It’s officially spring in DC, at least as far as the weather is concerned, and I took full advantage the past few days – starting on Friday morning with an early morning run with my friend Sokphal!
Track workouts are great and all, but there’s nothing like a DC monument sunrise. It was so nice to get out there and enjoy one!
It was also weirdly warm out – shorts and t shirts/tank tops? Awesome. I felt so light and unencumbered! And apparently half asleep – excuse the squinty eyes. 🙂
We ran across Memorial Bridge to say good morning to the monuments. All appeared to be well:
And quiet – not many people out! If you visit DC and want to enjoy the monuments without a thousand people around (especially in the nice months as it gets really crowded) – early morning is your friend. Do it!
4 miles at an 8:42 pace, and we just beat the rain. My stomach was being a little weird but overall I felt strong, and loved to time to catch up with my buddy! Sokphal is running Boston in a couple weeks – go wish her luck! 🙂
As for the weekend, it was an awesome one. So many people were out and about – apparently everyone else was sick of being cooped up all winter long, too. There’s nothing quite like the first really amazing weather weekend after a long, cold winter, is there? Matt and I met friends for happy hour on Friday at Oyamel – love their tacos and fun cocktails! And I also love that happy hour means you get a full night out, but can still be in bed by 10:30. 😉
As for Saturday morning, I introduced my friend Karen to Urban Athletic Club! We hit their 10:30 a.m. Urban Athlete class at the Georgetown location, coached by Andrew, who is a lot of fun (and a good instructor, too)!
It was packed so I didn’t snag any photos, but above is what we did. As always, it was awesome – a good mix of hard and fun! Karen loved it, too. 🙂 (Reminder: if you want to check Urban Athletic Club out, use my affiliate coupon code “fANNEtastic” for 15% off your first purchase!)
Karen and I were completely endorphin wasted after such a good workout, and the weather was amazing, so we decided to stroll down to the waterfront.
Plus lattes from Baked & Wired!
After finishing our coffee and strolling around a bit, we snagged outdoor seats at Le Pain Quotidien. Sweet! I had the goat cheese and mushroom omelette plus avocado. Their omelettes rock my world.
Karen and I hadn’t seen each other in awhile and it was awesome to finally catch up! 🙂
As for the rest of the day, Matt and I took ourselves shopping! We tend to only go shopping a couple times per year (usually spring and fall) and get a bunch of stuff all at once, so we got some nice new stuff for spring. There were some really good sales happening! I bought this overlay shirt in a couple colors to wear to client meetings and these jeans just for fun, plus this shirt (obsessed with that style shirt right now) and these shorts in navy blue. I also bought these jean shorts – I haven’t owned jean shorts in ages, but these were really cute/fit well/not too short. Maybe I’ve been watching too much Hart of Dixie, but I think they would look cute with my North Carolina cowboy boots… just sayin’. (Clearly I miss the south.)
Anyway! On Sunday afternoon, Matt and I spent the day with family enjoying an Easter feast. Before the festivities, we got in a nice run!
We wanted to get 8 miles in for our GW Parkway 10 Miler training. Since it was such a nice day, I suggested we drive over to the Mt. Vernon Trail on the Parkway to enjoy the views of the water/run along the course! We parked at Gravelly Point by the airport and ran south from there.
It was a little windy but overall a great morning!
Our turnaround spot was Old Town Alexandria. Apparently they have a mini Washington monument! Random:
We stopped for some stretching and a quick photo, of course. 🙂
On the way back, we both felt like we got into the groove and started steadily picking up the pace.
By the time we hit mile 7, Matt said: “let’s try to do the last mile at sub 8 minutes.” Well, okay then! Turns out we CRUSHED that goal – whew, that last one was fast!
Splits:
- Mile 1: 9:06
- Mile 2: 8:43
- Mile 3: 9:01
- Mile 4: 9:22
- Mile 5: 9:16
- Mile 6: 8:35
- Mile 7: 8:22
- Mile 8: 7:09 (!)
Awesome run! Thanks for the motivation to pick up the pace, Matt! 8 miles, done – average overall pace was 8:41. Running fast at the end of a run like that is always such an awesome way to finish – you feel so exhilarated. It’s also a good reminder that you can always run faster if you put your mind to it – you just have to decide you want to/be okay with feeling a bit uncomfortable. Guess those track workouts are starting to pay off!
Matt and I got some work done last night after the Easter festivities because we decided to take some time off today! We haven’t taken a random day off in ages, and Matt’s been SO busy and working late almost every night/a lot of the weekends for the past few months (work is crazy for him right now and he’s also in grad school, and when the weather was gross on the weekends and he was working, I figured I might as well work too… no fun), so we decided to give ourselves a treat since we knew the weather would be gorgeous today. I got up and worked a few hours this morning, and now I’m going to treat myself to a 10 a.m. yoga class via ClassPass. When Matt is done with his morning calls, we’re going to grab lunch and then head out for a hike!
Have a nice day, friends!
How was your weekend? Any awesome workouts/outdoor adventures/feasts?
