Today I’ll be in the woods of Old Lyme, CT helping out with Ninja Zombies, but before I go I wanted to recap a few more things from Maine, specifically my 4th of July, which of course started out with a patriotic bowl of oats…

Ingredients: locally grown strawberries and blueberries, peanut butter, greek yogurt, and oatmeal.

After I let this digest a bit, Michal and I decided to rent bikes for the remainder of our vacation so we could have the freedom to get around without having to deal with the 4th of July traffic.

First stop with our bikes was Footbridge Beach in Maine which is my favorite beach in the area.

Enjoying fresh cut watermelon on the beach is one of life’s cheap luxuries.

After a few hours of relaxing on the beach, we got back on our bikes and headed down to Perkin’s cove for lunch.

Michal was very excited when while we were on the Perkin’s Cove draw bridge, a sailor shouted up to him to press the button to raise it.

Michal brought his Canon camera on vacation, so while we were in Perkin’s cover he took  some really beautiful photos that I plan on framing.

We also discovered a really amazing cafe I had never been to. They make homemade lemonade from scratch, and they have the most amazing back porch where you can sit.

Around this time we started to burn out, so we got back on our bikes and headed back, and after a nap and an epic outdoor dinner with the neighbors, we got back on our bikes to make one last trip…

It just wouldn’t be the 4th of July without fireworks.

Saturday night Michal and I decided to go out to dinner for seafood, because when you’re in Maine, it’s just wrong to eat anything else, so we put on some non-scrubby clothes, and hit the town.

I know from this blog it seems as though I never wear make-up and am always in running shorts, but I assure you I am quite girly (note the pink top).

We decided that we would park in town and then walk along Marginal Way which takes you down into Perkins Cove.

Once we began the walk on marginal way, the views were incredible…

When we arrived in Perkins Cove, we ate at one of favorite restaurants, Barnacle Billy’s.

I’ve been eating here since I was a kid, and the food is always straight off the boat and delicious.

Before being seated, Michal enjoyed a cold beer in the lounge, and I sneaked a photo which captured his content state.

Is there anything better than enjoying your first cold beer on vacation?

When we finally sat down for dinner, I already knew what I wanted–Billy’s homemade Gazpacho Soup with JUMBO shrimp….

You can’t find shrimp any larger than this. They were so big that just 4 left me feeling full (and usually when I eat shrimp my stomach is a bottomless pit).

Michal had their stuffed shrimp dish which looked just as incredible.

But you want to know what the best part about dinner was?

The view.

This is my third time running this race, and ever since coming in second for the women’s division last year (it’s a small race), it’s become an on-going joke for me to talk a whole lotta game before the big day.

Coincidentally, Michal came in 2nd in the men’s division last year also, so the smack talk has just been non-stop between the two of us.

But somewhere in all those little quips…I was serious.

And so I trained the past two weeks, and I had this whole master plan laid out in my head, how two days before the race I would do one final 4 mile run on an up-hill course (my reasoning being that the 5k race would seem easy 48 hours after so much up-hill work). So Friday came, and after work I did just that. I ran an intense 4 mile up-hill course in blistering heat. Then I got home and rested a bit, because I was going to be driving to Maine later that night.

Then my mom, who was already up in Maine, called.

“Hey, did you know your little race is tomorrow morning? I just saw something about it on the TV.”

Yup, that’s right. I got the date wrong. So basically I would arrive in Maine at around 1am, and then have to wake up at around 8am to run a race, and on top of that I would only have around 12 hours of time to recover.

Want to see a picture of me before the race?

It’s probably hard to tell because this picture is pretty small, but I was literally falling asleep, and I didn’t even have the energy to warm up or stretch. I just sat on a rock and watched all the other people do cool pre-race stuff which totally psyched me out.

Luckily I had Michal there to lend his support (and talk a big game), so I at least I stayed a bit motivated.

A mile into the race  though I was pretty behind, so I started regretting my decision to run the race, but then I sort of told myself, “you are on vacation, so get over yourself, and get over the fact that you will have a slow time.” And just like that I got over it, and suddenly the race seemed fun again because I accepted the fact that I wouldn’t do well, and that I would be proud of myself just for finishing it.

And then mile two came, and I was so happy to have set myself free from the pressure of getting a good time, that I started to pass a lot of people who were burning out on the hills.

And then mile three came, and I started to pass even more people.

And then I finished…

and after the results were tallied up, I came in first in the women’s division

Pretty cool, right?

Although in all honesty, I was not the first female to cross the finish line. The first WOMAN, yes, but not the first female. A few girls under the age of 19 destroyed my time, so I was fortunate that there was a separate category for “under 19.”

I wish I could show you an actual picture of me accepting the prize, or a picture of my finish, but the camera died half way through the race (my mom didn’t realize that you need to turn the camera off when you’re not using it). By that point though, I didn’t even care about the camera. I was just thrilled to have had something that seemed horrible turn out to be something really fun.

As for Michal….

Let’s just say he got 2nd place again, but this year the men’s 2nd place time was slower than the women’s 1st place time….

I guess there can only be one winner in every relationship (ohhhhhhhh snap!)

I took the day off from work yesterday, so I could drive up to Maine to visit this pretty lady….

Alyx was my best girlfriend from college, and although she now lives in California, her boyfriends sister just so happened to be getting married in the same town my parents have a cottage in (fate will always bring us together).

The ride up to Maine was the only painful part, because I get really bored on long drives by myself, and when you pair that with little to no sleep (was up the night before helping with Ninja Zombie stuff), I have no attention span.

After hearing Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” four times on the radio, I ended up behind a Maine lobster truck which I found to be really funny, so I decided to take a picture.

Immediately after snapping this photo, the highway split, and I veered off the wrong way, giving me the pleasure of listening to my GPS scream “RECALCULATING” at me for the next 5 minutes. I guess that’s my punishment for taking a photo while driving.

An hour later I was really bored again, so I pulled up behind this car which offered me free reading material for the next three exits…

Is it illegal to take pictures while driving? It should be, because I definitely wasn’t paying attention to the lines on the road.

Once I finally arrived in Maine, I picked up Alyx, and we hung out at my parent’s place for the day. We mostly laid by the pool, ate some amazing food courtesy of the Pine Tree, and then gossiped about vampires…and on occasion we mentioned real people we care about.

Sadly, she had to get to the rehearsal dinner for the wedding, so we couldn’t hang out the entire day, but Michal and I are going to plan a vacation out to California to visit her sometime soon, so we won’t be parted for long!

I’ll be in Maine for the rest of the weekend, so expect lots of exciting pictures of trees. Joking aside, I’m pretty obsessed with this state. My parents have been taking me here every year since I was a kid, and now this place is like a second home to me, so sometimes when I talk about how happy this place makes me I can get downright emotional. Maine is THAT beautiful!  I’ll leave you with some pictures that I snapped last summer:

I can’t wait for this summer.