SoCal Vacation, Part 1

Before I get into our trip, here’s a recap of the week, so far:

Monday:
3 miles (avg. pace 10:22)
This run took place around the city, i.e. around tall buildings. Therefore, I’m taking Garmin’s avg. pace with a grain of salt. Either way, I felt really good on this run, and it was fun taking a random path through town.

Tuesday:
Rest Day, and I mean it!

Wednesday:
3 miles (11:07)
We joined a running group for the Easter Fulton Pub Run. There were probably at least 50 people there, and I think everyone had a good time. J and I apparently are not very good at finding Easter eggs (we only found 1 each, and by “we” I mean J let me have one of his…), but we still managed to have fun! The first 1.5 miles were along a thin trail, and we were following a group in the back of the pack. We didn’t want to pass them for fear of getting lost, so our pace was a little slower than usual (12:13 and 10:57 for the first 2 miles). After we made it to the turn around for the second half of the loop, we picked it back up and brought it in at 9:48. All in all, we had a great time, and I hope we can join in for one of these group runs again sometime!

Thursday:
3 miles (9:35 avg. pace)
I’ll recap this run later on.

Friday:
Rest Day/Vacation Day!

Ok, now onto the vacation:

Obviously, we made it safe and sound! We started our voyage by waking up at 3am! Look how chipper we are waiting for the Max to take us to the airport:

We made it through all the various airport lines, got ourselves some coffee and breakfast snacks (mmm…coffee cake!), and finally made it on the plane.

We flew JetBlue, so I got to catch up on some trashy reality shows. This trip included America’s Next Top Model (reruns) and Sober House; good quality stuff!

We landed in Long Beach 30 minutes early to beautiful blue skies:

We made it to J’s mother’s house by 9:30am. Good Morning! We were fading fast. Nap time? Nah. Let’s just go for our scheduled run! I brought my Garmin and we took off in random directions, around various neighborhoods, for 3 total miles. J totally picked up the pace for the last mile, and we clocked in at 8:59. I didn’t even notice how quickly we were going! Here’s some pics we got along the way:

I like how this picture is all distorted from the combined movements of J an I running:

Self portrait:

Thumbs Up?

Later that day, I had a dentist appointment (our secret reason for coming down here). I’ve been going to this dentist for more than a year and a half for the same problem, but after yesterday, I only have 1 trip back in May, and I’ll be done! It has been nice to have a reason to come down and visit J’s family, so we’ll take it!

Today is reserved for relaxing and spending time with J’s family. Tomorrow, we will complete our long run (6 miles!) sometime around watching the nieces and nephews hunt for eggs. Sunday is reserved for family time! Happy Easter!

I hope everyone has a good weekend, and a good Easter! See you next week!