Fourth of July Weekend/Race Recap

This past Fourth of July weekend was amazing! I had such a good time hanging out with family and friends, eating good food, watching fireworks and running the "4 on the 4th" 4 miler race. Be warned there are going to be a ton of pictures in this post! I left my house Sunday evening and went to meet my sister-in-law Karen at the movie theatre with some friends. We all watched Monte Carlo. I thought it was a very cute movie, but I also like Selena Gomez as an actress. After that, we left and went to McCallister's and I had a salad there, but I will post about that tomorrow. We stayed there for a few hours just talking and laughing and then we headed home since we were running 4 miles in the BLAZING heat the next day!

The last time that I ran this particular race was 2 years ago and it started at 8 a.m. I had not been training that long and Karen said, let's do a 4 mile race, I will run with you! I had not even ran more than 2 miles. I must have been crazy, and I pretty much was. We finished the race in 53 minutes. I have ran 6 miles faster than that since then! After that race, I said I would never run it again.....UNTIL NOW!!! 
We got up that morning and headed out for the race.

Before the race began!! 

The super hero's/women and I! 

And we are off!!!!!! 

The race was VERY good! It was way better than last year and I was so excited about that. The last time I thought I was going to have a heat stroke. They had one water station at mile 1.5 where I took advantage of it. I managed around a 10 minute mile which is what I was pretty well going for. I had been running in the heat lately just for this particular race. Nothing on me hurt, and I felt good while I was running. After mile two whenever I was coming back it was quite hot because the sun was glaring in my eyes. I am so thankful that I had my ryder sunglasses. They saved me! On the second water station on the way back I asked for two glasses of water and I dumped one of them on my head. It felt so much better because my head felt like I could fry an egg on it.

Here I come. I am almost there! 

I finished in 43 minutes. I was so excited whenever I saw my time, because I realized that I had finished not 5 minutes, but 10 minutes faster than my old time!! Wooohoooo I could not believe it. I didn't feel like I pushed myself as hard as I could have, but I did not want to overdue it! My knee did not hurt afterwards, so that made me even more happy!

We did kind of feel like throwing up from the heat! 

This guy juggled the whole way! 

I finished and now it is time to chill out! 

Crackle Barrel for the longest porch picture! 

We ate at Crackle Barrel and we helped the make the longest porch. Every picture that is sent in, Crackle Barrel will send so much money to the Operation Freedom soldiers. It is a really neat thing to do!
Now it was time to get cleaned up and hang out with good food and family for the July 4th festivities.





Just check out all this delicious food that we had!!!!!

yummy fruit dip and fresh vegetables. Recipe coming later. 

Fresh Vegetables!! 

 Does this food just not make your mouth water????? Holy YUMMINESS!!!!

Potato Salad, deviled eggs, and watermelon

hamburgers, sausage, chicken, vegetable skewers!! 

Coming tomorrow I will update you on my meals this past weekend/week.

After consuming lots of yummy food, we hung out and talked and took a few more pictures.

Maxin and Relaxin!!! 

Brian finally showed up. He had to work, and I was so happy to finally have him with me.

Brian's family! 

Brother-in-laws!!! 

I know what you are thinking, "How many more pictures does she have????"

Just a few more, so bare with me please! Up next we went and watched the fireworks downtown. Where I live they are having a huge burn ban and people were not even allowed to sell fireworks, so this was a huge treat for us to be able to watch them! 

This makes me think of Disney!!!! 

That concludes my 4th of July weekend. I hope everybody had as great of weekend as I did. Coming up tomorrow I will update you with my calorie foods and what I have been eating.

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Have you seen Karen @ Just me and My Running Shoes giveaway for a Everyday Health My Calorie Counter Guide. It is really neat. Go check it out and enter her giveaway!!! 


Question: What did you do for the 4th of July this year? 
Please see above. :0)