A Late Weekend Recap + My First Run Since the 5K

Sorry I've been absent from the blog world!  Life got a little busy :)

As you know, I ran in my first 5K last Saturday with my 409 friend, Ali.  Last weekend we were scheduled to have our 2nd annual 409 GTG (get together) but life happens and situations came up, causing the vast majority of the ladies to not be able to make it.  Ali had already purchased her airfare and hotel room for Saturday night, so she kept her plans and came down to Georgia on Friday.

I had taken the day off for the GTG, so I just went with it and picked her up from the airport.  Got there a little early so I sat in the cell phone lot and watched the planes take off and land (no clue why it took them so long to think of this!  So much more convenient than making 30 loops around the airport and getting yelled at by bike cops for parking outside the terminal).  Once I found her we headed back up to my house where we met J, then headed down to Taco Mac to meet Amy and Josh for dinner.  Ali loves everything beer - she and her husband even brewed their own beer to serve at their wedding - so Taco Mac was a great place for her to explore their huge beer list.  We had a great time chatting it up at dinner, then headed home to get some sleep before waking up early for the race!

After the race, Ali and I came back to my house to clean up and headed to pick up Amy and head to lunch at an Atlanta landmark - Mary Mac's Tea Room.  I have lived in Georgia my entire life and had never been here, so I was really looking forward to some true Southern cooking.  They serve all your traditional Southern foods - pot likker, sweet potato souffle, fried chicken....you get the picture.  I went with the vegetable plate and chose fried okra, mac and cheese, tomato pie, and cheese and veggie souffle for my lunch.

Mmm Mmm Good!

After we were stuffed from lunch, we headed over to The Georgia Aquarium.  J and I hadn't been since 2007 when he took me for my birthday, so it was a lot of fun to go back, despite all the kids running around.

The Beluga Whales

Ali touching a hammerhead shark in the touch tank

Penguin Porn - cue "Let's Get it On"

Me in the Penguin Tube

We sat here for an hour...so relaxing

We had tickets to see the new Dolphin Quest show, but we were meeting Josh at Turner Field for the Braves game, so we headed out.



Our seats for the game were great!  Left field up near the 755 club.  It was nice having access to it with better food and restrooms with no lines.  Even though the Braves lost a good time was still had by all.

Go Braves!

 Sunday morning I met Amy at her house and we went to pick up Ali from her hotel.  We grabbed breakfast at The Flying Biscuit Cafe.  Amy nor myself had ever been so we were really looking forward to checking it out, and boy was it good!  Their biscuits were amazing, and I also had their roasted oven potatoes with rosemary.  Perfect way to start off the day.

Saying good-bye to Ali was sad, but we all had a fabulous weekend together and we know that we'll see each other again.

Now...jumping forward to last night.  It was the first time I had run since the 5K.  I've kind of strayed away from the C25K program and am concentrating more on interval training.  For the 5K I think I set my run interval a little too high for myself at 5/1, so I lowered it to 2.5/1.  I made sure to stretch good because of the issues I've been having with my shins, but by mile 1.5 they began to hurt.  This time, instead of pushing myself to finish the 3 miles I wanted to run, I cut my run short and only did 2.3...I have 3 weeks until my next 5K and I don't want to further injure myself.  I came home and immediately threw my ice packs on my shins.  They felt good afterward, but this morning they're still sore.  I hope to head back to Big Peach Running tonight and maybe get some calf sleeves.

What do you do for shin splints?  Anything you swear by that works?

Until next time,

Jen