Taber Time!: I'm Back!

Hey everyone!
I am BACK from vacation and I am so happy. It was a blast but also very tiring and it feels nice to relax. I got home Thursday at 2 pm. So I will be doing a recap of the trip and of my second half marathon! We flew to LA on Thursday the 10th and from there we just layed low, we stopped by the Santa Monica pier and went on the rooftop of a building then spent time with our friends. It was really fun but we didn't get a whole lot of sleep before the flight, so we crashed hard.

Hubby and me at the Getty

Another Getty photo

On the rooftop of a building

We visited the Getty museum and the endeavor exhibit on Friday then went out for a couple hours to dinner and a bar. I Am a huge foodie so I loved getting to try the different bars and restaurants in downtown LA. I had literally the best burger ever! Yummy! I didn't follow a very healthy diet for the entire trip but I did burn 1500-3000 calories per day depending what we did. I didn't gain any weight and it was worth it to eat yummy food on vacation.

The Santa Monica Pier- suppperrr windy!

In line for Space Mountain ride

Our one night at an L.A club, where we had 1 drink

Another shot from Disneyland

Saturday we were up early to hit Disneyland. We spent the entire day there. It was exactly my type of amusement lark. I've been twice before but not as an adult so it was fun to try all the rides after so long. None of them were too scary or crazy for me. I don't do well with roller coasters or rides with big huge drops so Disneyland was nice. I drank a lot of water and ate pasta with grilled chicken since my race was the following morning. We left the park around 10 and I crashed again.

Okay so now for the longest part of this post. The half marathon! I was dropped off at Venice beach on Sunday early morning where I lined up ready to run. The most awesome thing about this race was that it was sponsored by Allstate insurance which equals big money for the event. They gave out a finishers medal, a super nice t shirt and they had food and drinks along the course. They also had entertainment set up throughout. Mostly bands and dancers. It was really fun and I really like racing in a bigger city. The races here usually average about 2000 people and this one in LA had over 5,000 runners. The weather was gorgeous I would guess about 45-50 degrees and pretty sunny with a breeze. I took lots of pictures of the scenery. I did finish this race 40 minutes faster than my first one which was good but I was 20 minutes past my goal time. Oh well. Mentally I felt great this whole run. I was happy and felt prepared and it was a lot easier for me than the first one. It could've partly been the fact that this one was a flat race or maybe because I'm more used to running now, I'm not sure. Either way I was able to dig deep and jam out in my own world and finish the run. My only real challenge this race was some arch pain. Ok not some arch pain- a severe arch and ankle pain. In fact, my ankle hasn't gone down in swelling since. I've been prone to ankle issues in the past and I think the whole Disneyland vacation and the events we did after the run pushed my feet too far. I'm considering seeing a physical therapist about my ankle and foot pain. I have a theory that my arch pain is mainly due to my severely flat feet. I don't get pain until about mile 9 but then when it hits, it hits hard. My ankle does need to be looked at for sure though but that is an entire story for its own post. My husband and our two friends rode their bikes along the route and stopped to wait and watch me. It was nice having people cheering me on every so often. It helped motivate me. I loved this race so much I had a blast. I am really looking forward to jumping back into training and running this week. I'm going to start slow and build back up again. I need to give my foot some healing before I push it again and start full marathon training. My next registered race is in June, but there are lots of races coming up within the next 3 months that I want to get in to. Anyways, I'm going to end this here and I will finish the vacation recap tomorrow! Happy Friday people its good to be back!