Petpalooza 5K

I hope everyone is having a fun Cinco De Mayo/Derby Day. How awesome that they both fell on the same Saturday! I would love to attend the Kentucky Derby one year and rock a gigantic hat and cute dress! 🙂

My Saturday has been great although not very festive. I’m currently sitting on the couch debating options for Cinco de Mayo but there’s a good chance I’ll stay on the couch. I’ve been in recovery mode this evening from an active morning and afternoon. I took and nap and then went on a long walk with Sullie.

Before I get into today I want to share last night’s dinner. I met Katie and Brittney for dinner at Zeitouni Grill for some delicious Mediterranean food.

Katie suggested Zeitouni, singing praises about their falafel. It was a new restaurant to me because it’s located in Ballantyne and I never make it out there. It was worth the drive though. I opted to forgo falafel in favor of the grilled chicken kabobs. The platter came with baba ganoush, pita, greek salad and rice.

The food was really good. My chicken was grilled and seasoned perfectly. Even better than the food was the conversation. Topics covered everything from 30 being the new 20 to babies to blogs and much more.

I made it an early night because I made a last-minute decision to run a 5K this morning!

I got up early and headed over to Independence Park to run in the Petpalooza 5K. I’ve had the race bug all week and Petpalooza was a great choice because it supports the Humane Society of Charlotte.

I haven’t had a chip on my shoe since the Rocktoberfest 5K back in October!

It felt so good to pin on a bib and line up at the start. 5Ks are tough for me because I like to go all out but I just crank up a motivating playlist and tell myself that it will be over soon. It always feels awesome to sprint your heart out and cross the finish.

The pups weren’t allowed to run in the 5K because there were issues with heat exhaustion last year but there was a walk for them and they were out in full force. I loved seeing all the dogs!

I finished in 23:30, not a PR but I’m still proud of my effort. I was able to maintain an average of 7:15 miles and given how little I’ve been running, I think that’s pretty good.  There were a LOT of steady inclines in the middle of the race. Luckily, the finish was a nice downhill.

I dug into the bagels and bananas after the race and wandered around the festival for a little while before heading out to catch a yoga class. I enjoy running 5Ks and then practicing yoga. It feels so good. Due to the humidity, yoga was insanely hot this morning. I was totally dripping with sweat at the end but had a solid practice.

After a shower and a farmers market run it was time for brunch at Toast.

We started with bloody marys. I thought that I deserved one after my active morning.

Our server brought over a basket of cornbread while we looked over the menu. The cornbread was just okay. It was cold and a little dry but nothing some butter and apple chutney couldn’t fix.

For my entree I chose a scramble with egg whites, spinach, roasted turkey and gruyere. It was extra cheesy. I had fruit and whole wheat toast on the side. This was a great recovery meal.

Off to decide what I’m going to do with my night!