This weekend has certainly been an adventure! After celebrating Valentine’s Day Friday night, I woke up at the crack of dawn on Saturday for the Manasquan Mid-Winter 2-Mile Beach Run. It was a huge surprise to wake up to clean pavement – they had predicted 2-4 inches overnight and I was dreading a snowy run. Yes, it’s been a full year since my ACL surgery, but I’m still so scared of doing something to damage it – or to hurt my good knee! – that I take extra care when it comes to the snow/ice.

But, the weathermen were wrong (in other news, the Pope announced he’s Catholic), and we had a nice easy drive down to exit 98. Then just before the start of the race, the rain decided to join the party. In a big way. With some sleet. And whipping winds. While we waited for the gun, I popped my headphones in and wouldn’t you know it, my new favorite run-dancing song came on and lit up the day:

I’m gonna paint you a picture. Imagine if you will: you’re standing in a herd of soaked runners, icy rain pelting you from all angles with each wind gust. You think to yourself, “Why do I do this? I’m paying to do this?? I must be a special kind of stupid…” When suddenly, the girl in pigtails and an over-sized snow parka standing next to you jumps up into the air and lands with a shimmy, shaking her hips as she points to each of her neighbors and urges them to “clap along if you feel like a room without a roof”.

As you can see, I pretty much smiled like a fool the whole time. Even with the skies raining Liquid Ugh (TM) all over us for the full 2 miles through puddles, potholes, and over frozen sand. Ordinarily I would have complained. But this was a whole new experience, and since I’ve technically never “raced” at this distance, I set a brand new PR for myself too!

Then, in keeping with this weekend’s active theme, I woke up nice and early again today for free yoga at our local Lululemon. This is about as perfect as it gets, because hey, free yoga, and hey , post-yoga shopping spree! I met up with a few friends and had a blast. But the three of us are clearly not allowed to take the class next to each other again, because we couldn’t stop pinching each other and giggling when one of us ate shit when tumbling out of crow pose. While we did have fun, I currently can’t feel my calves or remove my hoodie without tears of agony thanks to spending what felt like 80% of the class in down dog. So, mission accomplished?

After class I picked up a cute new post-practice wrap sweatshirt and finally joined the local YMCA too. Given the approximately eleventy billion tons of white bullshit covering every square inch of hope outside, I seriously doubt I’ll have clean pavement to run on before my half marathon in April. Add this ridiculous weather to the fact that I’m seriously afraid of slipping and twisting my knees on the ice, and my training situation is getting pretty dire. So $24/month later, I’ve now got a great little gym around the corner from my house that has a great view of the waterfront and a nice Olympic-sized pool too!

The rest of the weekend was normal weekend-y-type stuff: MarioKart (I suck), laundry (it sucks), Buffalo Wild Wings (does NOT suck!), etc. I even met up with my parents this afternoon and joined them for a Cocoa Diablo, or a highball of hot cocoa spiked with about 3 shots of Fireball Whiskey. It is about as delicious as it sounds, and twice as potent as you’d expect. Which brings me to now!

So how was your weekend? Did you manage to stay active? Tell me all about it 🙂