National Running Day = Zoo day?

Yesterday was National Running Day, and tons of my friends and other runners were running to celebrate.  Wednesday is normally my cross-training day, so I had a dilemma.  Stick with the normal plan or deviate.  Turns out, I kind of did both.


When I woke up that morning, the LAST thing I wanted to do was to go to the gym for a stair climber workout followed by Spin Class (which is what my color coded schedule said).  It was a gorgeous day, so after some ingenious deliberation....I decided that we needed a zoo day.  No evil plot is complete without collaborators though.  So, I texted one of my favorite people to see if she was in.

Wait a minute.  I didn't get a text.

She was in!  So, I met Sarah and her baby at the zoo at 10am and we enjoyed Mommy chat time while pushing the kiddos in their strollers.  


After a couple hours, we stopped by the Eagles for a quick diaper change for both kiddos.  I swear the Eagles were eyeing the kiddos as potential treats....

I'm protecting Charlotte from the Eagles, honest.

We have decided that Avery and Charlotte will be besties, and have already developed a plan of action for when each one tells their parents that they are at each other's house...when they're really meeting boys or something.

Seriously lady, I'm way too cute to do something so nefarious.

We enjoyed the lunches I packed for us, a cat show complete with cheetah and dog act, petted some flamingos and ate some dippin' dots.

Charlotte. They got ice cream while we were sleeping.  I say we pay them back by screaming in the middle of the night.

It really was an awesome day at the zoo.  The weather was perfect and so was the company.


It wasn't all fun and games yesterday though.  Instead of just napping all evening, I sucked it up and did my mountain training workout.  I went back to the damn dam steps with a 37 lb pack.  Unfortunately, a giant cloud of gnats also was working out on the steps.  EW!  If trying to avoid swallowing gnats is good training for Rainier - check that one off!

I swear there were millions of them - even if they don't show in this picture looking down the steps.

I persevered though, and made it up and down the steps 15x before it got too dark.  I focused on the mountain rest step and on getting more times completed in the one hour time frame then we did in Saturday's workout.  I  also got a nice sunset view over Alum Creek lake at the top of the dam as well.

A view worth the gnat cloud?

Despite no running on National Running Day, I still had a pretty nice day....until Avery fulfilled her late night screaming promise.  The upside of the late night screaming???  She actually slept in until 7:15am today!  (And, I cancelled my 5:30am run around midnight when I realized how things were going, so I also got to sleep in!)


Did you run for National Running Day?


What's your favorite animal at the zoo?


Do you ever feel like the animals at the zoo are less than pleased with you and want to get you?  Both the bald eagles and a gorilla gave us this impression yesterday!