We arrived in Hawaii yesterday, and I could not be more excited to be here!
Yesterday was my 35th birthday, and so far this birthday tops any other birthday celebration: being in Maui + my family + my sister and brother-in-law = unforgettable!
This wasn’t a trip for my birthday–we just happened to find the best tickets to leave that day. We are here for a fun vacation! This is my and Craig’s 3rd trip to Maui. (You can do a search for ‘Maui’ on the blog to find multiple posts from each trip.) Kristy and Nick have never been before, so we are enjoying showing them around.
I requested we eat at Cool Cats Cafe for my birthday dinner, as I have been craving a burger from there for 6 years since our first trip to Hawaii. (Check out my dark hair in that post!) They seriously have the best burgers, so you must eat there if you go to Maui.
Sunday morning, I ran a local 5K race. It was a great race and well organized, but I did have to chuckle a little at the small-town feel it had. Going into this race, I wasn’t even nervous and had very little expectations for my performance. I ended up running a 20:43 time, which is a 6:40 average. Mile 0.5 – 2 miles was a gradual uphill and strong winds! The last mile was a gradual downhill with the wind on our backs, which explains why my splits were all over the place. I placed 2nd for the women, which was fun!
Splits – 6:22, 7:35, 6:04
Craig ran the race too! He didn’t have a great race because his hamstring tightened up within the first half mile, and he’s a fair-weather runner so has been doing very little running back in Anchorage, but I am still happy he joined me and finished the race.
After the race, we headed to the beach and proceeded to spend the next several hours there. Cullen loved playing in the sand and going in the water with someone. We knew he would be pretty timid around the water, but as long as he had a death-grip on someone, he absolutely loved it. The only downside was that all of us Alaskans got pretty burnt–especially Craig and Cullen. And then Cullen proceeded to cry when it was time to leave because he was having so much fun.
For a late lunch, we went to the Maui Brewing Company and the food was absolutely amazing! I had the avocado toast and a kale salad, which were both so delicious!
My body was made for this weather–too bad I never get to wear these clothes in Alaska.
t-shirt | shorts | sandals | sunglasses
The last week and a half before going to Maui, I was so ready to get out of Anchorage–for my sanity more than anything! I hardly ran at all because we got dumped on with snow. We got about 2 feet of snow in a 5 day period, and for some reasons the city of Anchorage is terrible with their snow removal, so I threw the towel in on running and just laid low for a few days.
There was a lot of indoor running. I did a tempo/marathon paced workout at The Dome one morning that went really well. My watch doesn’t pick up a good signal inside the Dome, so I don’t know for sure what my splits were, but this is what I was shooting for:
4 x [4 minutes @ tempo (6:20), 4 minutes @ marathon pace (6:50)]
I’ve also had to take my runs to the treadmill. While I definitely do not love the treadmill, I’ve grown to be okay with it once a week. I’ve found listening to podcasts helps the time go by faster than a lot of other things. I especially love these podcasts: C Tolle Run, I’ll Have Another, and Ali on the Run. All are female hosts who talk to other runners, and I love the casual chats they have.
We had one exciting afternoon of moose-watching from our living room. This moose is definitely used to people. (And you can see Cullen’s face in the nose of the moose.) She was munching on our bushes for about 15 minutes, and then laid down in our front yard for a couple of hours before she left again.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I’ll be checking in with another Maui post, so stay tuned!
