Bill and I started our morning with a hike to Cascades Falls. It’s a beautiful waterfalls not too far from Blacksburg. I can’t believe that I hadn’t been there since my freshman year, and Bill and I had never hiked up there together. I’ll write more about our hike next week…
Once we got back to Blacksburg, we met Julie and her roommate Cassy at a local sports bar to watch the VT vs ECU game (it was an away game). It was a slug-fest (the game, not our lunch), and had us nervous until the very end. We ended up eking out a win, but barely.
Now on to the race expo…
There were lines when we got to packet pickup, but they moved very quickly…
Once we got our race packet, we checked out the race expo. It was pretty small, but it is a first time race. They had a pretty wide assortment of things to buy from a local running store, and local chiropractor was performing active release on anyone interested.
Swirlgear had a booth set up. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about them recently, and I was happy to see their merchandise in person. I will definitely be looking into this more closely!
This little rack of maroon and orange running clothes was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen certainly caught my eye! Don’t faint, but I didn’t buy anything…
Cassy and Julie showed off their race shirts for me. I kind of like the 5K shirt better…
Here’s the half marathon shirt and bag. The 5K runners got an orange bag…
Here’s a close-up of the shirt logo. I give it a resounding, “Meh!” My long sleeve shirt fits, but the sleeves only come to the middle of my forearm. Bill’s shirt barely comes down to the top of his shorts. We have not had very good luck this year in getting the right sizes for our race shirts.
For dinner we played the ultimate lazy card! We ordered carryout from Zeppoli’s Italian Restaurant (they don’t deliver), and ate in our room while watching more college football! That’s my kind of night!
It’s bed time since the race starts at 7 AM. See you tomorrow evening with a race recap!
- Questions:
- What’s the best race expo you’ve ever attended?
- What’s your favorite Italian dish? ~ I get spaghetti and meatballs because it’s pretty easy on my stomach.
- Who’s racing tomorrow?
I’ve been thinking about you all day! Hope the prep was just right and that you enjoy tomorrow!
Thanks! We’re ready and heading over shortly! 🙂
Ooh I haven’t been up to the cascades in awhile! Its so pretty up there. And yesterday was perfect weather for a hike.
I like the 5K shirts better, too. Oh well. And I tried on my shirt and the sleeves don’t make it to my wrist. I’ve also had bad luck with race shirts this year. I wish they had told us for this race they were going to have women’s sizes. When it doesn’t say I assume its unisex.
See you in a little bit for the race!
See you soon! 🙂
You’re getting ready to run in 30 minutes but GOOD LUCK!
Thank you! It was awesome and I’ll hopefully write a recap tonight. How did your DIVAS Half go? I haven’t had time to see if you’ve written a recap yet.
I like the 5k shirt better too! I hope you guys had a great race!!! 🙂
It was awesome!!! 🙂
I have actually never been to a race expo! My first one is in 18 days!
I haven’t met an Italian dish I didn’t like. For something simple, I think penne a la vodka. Nom.
No races this weekend.
We’ll be talking again on 11/9, I believe, for some football smack. 😉
I hope your race has a good expo for you check out! Some of them are really cool.
My Hokies are going to have to improve a lot in order for me to be doing the smack talk because they haven’t looked too good this year…
Hope the race went well today! I like the 5km shirt better too but oh well, what can you do. They wouldn’t let you exchange your shirt sizes at the expo? That’s what I usually do bc i never order the right size either.
Thanks! It was great!!!
They were not allowing people to exchange shirts at the expo, but did take down my husband’s information in case they had extras to exchange. I even asked about returning at 9 PM when the expo was closing to exchange it, but they said they were doing it via the list… They had a LONG list!
Hope you had a great race! Can’t wait to read the recap. I have a light fall schedule; with the blindfolded Thunder Road Half just two months away, I figured that was best. Cascade Falls is beautiful! I just hiked 60 miles in Wyoming, and one of my favorite hikes was in Jackson Hole’s Cascade Canyon. As for Italian food, I’m pretty limited by a migraine prevention diet (aged cheese and marinara sauce are triggers), which stinks, because I love all of it! But I’ve learned to cope, and I love tossing fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil with whole wheat noodles and fresh veggies the night before a race.
Thanks! The race was great and I hope to get the recap up later this evening.
We love Jackson Hole and hiking up Cascade Canyon! Our hike up to Lake Solitude is probably my all-time favorite!
Your pasta dish with fresh veggies sounds delicious!
We loved Jackson Hole! We were disappointed that we didn’t make it to Lake Solitude, but that gives us a a reason to go back. 🙂
Next time you should make sure you have the time; it’s a long, but beautiful hike! I wrote about our hike to Lake Solitude in a post in August called Honeymoon Hiking. You can check it out if you’re interested… 😉
I just read your Honeymoon Hiking post and suggested a couple of other hikes in Jackson Hole in Utah. Thanks for sharing! And we’ll definitely make the rest of the trip to Solitude the next time we go to Jackson Hole. We didn’t take the Jenny Lake boat, so we didn’t want to push the envelope with my ankle and make the entire 19.6-mile trip. But your photos gave me one more reason to want to go back!
Those hikes will go on our list for when we go back out to Wyoming!
Cool – happy trails! 🙂
That looks like a decent expo. I can’t believe you didn’t get any VT stuff! LOL I hope your race went well!
I’ve only ever had one race that had an expo and it was just alright.
Favorite Italian dish…hmmm…definitely lasagna.
I had my race today but it was a miserable failure. You can read my update if you’re at all interested. Long story short, I’m definitely talking to the doc about my leg. No more self-diagnosing and visiting Dr. Google.
Oh no, I’m so sorry that your leg is still acting up. I love that you call it Dr. Google. That’s hilarious!
Ohhh, can’t wait to hear about your race and hike to the Cascades! We LOVE that hike, and I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve done that hike. Sometimes we’d do it as a hike/run. Bean has been, but we need to take Monkey now that she’s older.
We talked as we were hiking up that we want to run it sometime. Of course that would have been a very bad idea the day before our race! 😉