I usually don’t do weekend recaps on the blog but this weekend was so fun I thought why not! In fact, it was SO fun I took barely any pictures (who am I?!) so it will mostly be recapped in words! We had three friends visiting from out of town this weekend so were a group of five (3 girls, 2 guys).

I won’t lie, I was a little bit apprehensive about having a house full of guestsmbecause Eric and I like our space. BUT now that we have so much extra space it was 100% fine and actually really nice to have so many people around!

Friday

Our first set of guests (Eric’s good friend Graham and his girlfriend Sarah) arrived Friday around 5:30 PM. After showing them the house and visiting for a bit we headed down to music in the park (a free concert that the City of Kamloops puts on every night of the summer). Sarah and I hung out on a blanket and ate cherries while the boys played tennis. After the concert, we went back to our house and made homemade pizza and caesar salad and played some board games. Specifically the Game of Things and Clue.

If you have not played the Game of Things before I highly recommend it for a good time. I have never laughed so hard in my life!

Saturday

Eric had to work until noon on Saturday so I entertained our guests in the morning. I took them to the place I take ALL my out-of-town guests: The Farmers Market!

We wondered around the market and bought some fresh veggies and fruit and then sat in the grass and enjoyed some delicious bannock with cinnamon and sugar on it. When Eric was off work at noon we all piled into his friends little SUV to drive the 1:15 minutes out to the Shuswap where we had plans to go white water rafting that afternoon! Here’s the three girls piled in the back:

We got out there a bit early so we went to the beach and had a picnic. It was a beautiful day outside so we spent about an hour laying on the beach in the sun, which was wonderful. Our weather has been less than stellar (read: rain 24/7) so I was ecstatic to have a beautiful sunny day with blue skies!

I was super nervous for white water rafting because the big spiel they legally have to give you at the beginning freaked me out. I was POSITIVE that I was going to fall off the raft!

Well I didn’t, none of us did, and it was a super fun time! We went through one set of Level III rapids that was a little freaky and all I can remember is Eric yelling “AMBER HOLD ON” because I was too concerned with keeping my paddle from falling out to hold onto the rope in the middle! Lol

I know I shared a few WWR pics the other day but here are some more:

Can you spot me?!

At one point we got the chance to jump off this little cliff and ride the current down. Once again I was totally apprehensive about that but it was REALLY fun! Here we are at the very end. We spent about an hour or an 1:10 ON the water but it was a great time, I would definitely do it again!

After we were done WWR we were famished so we went out to eat at a nice restaurant on the Shuswap (I had an amazing vegetarian lasagna!) and then we drove the hour home and crashed.

Sunday

First thing Sunday morning my friend Robyn and I headed out to get a 10-mile run in. I immediately knew I would take her on the three bridges route since she said she wanted to do a flat run (the three bridges is our only flat running route in Kamloops!!)

I had so much fun running with my friend. We hadn’t seen each other since Christmas and she has had a lot of life changes in the past few months – like a big Europe trip this spring – so we literally did not stop talking the entire run. Well, I let Robyn do most of the talking as she is a much better runner than me and was not as out-of-breath as I was

The 10 miles flew by and I had so much fun! We did 9 and 1′s (9 minutes running, 1 minute walking) and were still able to maintain a 10:13 min/mile pace over the 10 miles.

Eric was working again on Sunday so after the run we went back to the house and had breakfast (cinnamon buns!) with Sarah and Graham. After laying around and chatting for most of the morning we finally decided to head out around 1. I took them downtown so we could do some shopping.

Eric got off work about an hour later and came and rescued Graham from the shopping trip. Us girls continued shopping until the mall closed and kicked us out! I got two new shirts, a scarf, a new pair of pumps and a dress for $130. I’ll consider that a win!

On Sunday night the boys went to see the movie Cowboys and Aliens while us girls had a wine and sushi night. We ordered takeout sushi and set-up on my deck with the wine and chit-chatted. Eventually we moved inside and started googling possible wedding songs and some other songs that made us reminisce our younger years…

Two bottles of wine later and the boys came home from the movie, we proceeded to break out the Game of Things AGAIN while working away on our third bottle of wine. A lot more laughs were had. At 12:00 AM we decided we’d had just enough wine to go to the bar.

I have not been to the bar since I finished university. 1.5 years ago. So this was quite an experience. Unfortunately being a Sunday night on the long weekend the place was pretty much dead but we still managed to have fun! We all finally crawled into bed around 2:30 AM.

Monday

After a very busy and long day on Sunday we all slept in until about 9:30 yesterday morning. Once everyone was up we headed out for brunch. It was a beautiful day outside so we sat on the patio and enjoyed a delicious, fruit-filled brunch at Cora’s.

And then after brunch it was time for our guests to go home! Robyn had an 8-hour drive back to Edmonton and Graham and Sarah had a 4+ hour drive back to Vancouver. I was very sad to see them go since the weekend was so fun. The house felt really empty once they’d all left.

After everyone was gone I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch with Webster – in my summer dress – for two hours. Once I woke up Eric and I went out to run some errands and do a bit of shopping. We have been wanting to try on the Vibram Five Fingers and sports stores in our city just got them a few months ago so we had to go check it out.

Eric actually ended up walking out with a pair he liked them so much! Apparently he used to do a lot of barefoot running when he was a teenager and he loved the way these felt. He compared them to moccasins.

He lifted weights in them last night and then we went for a little walk/run in the trails with them on. Not going to lie, I was having a bit of VFF-envy and *may* or *may not* pick up a pair later this week. We’ll see…

***

And that folks, was my weekend! I’d be lying if I said I was ready to go back to work tomorrow. It was such a fun long weekend filled with lots of laughs and good times. Between Eric working weekends and the crappy weather we’ve been having this summer hasn’t been very “fun” or “summery” but this weekend felt EXACTLY like a summer weekend should

I am, of course, totally behind on blog reading right now but I’m going to try and catch up today and tomorrow!

Question of the day: How was your weekend? What did you do?

OK, let’s try this again. I wrote this whole thing last night and Ecto ate it. Lovely…

On Sunday I ran the Dirty Feet 10K trail race here in Kamloops. This was my second time doing a Dirty Feet Trail Race and I have to say they are some of the best organized races with the best swag that I’ve ever done. Any running readers in the B.C. Interior, I highly recommend you check out these races, I will do them again!

I spent all weekend moving and ran 7.5 miles the day before so I really wasn’t expecting much from my legs. I brought my camera along to take lots of pictures and the plan was to just have fun!

I carpooled to the race with some of my running friends (one who was doing the 21K) so we just kind of hung around for an hour and visited with people. I saw a lot of familiar faces, which was cool. It’s nice to be so involved in different aspects of the running community here!

About half-an-hour after the 21K-ers started we were off!

Mile 1 – 9:43

Mile 2 – 10:50

You probably wouldn’t think I was running a trail race by my first couple mile splits. The first 5K were great – rolling hills, nice scenery. I was just running along having fun!

Mile 3 – 10:46

It was the second 5K when things started to get interesting. I’d checked out the elevation map on the website and kept thinking “is this that big hill? is this that big hill?”

Mile 4 – 9:41

Mile 5 – 15:14 <– oh. there it is!

It was a BRUTAL hill. Felt like it went on forever. We definitely hiked up most of it and just when it seemed to level off, UP we went again.

Here is my holy-crap-this-hill-is-brutal-and-i’m-totally-pooped face:

But, what goes up must come down, right? Oh yes, coming down was glorious. The last mile was probably my favourite part of the whole run. Mostly downhill, gorgeous view! Fantastic.

Here is my I-love-running-downhill face!

Mile 6 – 10:50

Mile 6 – 6.2 – 8:39

Final Garmin Stats

6.2 miles – 1:08:44 – 11:06 pace

Check out my Garmin. Talk about a well-mapped out course, hey!?

Then we stood around and ATE after (there was such great food at the finish line!) before taking off.

We couldn’t stay for the door prizes, which was too bad because they have really good swag at these events. Next time I will stick around for sure!

Overall, a very fun race. I love running trails and this race reminded me of that!

I have to say, though, I’m SO GLAD I dropped down from the 21K. Don’t think the legs could have handled that. They were pretty sore the rest of the day

They do have 3 more races in my area this summer/fall though, so I will get vengeance on that 21K yet

This morning I ran my first race of 2011 and my first race since the marathon. It went great!

Side note, I have worn these diamond earrings that Eric got me for Christmas a few years ago to every single race I’ve ever done – all 11 of them

OK, moving on to the race. This was a local race (about a 10 minute drive from my house) and didn’t start until 10:00 AM, which was SO NICE since I’ve been up late the last several nights painting (we are over half done by the way!!!)

For the last 9 weeks I have been doing a 2x/week run clinic at the local running store. On Wednesdays we do speed/hill interval training and on Saturdays we do long slow distance runs.

I have to say I think that speed training was key to how my race went today!

Mile 1 – 8:32

Mile 2 – 8:58

I felt SO good at the beginning but kept reminding myself to back off and not go too fast. I’m notorious for starting out too quickly in races and then losing steam near the end.

It was through residential areas with lots of nice houses so I just spent my time looking at the houses and enjoying myself. I had a HUGE smile on my face for the majority of this race.

Mile 3 – 9:05

This mile I started visiting with one of the guys that was in the run clinic and we chatted for about 1/2 mile before I pulled ahead. I also went through the only water station at this point and had a little cup of water. I jogged through it but slowed down a lot. I’m happy to say this is my only mile over 9 minutes!

Mile 4 – 8:50

At this point I knew I would PR because there were only two miles to go and even if I ran those two miles in over 20 minutes I would still PR so I was feeling pretty happy, still sailing along and starting to pass some more people. My legs felt great!

Mile 5 – 8:52

This is when it got pretty hard. The last 1 – 1.5 miles was an out-and-back on a gravel trail. Going from running pretty fast on the pavement to slogging along on the gravel was crazy. My legs felt SO HEAVY it was like running through sand. This was definitely the hardest part of the run physically and mentally.

Mile 6 – 8:40

Mile 6 – 6.2 – 7:43

GARMIN TIME:

6.23 miles – 54:40 – 8:47 pace

OFFICIAL TIME:

54:43! A PR!

I still had enough steam left in my tank to power through the last .2 mile at a sprint so that felt good! As soon as I got OFF the gravel pit my legs felt fast again.

Two of the people in my run clinic sprinting to the end and me and my friend Renee from the clinic:

I stuck around to have an apple juice and cheer on a few more of the runners from our cilnic and then I headed out because I wanted to get back to painting (but clearly blogging came first).

As I was driving home I started thinking about what I wanted to eat (of course!) and decided I really wanted yogurt and granola. I actually haven’t bought yogurt since the vegan challenge because I’ve been trying to eat less animal products but the stomach wants what it wants so I whipped into Nature’s Fare and got two things of greek yogurt (I’ve become such a yogurt snob) and granola!

Pretty much I adore Liberte yogurt. The Mediterranean kind has lots of fat in it, so I buy the regular stuff (2% M.F. instead of 8%) and have a serving with that with a spoonful of the Mediterranean

With banana, some oats and chia seeds – so yummy!

Happy Sunday! Time to get more painting done