March 5k – Ann Arbor

Posted on March 11, 2013 Updated on March 11, 2013

Let me start by sending a big thank you to my friend, Angie, for inviting me to invade visit her home this weekend!   She was a wonderful host, cook and chaffeur.  I am in love with Ann Arbor now and seriously jealous of all the health food and fitness stores and walking paths and bike routes.  Oh my gosh, heaven.

We went to the People’s Food Co-Op, Trader Joe’s, Plum’s Market and both Whole Foods Markets (twice to one of them!).  If you live near a Whole Foods, seriously, GO.  Go now.  It’s AWESOME.  Everything is colorful, beautiful and organized.  It’s OCD, whole food, organic paradise.

I didn’t get any pictures of the fruits, but they were perfect too.  I only got a few pictures at Whole Foods.

Since it was Saturday, all of the stores were sampling products.  I tried some new things, pretty proud, especially since they were seafood items which I don’t eat all all.  Last week, we tried Ocean Perch fillets and I was a little repulsed.  My hesitation was a little high.  However, I have been wanting to try Salmon for a while.  It looks more like MEAT than the flaky white fish.  I tried a Salmon Spread, Smoked Salmon and Scallops.  YUM!  Smoked Salmon is UNBELIEVABLE, but so expensive.  (My next post will be about the my grocery purchases, promise!)

Maybe my rose colored glasses were on too, but it seemed like everyone who worked there had an appreciation for the food.  All the demonstrators especially were super friendly and really into what they were doing.

Saturday evening, we reconnected with another high school friend, Dillon, and did some window shopping before dinner.

Then, we ate at a vegetarian restaurant.  I thought eating there would be fairly easy. Vegetables, right?  Wrong.  Luckily, I looked up the menu earlier in the week and decided what I was going to order or I would have been overwhelmed with the non-paleo ingredients: cheese, beans and breads.  I’m going to go ahead and say vegetarian places are harder to eat at than regular if you are going paleo.   It was even MY idea to eat at a vegetarian place.

Since I never go to Ann Arbor and don’t get to experience these places, I did deviate from completely eating paleo.  I won’t lie.   However, I didn’t go wild (like when I really really wanted the fresh fired pizza at Whole Foods).

Sunday morning was race day.  The weather was beautiful and the predicted rain held off all day.  I think the temperature started in the 40s and topped out at 61°.  Glorious.

We picked up my race packet on Saturday to avoid the early morning frenzy.  It was nice being able to roll in about 20-25 minutes before the race.

The streets were full of runners, over 2000 people attended.

This race was the first time (other than obstacle races) that I didn’t run with my phone for music.  I have to get used to not having that luxury because I can’t have it during my triathlons.  Unintentionally, I forgot my heart rate monitor, so I was unable to check my pace on the watch either.  I was running “blind,” but the route was challenging (lots of hills and turns) and there were tons of people.  Basically, lots of things to distract me instead of needing music.

My last run was 33:35 and the goal for this race was under 33 minutes.  Well, we thought my time ended up being almost exactly the same as the last when we checked out the race clock at the end.  However, there were so many people, I didn’t cross the start line until a little later than the gun start, so I’m going by the chip time from when I crossed the start and finish.  That time was 33:14!  Not quite my goal, BUT this course was full of hills whereas the last was completely flat.  I’ll take it!  And I have another run at the end of the month, so another chance in March to get under 33 minutes.  As long as I keep improving and moving forward, I’m definitely happy.

Tomorrow or maybe this evening, I will get my grocery list and pictures of my haul from this weekend posted and finally figure out how much I spent.  Pretty sure I went over $100, but I went somewhere I never go and stocked up on some things too.  I’ll get to see what I need to work on though.

Anyone else have a race this weekend or soon?  What are your goals?