In the midst of working on that whole “running is fun again” thing, I signed up for a race this past weekend. One of the neighborhoods nearby is called Clarendon (which ironically is the name of one of the new filters on Instagram and that makes me freakishly excited) and this past Saturday was dubbed “Clarendon Day”. Besides the food trucks, craft vendors, and musicians all around, there was also a 5k race, a 10k race, and a Kid’s Dash to kick off the morning’s festivities. My friend Kristen and I have met some great friends through our Monday evening runs with lululemon in Clarendon, so we signed up for the 10k race with a few of those running friends!

Kristen, who is wearing mint in the middle, and Lindsey, who is standing next to me in a black SCRR shirt, are two of my friends from Pittsburgh. We all went to Duquesne together and now we are all teaching in the DC area. 🙂

Pros of the race:
-It started at 9 AM. That is very unusual for a race, but I appreciated getting to sleep a little later on Saturday morning! The 5k started an hour earlier at 8 AM.
-It was mostly downhill and flat, which makes for a faster race.
-The roads never felt crowded and the race directors made it clear where we were supposed to be going!
-We ran past part of the Pentagon that you don’t usually see while you are driving.
-Although the race ended at the bottom of a huge hill, every participant was given a Metro card to ride back to the start where the Clarendon Day festivities were taking place.

Cons of the race:
-Since it was a smaller race, we didn’t wear timing chips. That means I had to rely on the clock and my GPS for my race time. I like exact numbers and wish I had been wearing a chip. 🙂
-It was described as taking you along the “eclectic neighborhoods” of the Orange line (in reference to the Metro), which I assumed meant we would hit the streets of the neighborhoods a bit before heading down the hill. Instead, we just ran down the main street (the downhill) and then headed out on the highway. Literally. One side of the highway was shut down for us to run!
-This was an out and back course, which would have been fine if there was a lot to see, but again, we were just on one side of the highway. We turned around near mile 4 and headed back. It was kind of strange!
-The finish line was slightly uphill and around a bend. That is just mean after a mostly flat course! Hahaha

I did not mean to get my face in this photo…but you can see the mile 6 flag behind me, right? Well, because this was an out and back course, we ran past the mile 6 flag at like mile 1.5. Obviously I don’t expect them to wait until we all run past to hang up the flags, but to just start and then see that flag makes you kind of wish you were already done! And then once I realized my face was in the picture, it was kind of perfect. 🙂

The obligatory post-race photo to send to my parents. My 10k PR is 52:45 and I ran Saturday’s race in 55:25. Again, I wonder if the clock was a bit off and what my time would have been with a chip…but I still wouldn’t have set a new record. I probably would have just come closer to my PR, which is fine by me, because I feel like I set that record when I was fast! That must mean I am getting some speed back, right?!

This was the funniest sight to see post-race. You know a race just happened nearby when the garbage can is overflowing with water bottles and banana peels. 😉 #runnerprobs

Our race bibs came with three drink tickets for different local restaurants. All of those restaurants had crazy long waits, which is to be expected, so we decided to have brunch at Circa instead.

Girl talk, run talk, coffee and mimosas. The perfect Saturday morning.

And then Lindsey and I had to satisfy our sweet tooth with a Red Velvet cake pop. I dropped half of mine on the sidewalk, but the half that I DID get to eat was delicious!

Another fun sighting: one of the kids’ activities was climbing. Instead of your typical fake rock wall, the kids were climbing up the side of this fake palm tree. I wanted to climb, too!

My friends all bought really pretty jewelry from one of the craft vendors, and I was SO close to also making a purchase! There were so many pieces that were perfect for every day wear, but I was just too indecisive. Instead, I bought this wooden plank spray painted with my favorite thing and favorite place. 🙂

Saturday afternoon looked a lot like getting ready for an event that my runner friends and I all bought tickets to: a 90s bar crawl in DC. We took to Pinterest for clothing inspiration and noticed lots of flannel and crop tops, so that’s what I went with! Once we were out, we saw so many more good ideas that we forgot we used to wear! Jean overalls, jean on jean outfits, windbreakers, bandannas as hair accessories, and graphic tee’s with all of those classic 90s shows like Ninja Turtles and Pokemon!

Everyone who registered was given a wristband and one of these neon plastic mugs. There were probably eleven or twelve participating bars, and at each location, there was 90s music playing and lots of drink specials for us. Kel Mitchell, from the show Kenan and Kel, was even at one of the locations for a Meet and Greet! I don’t go out just to drink very often, so I was excited to explore the Dupont Circle area of DC and try some new restaurants and bars. We had appetizers at Black Finn to start and hit up some food trucks in Dupont Circle later in the evening.

Apparently, this was my classic shot on Saturday. See the post-race selfie above with all of my friends. Ha!

My favorite thing about this event, besides the fact that everyone really got into the “costumes”, was that it was from 2 PM – 10 PM. Of course, you could stay at the restaurant or bar that you were at for as long as you wanted, but the event specials ended at 10 PM. Because we headed out at 4 PM, a little earlier in the afternoon, we were tired and wanted to go home earlier in the evening, which meant I was in my bed for the night at 10:30 PM. And to think in college, we used to wait until 10:30 PM to even go anywhere…those were the days. 😉 #gettingold #alwaystired
Sunday morning = waking up early and going to church. I can’t sleep in for the life of me, so I made myself look presentable enough to go to 9 AM church with my friend Sarah. Because our church has several locations, I really enjoy going to the Saturday evening or 9 AM Sunday services because those ones are always “live”, meaning the pastor is standing right in front of you on the stage. If you go to another location or go to a service at another time, you see the exact same service, but you are watching it on the screen. The band is always live and everyone gets really into the message as if the pastor is really there, but there is something about him really BEING there that makes it so much better. 🙂 Also, Pastor Mark must have had 12 espresso before this service because he was a ball of energy! We were talking about a parable and he made a reference to Beyonce. And broke out in an 80s song. It was a great time! Haha

I went to Target to grocery shop and buy new nail polish, ate a bunch of junk food like the pizza pictured above, and basically did a whole bunch of nothing for the duration of the day.

Sunday looked a lot like laying on the couch, taking random cat naps, and watching the Kardashians and one of my favorite older movies, The Prince and Me!

I did make homemade chicken and vegetable soup, so I guess I can give myself credit for that…

…oh, and then I had to do this. Because for the past three weeks, I have been doing laundry, but then shoving it in the basket and never folding all the clean stuff. Three weeks worth of clean laundry on your bed means you have to fold and put away ALL of it before bed, right?! Let’s just say “almost”…
How was your weekend?!