This weekend was all about celebrating Matt’s birthday, which was on Saturday! Per our tradition, when it’s your birthday in our household you get breakfast in bed. 🙂 Matt never wants anything too big first thing so I kept it low key with some festive toast and one of his famous maple cinnamon lattes!
Matt requested we start his birthday with a bike ride, so we pushed off late morning to enjoy the sunshine. He has been biking every few weeks with a bunch of his guy friends but they always go really fast and far so I bow out – I hadn’t taken my bike out in FOREVER! It was fun to mix it up. 🙂
We biked out to Vienna on the W&OD trail and stopped at the Whole Foods right off the trail for an early lunch/brunch. I hit up their hot bar and got some roasted potatoes, eggs, bacon, and veggies! Plus an Honest Tea. 🙂
Also – hi to the blog reader who we met at Whole Foods! 🙂
Matt wanted to check out a brewery nearby called Caboose Brewing Co – it’s only about a mile farther down the trail, just past Vienna. When we arrived, it had just started POURING – perfect timing to hole up and wait it out!
We both loved the brewery – such a cool vibe and neat that it’s right next to the trail. We will definitely be back! I also want to try their food – I didn’t realize they’d have more than just snacks – the menu sounded really good!
Once we got home we headed to the mall to get Matt a new pair of Ray Bans for his birthday to replace the ones he dropped in the lake at Alpine Meadows Resort in Canada! His other gifts were some fun little things – garlic olive oil, a local hot sauce I picked up in Philadelphia last week, and a bunch more Bombas invisible socks to wear under boat shoes – he says they are the ONLY brand that will stay up!
For dinner, we headed out on the town with a big group of friends. We hit up Boulevard Woodgrill in Clarendon, which we were devastated to learn recently is closing soon! 🙁 SO SAD! We love that place and have been going there for over 10 years now. I got my absolute fave for the last time – the lamb salad. Don’t leave us, Woodgrill!!!
Post-dinner birthday apple tart!
On Sunday morning I was up early to meet a few of my track buddies for a Marine Corps Marathon training long run! They are all training for Chicago (a few weeks before MCM, so they are ahead of me in distance) and had a step down week – 14 miles – which was awesome because my coaches told me to do 14 miles this week, too! Perfect.
We hit up the nice and shaded Capital Crescent Trail again – that shade makes such a difference! Doing an out and back is always nice, too – no guesswork/trying to time a loop right. We did 7 miles up, 7 back, turning around a couple miles past downtown Bethesda.
For fuel, I did a few Clif margarita shot bloks again, and I brought my trusty Nathan hydration pack as well.
I was feeling a bit dehydrated and tired for the first half of the run (I always forget to drink enough water when biking so that’s probably why), but I got an awesome second wind near the end. Our coaches had us do the first 9 miles at a casual-for-us pace (we were doing about 9:30 to 9:45), and then told us to pick it up to 8:45 minute/miles for miles 9 to 13. Surprisingly, picking up the pace actually made me feel better! I think it reset things a bit for me and gave me some adrenaline, too. Since we had a slight downhill on the way back we actually ended up going quite a bit faster than 8:45 for those miles – closer to 8:15. Wow! I’ve never incorporated speedier miles into long runs before – I was proud of us for crushing it.
I ended up just keeping the speed going to the finish – I like finishing fast in a blaze of glory apparently. Felt good!
This was the first time in nearly 3 years that I’ve run over 13.1 miles. Wow! I didn’t have this watch (the Garmin Forerunner 225) when I was full marathon training the first two times (for the Richmond Marathon and then the LA Marathon), so it congratulated me on my new distance record. 🙂
Great run!
Once I get over the half marathon distance I start incorporating ice baths post-long run – it helps a TON for me with recovery and is easier than sitting around with ice packs all day, too. I brought some hot tea and my phone with me to distract from the cold. Zara is hilarious whenever baths are involved – she’s fascinated by the water! I hung out in the waist-deep chilly water for about 10 to 15 minutes. Good enough!
I ate some random snacks while getting ready and then Matt and I headed over to my parent’s house for a family birthday lunch celebration – it was a joint one for Matt and my aunt, whose birthday was Sunday! We ordered Rocklands BBQ for the occasion – sooooo good. Plus some unpictured cake and ice cream for dessert, obviously!
Such a fun weekend. I hope your weekends were great, too!
What fun fitness did you do this weekend? What was the most delicious thing you ate?
