Tag Archives: adventure

Race Recap: Nike Women’s Half Marathon DC

29th April 2013

It didn’t take long to make the decision to sign up for Nike’s inaugural women’s half marathon in DC. Weekend in DC, check. Flat course, check. Tiffany & Co. necklace handed to me by a firefighter at the finish line, are you kidding me? CHECK. The waiting for the weekend to arrive however, seemed to take ages. But here I am blogging about the weekend, post finish line with a bea-u-ti-ful silver necklace around my neck.

So let’s start with the good stuff. Here’s the sweet man who handed me a blue beauty of a box.

firefighter

Now let’s take a few steps back, pre starting line (all puns 100% intended and accounted for).

What does one do when they hear about such a race? Sign up for it with three of your best girlfriends of course. I was joined this weekend my three of my closest college friends, the kind who live in different cities, yet still manage to find the time for trips like this (seriously, one lucky girl right here). Three of the four of us were half marathon veterans (one now training for a tri and another setting her sights on a fall marathon) and my sweet roommate who conquered her first half marathon with awesome success.

We got to the city early Friday morning, dropped off our bags and proceeded to play tourist for the remainder of the day. There are some cities where you want to try to blend in (ahem, NYC) and there are others where you feel free to flaunt your star spangled, I’m new here flag, and boy did we make our nation’s capital proud.

A few highlights for you viewing pleasure (because no one wants to read about this kind of fun).

1. A stop at the Lincoln Memorial

Lin

2. Could you ask for anything more beautiful than this weather? I also had no clue DC had so much green space, I was in love.duckpond

3. Another stop to visit the Vietnam Memorial, absolutely breathtaking and even more special as Michelle found her Grandfather’s name.

vietnam

4. The White House (well the back of it). As we were admiring Bo’s backyard, we were quickly ushered off of the sidewalk. We naturally stuck around on the other side of the street waiting for something super exciting to happen (like for Michelle to make an appearance). Sadly, it turned out to be not as cool, likely a diplomat (which yes, is still pretty cool). I am glad I opted not to take thirty minutes of video footage during this time as some of my fellow tourists did. I did however take plenty of photos.

Motorcade + snipers on the roof. Check.

Motorcade + snipers on the roof. Check.

 

My "something big is happening" face.

My “something big is happening” face.

So now that we have covered off on the tourist end of this post, back to the race part (I know this is getting long, bear with me, there are more photos to come, I promise).

On Saturday morning we headed up to Georgetown to take in more strolling and to head to race packet pickup. The line was LONG. It moved rather quickly, so that was certainly a plus. It was also along the river where there were various sporting events taking place, so that helped pass the time. After running much larger races, (cue Atlanta’s 60K Peachtree Road Race) I was a bit surprised they didn’t have this part down to a science, but we were in no rush.

Excited faces for this thing becoming real.

Excited faces for this thing becoming real.

As fate had it, we walked into the expo just as Kate’s Tweet was appearing on the live Tweet wall…thanks for the positivity running powers.

tweetwall

There was also a pretty neat “Why do you run” signing wall among other interactive elements and plenty of fun stops like free makeup and hair prep (not sure you need that race day, but the pre-race pampering was pretty cool).

sign

Finally, we LOVED the giant “We Run DC” sign just outside the Expotique. It was a bit of a race to sneak in for a photo, but of course we tackled that.

sign2

This pretty much brings us up to race day, or close enough as we spent the remainder of the day with pizza and an early bed time.

Race morning, we made our way to the starting line and I said my goodbyes to my sweet friends in our awesome #RunforBoston shirts, compliments of my talented  frieds (DIY FTW), as I was planning to run in a separate start wave.

runforboston

After arriving in my corral, I was blown away by the view and the red carpet. The speeches and appearances by some of running’s leading ladies were just icing on the cake. I made a new friend at the starting line (as I was planning to run alone) and ended up sharing stories for the first five miles (seriously, runners could not be a better group of people).

startingline

The no humidity, no hills thing was rather fun, living in Atlanta I can’t say I’ve EVER run in such conditions. To top it off, with various marching bands from different backgrounds along the course, the entertainment was endless and fantastic.

By mile six, I was feeling great and decided to take it easy and enjoy the day. I told myself going into the day that I wasn’t here to set a PR and try to kill myself, and I’m happy to stay I stuck to that.

I ended up finding a new buddy in the 1:50 pace group leader who was FILLED with motivation, including mile marker group chants and encouragement for all. I stuck with the group pretty much the entire back half of the race, which was great. It did cause for things to get a little bottlenecked, which reminded me of little sheep following a Shepard.

It was a little like this madness.

When we hit mile 11, I saw the capitol. Knowing we started and ended there, my brain thought “sweet, finish line”. Oh no. Not the finish line. As I saw ladies running past me in the opposite direction, I was ready to call it quits. Done, this was it, I was protesting.

This pretty much sums up miles 11-13.

But alas, that didn’t happen. I kept running, AROUND the capitol and back in the other direction  At mile 13, I thanked my running motivator, to which his response was “only 400 meters to go, sprint it!” Gotta love that kind of dedication. So I did. Coming in just under 1:50, not a PR, but pretty darn close and feeling great. I could have held a conversation the entire time! Probably because of these antics I’ve been sporting lately, file it under crazy.

And waiting for me at the finish line, these beauties. Success.

boxes

Seriously, could you ask for anything prettier? I’m in love.

necklace

Oh and I’m also in love with these three.

postrace

So there you go. DC, conquered. Cheers to a great weekend, great memories and an amazing weekend. Thanks Nike, we shall see you in San Fan (fingers crossed).

What Happens in Vegas Needs Help from Facebook

16th November 2012


I can officially cross “we’re going to Vegas baby” off of the bucket list (though I’m not certain it was even there to begin with) by competing in the Great Urban Race National Championship this past weekend.

P and I are always looking for weekend adventures, and with fewer football games and more money saving post-college, when I saw a Tweet from Yelp Atlanta giving away tickets to the Great Urban Race’s Atlanta race in April, I jumped on the opportunity. We were lucky enough to win the race entries, went into the race knowing nothing and we somehow managed to qualify for the race’s National Championship in Vegas (you can read all about the Atlanta adventure here).

We aren’t quite Vegas people (and boy we confirmed that one this weekend) but couldn’t resist the opportunity to go and compete. More bucket list items, right?

To put it simply, The Great Urban Race is a local version of the Amazing Race (though not affiliated) and sends you across a city with 12 clues to figure out, a challenge at each location, four hours to finish and only public transportation to get you from point A to point B.

Saturday’s Vegas race took us to places like the Graceland Wedding Chapel where we had to memorize vows (and I proposed), decode combinations to remove handcuffs at the Mob Museum and determine real from fake at the famous Gold and Sliver Pawn Shop from Pawn Stars.

Over the course of the day, we ran more than eight miles, made our way around town on countless buses and trams and our social networks came to the rescue with Tweets, texts, phone calls and even Facebook posts to help us solve the clues. We worked as a team to finish in just over four hours, crossing the finish line in the top 20 (though a penalty or two might have set us back a few slots in the final results, but we’re not counting that).

If I don’t have to see a naked women card flicked at me or walk the strip from the MGM to the Venetian for a few years, I’ll be OK with that, but the experience was exciting, challenging and just the break we both needed from the day-to-day. We cannot wait for the adventures the Great Urban Race will bring again in 2013 and this time we hear the National Championship will make its way to New Orleans. Hurricanes, jazz and cobblestone streets? Update: the 2013 National Championship has been confirmed for San Juan, Puerto Rico. Even. Better. Count us in. 

Check out the Great Urban Race to see when it’s coming to your hometown, and sign up. I promise it’s worth every penny and maybe you’ll take home the grand $10,000 prize next fall.

 

Dayzipping: exploring the real world one adventure at a time

11th January 2012

I’m an avid outdoors fan, and there is no way I’d rather spend my weekends than hiking, running trails, or exploring the backroads beyond 285. Finding somewhere new however, is not always the easiest of tasks, and let’s just say the people who manage the outdoors spaces I love aren’t typically whiz kids when it comes to SEO, easy to use websites or social presences.

Yesterday while reading a blog post on local Atlanta startups, I stumbled across a company I had not heard of before and within the last 24 hours, it may be my new favorite app on the market.

Dayzipping allows users to select a city and preview a selection of days trips within their area to sort by various categories such as distance, popularity, price or theme.

Let’s compare dayzipping to Scoutmob, but with deals and adventures to take you someplace to burn all of those calories you just consumed at 50% off.

Currently available as a website and Andriod app (+1 for finding something my Apple lovers can’t have just yet), dayzipping is an easy to use experience to stumble across some of your areas most well hidden treasures, all in one place.

I can’t wait to get out explore, starting with this trip this weekend.

How do you discover things to do around your area? What are your favorite Atlanta destinations on the cheap?