August 6, 2013

Color Me Rad Race Round 2 Recap

This weekend my sister, my boyfriend and I did the Color Me Rad 5K. I did the same color race in Philadelphia about a year ago with two of my best friends at Fairmount Park, so when I found out they were going to be in Bethlehem again in August, I jumped at the chance to sign up.

Packet Pickup

Picking up our bibs went super smoothly this time around as well, other than parking at the location (The Banana Factory in Bethlehem). I was a little bummed they were out of pink and purple sunglasses, but we were pretty late picking our stuff up. My family had intended to go to Musikfest after we picked stuff up, but since we were unable to find parking easily we opted to go home and relax and order pizza instead.

Race Day Morning and Shuttle

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Pre-race and color free!

We had registered for the 9:20 wave, but given the Color Me Rad’s lack of real structure (our information said it was no problem if you missed your wave) we decided to leave as early as we could and jump into the first wave. We arrived at parking around 8:10, to be shuttled to the actual race location. It wasn’t too long of a wait to get on a shuttle.

Race Location

As soon as we arrived at Arts Quest, you could see color flying everywhere, but as soon as we stepped off the bus they’re wasn’t much direction as to how to get to the start location. It took a fair amount of meandering around the finish line to make our way to the start, but once we did, we joined the next wave and we were off in a crowd of people.

Right before the start.

Right before the start.

The Race

It was kind of an icky and rainy day unfortunately, but I was determined to not let that bug me, we were off to a quick start, and ran about the first 3/4 mile before taking a break. Pretty much after that, it was too crowded to pick back up pace, but going through the various paint stations was a lot of fun (especially with the pink team who were more enthusiastic than the rest.) Although it was kind of icky, the course was fairly nice (my favorite part was running over a bridge) and although I had trouble finding a bathroom at the start/finish, there was one mid-course (as part of Musikfest)–which wasn’t a problem in the untimed race.

The downfalls? A huge crowd. Those who were trying to run were constantly trying to dodge people so much that we just gave up and walked until the finish.  I would have appreciated different waves for people who were planning on running versus those just walking. I was also extremely annoyed that most people left their empty water bottles alongside the bridge (the water stop was about 2 miles in right before we crossed the bridge for the second time) versus waiting until we crossed it, where there were a lot of recycling  containers. Given that most people were walking, I just found this kind of repulsive.

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Blurry, but the side of the bridge was littered with water bottles.

A long wait to get back to our car was a little annoying as it started to rain (and because there was a whiny teenager in front of us)–but otherwise wasn’t too bad. Overall, while I don’t think I’ll be doing another color run (or other fun run) for a while, it was still a good time.

I'm pretty much always sticking my tongue out in photos.

I’m pretty much always sticking my tongue out in photos.

What do you think of fun races? 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Etc., Reviews, Running Tagged With: , , 2 Comments
July 18, 2013

Philly Love Note: Philadelphia Runner

Here’s my recent Philly Love Note to Philadelphia Runner that was originally posted on Campus Philly.

phillyrun

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Favorite Spot: Philadelphia Runner

I am: A runner practically as slow as a turtle.

Years in Philly: Four

Current Home: Templetown

Back in January, I decided I was going to run the Broad Street Run despite being injured and  never having run much before in my life. I ended up selling my bib to someone else, but I didn’t give up on running. I probably would have though, if it wasn’t for Philadelphia Runner.

Philadelphia Runner is more than just a running supply store. They carry all of the best running gear and running shoes, and they’re great at helping you find what shoe is best for you. Besides being an awesome store, they also serve as a community for runners by hosting events, workshops, and weekly runs. Don’t fret about joining in on these events if you’re just starting out–they’re very beginner friendly. All paces are usually welcome at their weekly runs and other events.

My favorite event is their monthly scavenger hunt, the Urban Scramble. The Urban Scramble starts at their Center City store at 16th and Sansom, where you receive a list with about 10 businesses, which you must run (or walk) to to collect a raffle ticket to be entered for prizes at the final stop. You don’t have to make it to every business, but there’s usually time to make it to most of them even if you’re slow like I am. The course usually covers 4-5 miles and you’re given an hour and five minutes to complete it. It helps if you bring a map of Center City to help plan out your route once you get the list of businesses. Last time I forgot my map and I ended up running right past one of the businesses (oops!) This is my favorite map to use since it covers all of Center City and parts of University City, which are sometimes part of the course.

All raffle tickets are placed in one big bucket at the end. Most of the prizes are from the businesses you’ve picked up tickets from, but there are usually quite a few Philadelphia Runner gift cards given away too. It’s free and a lot of fun to do with a group of friends. At last month’s Urban Scramble (held on June 20th), the final location was the Schuylkill River Trail where Philadelphia Runner hosted a great cookout afterwards.

While they haven’t announced the next Urban Scramble, they’re holding weekly runs throughout the summer. Young Involved Philadelphia is launching a monthly running club with Philadelphia Runner, with the first one on July 16th. The run will be out to Race Street Pier with a post-run happy hour [with the first round of drinks on Philadelphia Runner]. Don’t miss out on a way to network with other young Philadelphians and runners alike.

Whether you’re a seasoned runner or a beginner like me, Philadelphia Runner is a great store to check out both for the products they offer and the great events they host.

Filed Under: Blog, Etc., Running Tagged With: , Leave a Comment
June 25, 2013

Workout Motivation and Ballet Class Slumps

  Workout Motivation helps beat the heat

Everyone has their off weeks, and last week I had a bad one and I’ve seem to lost my workout motivation. Although I got 2.5 miles in on Monday while I was still at home with my sister, I only managed to get in .75 on Wednesday before I started to have knee issues while I was running on the indoor track and decided to quit since the Urban Scramble (a scavenger hunt with a lot of uphills and running on sidewalks) was the next day and I didn’t want to be hurting for that.

Once I got to the Urban Scramble, while my legs were feeling better, I decided to pass on two scavenger stops in University City since they were fairly far away from the other spots and all uphill. We ended up walking a lot of the first 2 miles (I was being pouty as my Garmin wasn’t starting up). We ran the last 1.3 miles roughly when my Garmin magically started working. After that race/scavenger hunt I was extremely sore (I did something wonky to my hip, but I’m not sure what), so Saturday morning ballet was a bit rough. I also woke up extremely tired, so I struggled through most of the class. Sunday became an unintentional rest day.

Yesterday I had the intention of running for 30 minutes on the track, but only got about a mile done since HQ and I didn’t get out the door until about 11, and even the indoor track was brutally hot. Since I had to head into work extremely early this morning, I’m hoping to fit in a bit of spinning plus about a mile on the treadmill and then some easy (if there is such a thing) fartlek training on the track (probably still indoors, the temps are super high here in Philly this week). I just need to pull myself out of this workout slump.

How do you pick yourself back up after a bad week of workouts?

Filed Under: Ballet, Blog, Etc., Running Tagged With: , , , , 3 Comments
June 18, 2013

We’ve Moved!

If you’re reading this, then my process has been successful! I’m still in the process of figuring stuff out, but for now, the majority of posts and other resources on this blog have been moved over to WordPress.org. We’re still accessible at AdultBallerinaProject.com.

I’m still in the process of getting followers moved over from WordPress.com, but that should happen shortly and everyone who was receiving an e-mail update should receive one with the upcoming posts, but this one might not make it.

If you were subscribed to my posts via WordPress’s reader, my posts should still show up in your reader as an RSS feed. I’ll be testing this out shortly and crossing my fingers that it works.

I’ll have another way of subscribing now too: feel free to subscribe via MailChimp, where I’ll send out a weekly newsletter with the news and posts from this week.

The good/awesome news is, I’ll be at an awesome 2 day workshop this week with Girl Develop It Philly to learn the ins and outs of WordPress so that I can make this blog even more awesome.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Etc. Tagged With: , , , , 5 Comments
June 14, 2013

Calling all adult ballerinas, runners, and my bloggers!

I’m currently working on a slight re-branding here at Adult Ballerina Project (with hopefully a move to self-hosting this blog in the future–I know, this means more to me as it means I get to customize more). But don’t worry. I’ll still be posting about ballet (and running too). I’m just working on changing my mission statement and layout and re-organizing a bit.

I’m looking for people to interview and profile like I always have been (but I’m opening up to runners, ballerinas, and bloggers) as well as people who are interested in contributing (or guest blogging), whether it be a one time thing or a regular contributor.

Fill out the Google form here and I’ll get back to you with what the next steps will be!

Filed Under: Blog, Etc., Interviews Tagged With: , , , , , Leave a Comment