Hi there.

Hope Spring is treating y’all well. Here in New Jersey we’ve been “welcomed” with ticks! YUCK, I hate them. Apparently there will be a big surge of the buggers this season thanks to our milder and wetter Winter.

But we’ve been enjoying the outdoors with the pups anyway.

He looks pretty happy. 🙂

I love this shot!

Hanging at the beach

Dock smile

I also got a little Spring decorating bug. After we repainted the sunroom floor the month before I figured we should do a bit more to make the space more defined. So we got a nice area rug, a cute throw pillow and a cubby shelf thingy to sort of form a “mud room”. Little nautical touches finish off the look (rope handles on the cubby bins, the white stripe on the rug and I stacked some old boating books and compass that Mr. SOTSS had to finish off the look (plus one nature book of mine). We are both really happy with how it all looks and love that it actually feels more like 2 spaces now.

Mud room cubbys…one for each of us (yes the dogs each have their own along with the adults and the human teenagers 🙂

The cutest denim blue pillow ever IMO

Nautical accents

Modeling the new rug

In work related news I’ve started working in the city 2 days a week for some on-site design consulting. It’s actually be really nice to break up the week working at home 3 days and in the city 2 days. Duncan misses me but I feel better knowing he can hang with Chester until I return.

Oh and I designed my first food truck vehicle wrap for Mr. SOTSS’s business. This was fun…customer wanted something that would stand out. I think lime green does the trick!

Ok now on to my recap…

It’s been 3 weeks since I ran the 2019 Philly Love Run half marathon.

First of all I just want to say I’m SOOO happy that I finally got to run a half marathon after more than 2 years of injury, loss of fitness and other life events. I was training for the 2017 Philly Love Run when I injured my toe just a few weeks before. And last year I wasn’t fully recovered. This year almost didn’t happen when some very mild posterior tibial tendonitis became a bit more severe forcing me to stop my training with a long run of only 7.5 miles. But I slogged through to finish in one of my slower times of 2:38.

The back of the finisher shirts modeled by the girls in front of me at the start. I use mine for pajamas because it is very soft and not tech-fabricky.

A little sunrise peeking through at the start

This will be more of a highlights recap and not super detailed. Bottom line is I really have nothing negative to say and would definitely recommend it.

smiles = early on in the race. Actually this was around mile 5.

1. The course: I love how this course is broken up. You start at Eakins Oval right by the art museum with the famous Rocky steps and the first 4 ish miles are in the city center. I swear these miles felt all downhill to me but maybe it was just the rush of running a race. I felt GREAT for the city miles! Right around mile 5 you pass Eakins Oval again and head out to run a whole lot of out and back miles along the Schuylkill river which is a nice change of pace in contrast to the city. It also allows you to watch some of the faster runners on their way back into the city for that finish line. There’s not much in the way of running through neighborhoods on this course but there are still lots of spectators who come out to cheer (especially when you pass the start/finish area. And there are a few miles inside of Fairmount Park which are hilly and definitely challenging as they come around miles 8-9.
   

   Running past this cottage (Boelson Cottage) and the beautiful daffodils made me smile. I had to look it up after the race to learn how old it was. Um, this cottage was built in the late 1600s!

2. Weather: It was way warmer than the other times I ran this race. You can read about how I PR’d in the pouring rain at the race’s inaugural event back in 2014 here. You can also read my recap of the 2015 race here and the 2016 race here. It did rain this year but not enough to be uncomfortable. The heaviest downpours happened while I was driving home about a half hour after the race. There were heat sheets provided at the finish this year which I used to quickly protect my phone from the rain because #priorities.
   

   last few miles….rain had started….struggle bus in full swing

3. Fueling/water along the course: I sort of felt that there could have been more water stops along the course but there were enough. They had Nuun and water and I think some type of gel was offered around mile 7 or 8. Personally, I was just so happy to be running I spaced on fueling at all for this race. They didn’t have Gatorade at all and I kinda missed that. Nuun is ok but I don’t think it has the sugar like Gatorade.
4. Start/Finish area: They had a very organized wave start. I was a few waves back from the front and started about 20 minutes after the first wave. And my very favorite part of the finish is that they had soft pretzels in addition to plenty of other tasty post-race food items. I’m just a sucker for a soft pretzel. 🙂 They make it start/finish area feel very much like a festival and there’s even a section to go for a post-run beer (I think one beer is included with the bib).
   

   Whew! Finished in one piece

5. Bling/Swag: I love their medals! They also provide a nice mug and shirt.

This is what the front of the shirt looked like

Oh happy day!

I definitely want to run this race again next year. Hopefully I’ll be better trained and maybe no rain? Who wants to run with me??

What does your Spring running look like? Is it too late to start talking about Fall?

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