4 miles in 36:06 — average pace 9:01. Nice and steady!
Splits:
- Mile 1: 9:03
- Mile 2: 8:58
- Mile 3: 9:06
- Mile 4: 8:57
Right when I finished, I stumbled upon this:
Finding a cooler full of icy cold water at the end of a hot, sweaty run was basically the most amazing thing ever. Thanks, Sync Studio!
I’m off to enjoy the rest of my day off — and to start packing because I’m headed to Arizona tomorrow for a fun blog-related trip! Stay tuned to find out more details 😉
Also, a fun shout out to my blog reader and college sorority sister Heather who sent me the awesome photo below — she’s in the middle! They ran a 5k race last weekend in my “Will Run for Ice Cream” fANNEtastic t-shirts 🙂 Love it, hehe. Congrats on the race, guys!
