Night Before the Charleston Marathon

I got into Charleston pretty late last night – but that didn’t stop me from spilling out my thoughts on what I done, taking care of some emails… and then discovering that it was already midnight. I never stay up that late when I’m just home! (Yeah yeah bring on the old lady jokes.) Oops.

But luckily, today was a pretty quiet day. I got to work from home (okay, from the hotel) and didn’t have a ton going on with my client, so I did a lot of internal firm work and also dialed into our quarterly all-hands – and actually paid attention instead of getting stuck multitasking with other work. Exciting stuff!

For lunch, I went to what turned out to be a really excellent pizzeria in North Charleston, Extra Virgin Oven. I sat at the bar, which meant very quick service, as well as plenty of opportunity to observe everything around me. The wood-fired pizza turned out to be absolutely delicious, and while I didn’t indulge in one of the many delicious craft beers they had on tap (it was lunchtime, remember?) I was served a Mason jar of water – very cute Southern touch 🙂

After heading downtown to the small expo to pick up my packet, I was back to the hotel and back to work… and then laziness set in. When I finished work for the day (at 5pm, awesome!), I was exhausted – but I hadn’t done much with my day. In fact, I still hadn’t fulfilled my January challenge goal to exercise for at least ten minutes a day… and despite it only being ten minutes, it seemed like an incredibly daunting task. I contemplated just doing 2 minutes at a time and spreading it out through the night… but finally just sucked it up and headed down to the gym for what I thought would be some low-key pedaling on one of the stationary bikes.

Instead, I got pretty into it and worked up a good sweat – for 15 minutes instead of the 10 minute minimum I was aiming for. Plus, I felt so incredibly invigorated. My slump was over, and I was now ready to do all the things. Apparently my body is so into the exercise habit that it doesn’t even want to take the day before a marathon off? I suppose I’m not complaining 🙂

I had a low-key dinner at the communal table at Five Loaves Cafe, but honestly, it was a bit of a letdown from all the incredible reviews I read. Five Loaves is known for their locally-sourced ingredients, and while I could tell that the ingredients were fresh, the final dishes somehow seemed to be lacking flavor. I chose the blue crab spaghetti, which sounded like the perfect lowcountry way to carb up for a race, but turned out to be surprisingly bland.

For what I think might have been the first time in my life, I picked up one of the salt shakers on the table and added some to my plate, which helped the dish immensely. Overall, dinner ended up being just fine; not bad, but just not great either. Too bad, as I know Charleston is known for their excellent culinary scene. Any reader suggestions for the rest of my weekend?

But now, at 9pm, I am ready for bed. Hopefully that will give me enough sleep to get through my first 26.2 miles of the year? We shall see. But the race organizers did promise shrimp, grits, and beer at the finish line… so I will be extra-motivated to get there quickly 🙂

Giveaway Winners!
Winners of the RunRunRun giveaway have been chosen! Congratulations to #23 (Gabby @ Marathons and Macarons), #32 (Runner 26 @ Running Chronicles), and #16 (Kristin @ Running with the Runner Girl)! Please email me to claim your prize 🙂