As soon as I got to Cincy Friday evening, Kristin and I went for a run. I was a bit nervous for this because the Ohio valley is mountainous and I had just done a hard workout on Thursday night. Even right when I got in the car with Kristin and started to laugh as we were talking, my core muscles felt extremely sore. But we started out on our route through Oakley and Hyde Park and chatted the whole way. It was a great normal run, but I am definitely not used to the hills! Sometimes I wish I had a little more terrain variety to run on but this felt like going from one extreme to the other. We did a solid 4.25 miles that went by super fast. Besides just the hill factor, it was a lot different that running in Chicago because of the peacefulness of it. We passed a few people and were running on some busier streets, but it is nowhere near the amount of people and stoplights I always have to fight through if I don't run at 5:30am before everyone else wakes up.
After the run we got ready for a night out! We went to Nada, a Mexican restaurant downtown. Everything about it was amazing. We shared chips and queso dip and were practically too full to eat our actual meals.
First round of drinks was a mojito for Kristin and a margarita for me. Second round was sparkling sangria for me and a coffee for her. No sleeping allowed!
We met up with Tim and his group that went to the DMB concert for a night in Mt. Adams. Besides the one time I came to Cincy for a night a few months ago and went to a bar near Tim's apartment for about a whole 10 minutes, this was the first time I had been out in Cincinnati. We did the Hofbrahaus one night in college too but I'm going to consider this the first real weekend I got to experience the city nightlife.
The real adventure of the weekend though was cabrewing on Saturday! After coffee and sandwiches, we met Tim, Dan, Eric, and Erin to drive to the river. We decided to tie our 3 canoes together to float down the river instead of really paddling. When we started, the canoe lady said the trip should take about 1.5 to 3 hours. We were in the river for 4.5 hours. We did make some necessary stops as we floated to (1) use the rope swing off the bank of the river to swing into the water, (2) climb up a tree that had wooden planks nailed to it to use as steps and then jump down into the water, (3) use the bathroom and (4) save a lady whose canoe had flipped at one of the more rapid parts of the lake. Jumping off the tree was definitely my favorite part but it was scary being up that high. The biggest regret of the trip was that none of us brought a phone or camera onto the water because we were scared to tip, but since we anchored all 3 canoes together, tipping wasn't even possible. But we did have the necessities - beer, water, chips, salsa, and Twizzlers.
After the river adventure, it was time for more coffee and getting all fancied up again. We met up with the cabrewing group (organization name: Terry's Fairies) and went to Yardhouse for an awesome dinner and then out to another bar downtown. My pictures from Saturday night are on my real camera, so I can't upload those just yet so here's another from before the canoe adventure.
The weekend was filled with a lot of activity, fun, and good food! Kristin and I even got brunch this morning before I headed out. I'm not sure if I'll be able to work up the energy for a short run when I get home, but maybe I should just to get above 30 miles for this week.
What was the best thing you did this weekend?
What is your favorite thing about running in a new area?
No comments:
Post a Comment