So this past weekend I ran the Gulf Coast Half Marathon in Mandeville, Louisiana! This was my 5th time running this race. It is one of my FAVORITE races! The course is gorgeous, the weather is always perfect, and the town is just the cutest!
My roomies and I headed to Mandeville on Saturday morning. Our tradition is to always stop for lunch at The Shed BBQ in Mississippi. The food did not disappoint! So yummy!
From there we headed straight to packet pickup. This race always does packet pickup at a local running store called Varsity Sports. They always have a good sale for all of us runners coming in from out of town! I bought a new blue skirt that is super cute! (I'm not going to show it to you though because I'm wearing it to my 5K race this weekend)
After shopping we headed out back to grab our race bib and race shirts. And guess who I ran into out there? Jenny!!!!
We talked for a little while and then she headed out to explore Mandeville with her hubby. We also ran into a few more of our Sole2Soul Sisters there! We talked to them for awhile and I also talked to one of the running store workers. I just happened to mention to her how this would be me and Paige's 5th time running this race and that somehow we missed running it the first year (this is the 6th year of the race). She said...hang on! And then she presented me and Paige with a medal!!!! I remember they gave these out to runners last year who had run the race every year since it started since it was the 5th anniversary. Paige and I were soooo excited to get this medal!!! How awesome!!!
After we were finished at packet pickup we headed out in search of those yummy Louisiana snowballs!
Wedding cake is my favorite flavor!
Then it was time to check into our hotel. We stayed at the same place as last year so it was really easy to find. Paige checked us in and then came out saying they only had rooms left with two twin beds. And that they were searching for two rollaways for us. Yeah. I KNEW she was tricking us but Donna and Susanne totally fell for it! They really believed her until we got into the room lol!
Once we got into the room we all started organizing our things for the race the next day. And of course I had to take my traditional Flat Road Runner Girl picture!
A lot of our Sole2Soul Sisters were running for breast cancer awareness since it is national breast cancer awareness month! The shoe on the front of our shirts is made using the breast cancer symbol. So cute!
For dinner, Jenny and her husband Eric came and picked me up. We headed to Mellow Mushroom for our traditional pre-race and pre-long run pizza!
We saw this car in the parking lot and of course Jenny and I had to have our picture made!!!
I ordered my favorite pizza...pepperoni with mushrooms! It seemed extra yummy!
We had so much fun eating our pizza and talking for hours! Before we knew it it was 8:00 and we knew we needed to get back to the hotel so we could get some rest.
I got back to the room and realized that with all the travel that day I hadn't gotten all my steps in for the day. I had only gotten in about 8000 steps and needed to reach 11000! So Donna joined me and we walked the hotel hallway until I reached my step goal!!! Thanks Donna!!!
Then it was lights out! After all....the next day was RACE DAY!!!!!!
Be sure to come back to read my race recap!!!
QOTD: What is your favorite part of race weekend?