Shopping, Dinner, and 22.2 in Pittsburgh

Friday evening the kids and I arrived in Pennsylvania. We spent the evening visiting with my family and friends. Saturday morning I got ready to head to Pittsburgh to spend some quality time with my cuz Michele. I left the kids in the very capable hands of their pop pop and grammy and I was on my way. I arrived at Michele's around noon and we headed to Panera to grab some lunch. We both had soup and salad which was very yummy! After lunch we headed out to do some shopping. I was in severe need of new summer clothes since I will be going on a cruise the week after the Cleveland Marathon and none of my summer clothes from last year fit due to my weight loss. The best part of shopping in Pennsylvania is the fact that there is no tax on clothes. I managed to do some major damage at the mall and walked out of there with 4 pair of shorts, 5 nice short sleeve t-shirts, 1 long sleeve shirt, and 1 three-quarter length sweater. After the mall we headed to Dunhams in search of new running shorts with a zipper pocket. No luck there so we headed to Dick's and sure enough the first pair of shorts Michele picks up are not only my size but they also have the zipper pocket. It was a great find by Michele and I had a coupon which made it even better. After we finished shopping Michele took me to the park we would be running at to show me the lay of the land. We headed back to Michele's around 5 o'clock to make dinner. Of course I took pictures of the action.

Michele reading the vegetable marinade recipe

Michele trimming the huge chicken breasts

The yummy pasta

Lemon caper chicken breast with baby spinach

Grilled eggplant and red peppers

Dinner was outstanding and we had great conversations about many things including our plans for our 20+ mile run. We decided we would plan to run at 7:30 AM. Since we wanted to get up around 5:45 AM so we could eat breakfast we headed to bed around 10:00 PM. We left around 7:15 AM and headed to the park near Michele's house. During our drive over we discussed our strategy. We decided to do the 8.5 mile loop (with the big hill) when our legs were fresh. I mentioned that my brother's friend recommended we run 22.2 instead of 20 because having 4 miles left would be less intimidating during the marathon. With that in mind we decided to go for it and added on three 4.5 mile loops (shortening the 5 mile loop by 1/2 mile eliminated the big hill which was fine by me!). We managed to get the other .2 miles in by running to the restrooms before we took off on our first loop. Running the loops made it possible for us to stop at the car after each loop to get some water and gu/sports beans when needed which worked out perfectly.

Michele before our run

Me before our run

We successfully completed all 22.2 miles. I think we were both a little delirious between miles 18.5 and 20. When we had a 1/2 mile left we kicked it up a notch and gave it our all. In fact, Michele's garmin had us running at a 7:45/mile pace. We hit 22.2 and stopped and we immediately hugged each other because we were so proud of what we had accomplished and simply because we were thrilled to be done with the run. We finished in 3:39 (9:51 avg/mile). Not too bad!
Michele and I after our run

We stopped to get ice and headed back to Michele's for the dreaded ice bath. It was really quite comical as we did our ice baths in a trash can outside! We both decided to leave on our running pants and socks because it was quite chilly out. We both decided that the ice bath definitely helped our legs.
Me getting in the cold ice bath

Me shivering

Not so bad after 5 minutes, how about 5 more

Michele entering the ice bath

Michele shivering

Not so bad, 5 more minutes to go

Once we completed our ice baths we headed back inside to get changed into warm clothes and then we had amazing chicken salads made with the leftovers from our dinner.

After finishing our yummy salads and having some vitamin water zero we exchanged hugs and said "see you in two weeks for Pittsburgh" and I headed back to get my kiddos. It was a great weekend!

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!