The Carlsbad 5000

The Carlsbad 5000; the world's fastest 5K.  Ben ran this race, back in 2018 (Finished in 18 min!) and it was such a fun race to be at.  Elites come and run and pros give talks at the Expo.

2018

Considering we live just 20 minutes from Carlsbad now, it seemed fitting to run the race again.  Ben wasn't able to race with me, but he helped me with my training and was my support crew on race day.

I've been training for the last several months and feel pretty lucky that this is where I get to train.  People travel from all over to race here and I get to run it on just a normal day.

After my last speed work by the ocean, I picked up an acai bowl on base.  The size of this thing made me laugh!  I got a lot of bang for my buck that's for sure and it hit the spot after a hard run.

I'm also blessed to be able to run this trail on my normal days.

They do the race in heats and the Masters Women (40 and up) start the whole thing off.  It was an early morning, but also really pretty to watch the sunrise while warming up.

I loved what the announcer said right before the race: we are the women who have the experience under our belt and the ones who have put years into the sport.  It was a perfectly fitting reminder for why I ran this race.  I turn 44 next month and training for this race was in effort to regain some speed that I've lost over the last several years.  And it was also a season of thankfulness that I'm still able to run without injury.  Running has been with me through many seasons of life and I know it won't last forever, so right now, I'm just thankful that I get to be where I am.

My race recap...it went really well, but not as great as I was hoping.  My goal was to run a 7:30 pace.  My first mile was a 7:22 and the second was 7:32.  The road was pretty narrow which made getting around other runners challenging and it was pretty easy to just fall into a groove with the runners around me and not really pay attention to really pushing my own pace.  Everything was going pretty great until the sharp U-turn and then a full mile uphill (it was not a big hill, but just an annoying gradual incline that never ended).  They changed the course, which is good because when Ben ran it, it went over the train tracks and you would have to stop and wait for trains.  But I was pretty mad that they changed the course to make the last and hardest mile ALL uphill.  I got discouraged when I realized that I couldn't hold the 7:30 pace up the hill and wasn't going to make my goal.  My last mile was an 8:00 pace and I was able to kick it to the end and finished in 23:49.

I came in 108 of 736 women.

Perhaps the best part of the day was getting breakfast after the race :). I will be talking about the blueberry pancakes for a very long time.

 

Happy 16th Birthday Eli!

He's 16!!!  It's craziness.  Our schedule was also craziness the weekend of his birthday, so we had to extend the celebration over several days.  After we finished school on Friday, Eli opened a few little presents and then we went to Dave N' Busters.

We got a pretzel and new sweatpants in the mall afterwards.

Saturday, Ben took Eli and Alison to Chili's for lunch, while I took Colin to his basketball game.

Then we opened presents before Alison had to go to work.

I got fake tattoos for little party favors :)

Then we went to see the Mario movie.

And to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner.

We had the best view and got to watch the sunset while we feasted.

Somehow Eli found room in his tummy for cheesecake at the end of the day.

Happy Birthday Eli!  We are SO thankful for you!

 

Easter

Colin's friend, James, came home with us from church and took this picture for us :). The funny part was, Maya refused to leave James' side to get in the picture with us.

After lunch, the kids found baskets.  Ben brought home a basket from work that they were handing out, so we hid that for James.  We had no idea what was actually in it, so it made a fun surprise.

James' family and one of Alison's friends joined us for dinner.  We had quite the feast!  Ham, smoked ribs, sweet potato casserole, "funeral potatoes", salad, zwiebach, sourdough and strawberry shortcake.

After dinner, we all played games.

 

Sea World

We went to Sea World on our spring break!  We all unintentionally wore black 😆.

Colin was not feeling the best that day (found out later it was a sinus infection) but powered through with us.

Unfortunately some of our favorite spots were under construction and we weren't able to see a traditional dolphin show, but we got to see an up close training session.  The jellyfish were new this year and really cool to see.

Ben and Eli rode a roller coaster, while the rest of us saw the penguins and Orca show.

Then we met up for lunch.

 

My first trip to a winery!

Going to a winery/wine tasting has been on my bucket list for a long time and it's completely crazy that I haven't checked it off yet, considering we have lived near wineries for several years.  Fortunately for me, Tiffany was excited to join me on the adventure.  We drove up to Temecula for the day.  First we walked around Old Town and did an olive oil tasting.  Then we took the advice from a local at the bookstore and headed to Ponte Winery.

We had a picturesque lunch with lots of good people watching.

And then enjoyed a little tasting.