On My Way to Runner’s World

Today is the day!  It’s time to for me to travel to the Bethlehem area for the Runners World Blogger and Race event! I am SO excited but also so nervous. I can’t wait to get to meet some incredible FitFluential people and put faces to blogs that I read daily. I can’t wait to meet the Editors of Runner’s World and find out more about their company and what inspires them. I can’t wait for the expo to get to talk to cool running brands. And most importantly, I can’t wait to run my first race!! Ah, it’s so crazy that I’m saying that!

Some things I still have to do:

– Pack! I have my race day outfit all good to go but I still need to pack outfits for the days leading up to the race. There’s supposed to be a light run around the Runner’s World trails today and then a run with the Editors tomorrow morning so I’m thinking I have to pack a lot of workout gear. I’m so excited, if I could live my life in yoga pants it would be a wonderful thing. I also need to pack a bag for the bag check. Does anyone have any recommendations? Would a light drawstring bag work for that?

-Get my directions all sorted out. My dad was so sweet to write out directions for me to the places I’m going and my parents are letting me borrow their Garmin but I’m still nervous. I’m HORRIBLE with directions, like get lost in my own town horrible, and want to look over everything just to make sure I have a better grasp on where I’m going. The Editors BBQ that I’m going to tonight is in Emmaus, PA and then I’m staying at my sister’s for the night in Penn Argyl, so it’s looking like I have a 50 minute drive ahead of me after the event gets out, on top of the 3 hour drive I have just to get to Emmaus. Despite driving to Josh’s weekly I am not the biggest driver or strongest driver (big country roads have really spoiled me!) so please think happy travel thoughts for me!

-Paint my nails. Random, but I want them to look pretty for when I run. 😀

-Pick up snacks for this weekend/ breakfast before the race. A lot of my meals are covered, or I will be in an area where it’s easy to pick up food but Saturday, the morning of the 5k, I have to leave my sister’s house at like 6am to make it to the race on time. I need to make sure I have Chobani and oats on hand so I can eat a good breakfast before I run!

-Charge my phone, camera, iPod, and all other random electronics I’ll be using this weekend. There’s nothing worse than having an electronic die when you’re using it!

-Catch up on the blogs of the FitFluentials going to the Runners World event. I’d love to be up to date on their blog so that when we meet up I have something to talk about. I feel so awkward when I first meet people so it’s nice to have ice breakers.

Things I have done for the race:

-Picked out my race day outfit. As I mentioned I have my outfit all ready, it’s from Road Runner Sports and I can’t wait for you guys to see it. It’s beautiful! And you may be getting the chance to win the exact same outfit from them after the race! 😀

-Got all my registration in. There were some forms and paperwork and those should be all good to go so I’m registered and ready to race.

-Got my business cards printed and ready to be handed out. I’m so excited to get to share them with people, I LOVE them!

-Trained for the race. I’ve been running like normal these past few weeks and I hope the consistency will help me have a good run the day of the 5k. I didn’t want to do a huge workout yesterday because I was tired and wanted to get home to get stuff done so I went to the gym and did a 15 minute hill run for speed and then some arm strength training. It was a nice little quick workout that burned some calories and got my heart pumping. It was my first time running inside since falling in love with running outside but I really didn’t mind being back on the treadmill. A lot of people have mentioned to me how treadmills are dreadmills and I would never want to go back to them after running outside. While I absolutely LOVE running outside, way moreso than on a treadmill, I think there are some awesome features of treadmills that when I do have to run on them, make them way more bearable. Treadmills don’t have to be dreadmills!

My school gym has AWESOME cardio equipment, including video monitors on all of the machines that play music videos or TV shows on demand. A new feature I tried out this time (because I forgot my headphones but needed to do something while I ran) was the nature scene run. You pick from a variety of geographical locations and then start running. As you move the camera moves with you and it simulates you being outside running. It was pretty late so my gym was pretty empty. Since no one was around I figured I’d video tape the outside run simulator so you guys could see it. After I finished my workout and recorded this I realized you can touch the screen and the nature scene goes to full screen. Whoops! ;p I seriously love it though, I love the way the camera moves and how it looks around from time to time so you can take in the scenery. I just wish it wouldn’t do running on the sand by the ocean segments, it’s too unrealistic for me that it’s hard for me to keep up my pace as I imagine my feet running through wet sand. I think I visualize a little too much with these things! ;p

This weekend is going to be  a busy one and I am so excited!! I can’t wait to share it all with you guys. Thanks for all the support and encouragement leading up to this. It really means a lot!

Question of the Day: Anything you do to prepare for a race that I’m forgetting about? I’d appreciate advice!