Hello friends!
We’re getting ready to go on vacation to Pittsburgh with Matt’s family, but we moved up with my parents last weekend, which was really fun!
Giant was very into the current situation and tried to unwrap everyone’s presents for them…
As for other holiday fun this past weekend, I ran a holiday 10K with my friends Kathleen and Katie on Saturday morning!
Please excuse our orange look – the sunrise making for weird photo lighting!
We hosted the Christmas Caper 10k hosted by the Potomac Valley Track Club at Hains Point in DC. I found out about their races from a blog reader (thanks!) and thought it sounded fun – they’re super small and reserved, which was a nice change of pace after the Marine Corps’ massive 10k last month.
When we arrived at Hains Point on Saturday morning to collect our bibs (which took 2 seconds and was right at the start area, which also had plenty of free parking – total wins), we were treated to a beautiful sunrise.
Only 25 people ran the 10 km and about 50 the 5 km – nice! Both races took us round trip along Hains Point, returning the 10km to the start area and then going back for another round trip of the same 5km.
Let us do this! It was a gloriously sunny and cold morning for running.
It took me a while to get into this race – it felt tough most of the time, and I didn’t like that we got back to the start/finish area and back out again (although I was happy to grab some water and throw my vest at said turning point).
As we headed back out for the second lap I was like, “Uhhhhh I wish we were done already” but then I got a good second wind and got into the river and enjoyed the second lap more than the first! Having my friends to chat with helped – we stayed together and talked all the time.
Those gorgeous views helped too!
At the Marine Corps 10k a few months ago my finish time was around 1:02 – so being able to finish in under an hour was a huge improvement! Slowly but steadily getting fit again.
Our actual target time was 58:24 – I forgot to stop my watch. I was happy with this time especially as it included a not very fast water stop at the turning point!
You know what’s fun about doing super small races? A placement among the top 3 is actually possible! 😉
Katie took home 3rd place in the women’s age group (she’s younger than us!), and Kathleen and I took 3rd place in ours. Cute!
We all won a Christmas tree decoration as a prize. 🙂 Giant was delighted when I brought it home, she loves glittery ornaments!
Such a fun morning. Thanks for getting me out there and for the great company ladies!
Another holiday fun we had recently was a holiday dinner at our friends Katie and Mike’s – the same Katie from the 10k! Her son goes to school with Riese and Wes is actually starting her daughter’s class in January and they live a few blocks from us so we hang out a lot which is fun.
You had a raclette dinner party – have you ever had a raclette dinner? It’s kind of like fondue – you use a tabletop grill to cook your own little creation with meat, veggies, etc., and then pull out little “drawers” underneath, put in bread or potatoes or veggies and meat, then top with cheese !
I went for the bread option with cheese on top and once it melted I added the meat and veggies. Yummy and fun to do something different!
Another holiday highlight this week is that Matt and I went ice skating with Riese one afternoon! We did this last year and it was really fun, so I knew we wanted to take her on another special “Big Girl Ice Skating Date” (Wes was at home napping with our part-time nanny).
She started out pretty cautiously with the help of this little penguin thing.
And in the end she became a bit self-employed!
Her kid skates have double runners which helps with balance – she originally had regular shopping skates and she wasn’t cool with that situation so we switched.
We are going to Pittsburgh this year to celebrate the holidays with Matt’s family and we have decided to leave a day earlier than planned due to the big snow storm/cold snap coming our way at the moment.
It’s looking dead cold in Pittsburgh next week – whoops. Hoping the weather warms up quickly because keeping a large group of kids indoors all day isn’t my favorite thing to do…
I will be taking time off from blogging next week so there will be no new blog posts until the new year. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will pick you up here again in January!
In case you missed it, here’s some recipe inspiration for the upcoming weekend: