Wedding Recap, Part 4: Pre-Game Show!

Everyone had always told me that wedding day was my day. So I thought, well if this is my day, I am going to kick it off with one of my all-time favorite workouts: the Palos Verdes loop run. You see, the place where I grew up and where we had our wedding is a beautiful little peninsula, and one can circumnavigate it in about 21.5 miles. Most people do this by bike as opposed to foot, because there is almost no flat involved here and thus running isn’t too quick or efficient.

But it sure is fun!

That’s me getting ready to run with a 4-shot soy latte in hand. And my special “wedding run” dress and compression socks that BFF Amanda had made for the occasion. Seriously, there was nothing my girls did not think of for this weekend. Have I mentioned that they are AMAZING?!??!

Amanda was a bit under the weather and played SAG for the crew, which was awesome, as I am very accustomed to doing this run just me and my camelbak—so we were quite spoiled!

Like I said, this run is definitely not for everyone, but what was so cool was that on our special day, almost all of the athletes who had come for the wedding ran at least the first few miles together—even Super Tara, at 29 weeks pregnant! My HERO!!!

That’s her and the Dooder, who of course led the way for the whole run!

And speaking of heroes, our resident super stud runner, Ashley, did the whole bonanza with us as her last long run before Olympic Marathon Trials this Saturday. She’s the tiny blonde in the black tights above….and the better half of Mr. Black Compression Socks below.

This is my usual fuel stop, in Miraleste Plaze, on top of our hill. It was surreal to be there with a bunch of my BFFs! Mere of course also joined for the full loop, which, by the way, was about a mile longer than normal since I added on a bit of extra scenery. Although Mere and I are connected multiple times per day via crackberry, it is not often that we get to catch-up chat for hours at a time, and we got that on this run—such a treat. This doesn’t mean, however, that we were lollygagging—at least not by my standards! We ended up finishing the loop faster than I have ever done it, even including our bonus mile. . . .

No slacking on wedding day!!

Post-run, I whipped up a Vega shake for Muffin, GCM, and I, and slammed that sucker in conjunction with a leftover gluten-free/vegan cupcake from the previous day’s luncheon. Then it was time for a quick shower before makeup and all that business.

I caved and allowed for professional makeup (god knows I need it), but there was too much training to be done to have time for professional hair + makeup extravaganzas! Plus, who needs a hairstylist when she has a BFF like this?!?

Yep, that’s Mere jack-of-all-trades Kessler, who was officially in charge of the wedding hairstyle. And that’s me, double-fisting the water and coffee, as per usual.

And that’s our friend and wedding photog, Eric (real professional photos from him to be shared here eventually) and BFF from all the way back to my college days at University of Michigan, Ems, who is also a professional triathlete now. We were loving our hot-pink TYR sweats!

True friend. Yes she is indeed applying my deodorant for me, and I am about to relinquish my crackberry to her for the evening. Now that is trust.

Cat waiting to see his bride! (It really was that foggy—boo.)

Reunited!

And off for pics . . .

Tomorrow the GCM and I head to Houston to support Ashley in the Trials on Saturday! I am coming out of my skin with excitement! A running website just did an awesome profile on Ashley; I was inspired just reading it. Check it out here.

Let me just say right now that I am definitely not too proud to go full-on stalkerazzi on all those skinny runners. Soooooooo if there is anyone you particularly want pictures of, let me know and I will do my best! We will be all over the course cheering. I cannot wait!