Location Scouting & Kissy-Faces

Even though our wedding is over a year away, we’ve started the planning process. We’re going to need longer than usual since we basically have one week a month for the next 12 months to get everything accomplished! While we were home in May, we scheduled our engagement photos, got our outfits together, and scouted a few locations.

We knew we wanted our pictures done in the summer so we had limited weekends to choose from since we only get back to the area once a month. Once we confirmed the date with our photographer, we I started planning our outfits for the day. We have two hours so I wanted three outfits, one formal and two casual. My entire wardrobe came from Dress and Dwell. If I ever win the lottery, more than 50% of my winnings will be spent at that store. We stopped at the outlet malls on our way back to Pittsburgh this weekend and found The Boy some new shirts so that he will look all spiffy for the pictures. 

Justin suggested Bernheim Forest for our photo location. He worked there while he was in High School so he knew all of the cool places. I’ve only been there once or twice and couldn’t for the life of me remember what anything looked like. While we were in town for Memorial Day we went down and did some scouting. We found some cool spots and took some high quality iPhone pictures so that we could remember all of the places we stopped in.

Prepare yourself...we are super photogenic people :)

Justin's best kissy-face

We're weird like that...

Engaged/Married People: Do you have any tips or tricks we should keep in mind during our photo session?

Do you live near a state park?

I really want to go back and run some of the trails we saw while we were at Bernheim!

A 5K & Track Workout - Who Am I?

This has been an awesome running week. On Saturday, I ran the Strawberry Festival 5K. It’s a hilly course, but you can have strawberry shortcake as soon as you finish…totally worth the 3.1 miles of hills!

I didn’t get to run this race last year so I was super excited to warm up, stretch, and race with my favorite people. The race starts at St. John’s and runs through Starlight, Indiana. I haven’t raced a 5K in a while so I didn’t have many expectations. I knew that I would go out way too fast and most likely struggle with the hills. I didn’t have a goal time, but knew that I wanted to be under 27 minutes.

Race Splits:

Mile 1: 8:04

Mile 2: 8:16

Mile 3: 8:28

Last .1: 0:48

Race time: 25:36

I was pumped. I guess all of that hill running in Pittsburgh is starting to pay off! Also - strawberry Shortcake - perfect for refueling!

The Clarksville Summer Running Series started on Wednesday. When I was living here, you could find me at the Track every Wednesday during the summer. I didn’t get to run any of these events last year either so I was glad the first week of the series fell while I was in town. The workout is a relay/partner event. This week it was a 2 Person 5K. We decided to do 400s. I realized while we were warming up that I hadn’t done a track workout since 2012…yikes! I consulted with the expert, Coach Chuck, who told me I should be around 1:45s. I have no idea how I managed it, but here were my splits:

1:35     1:35     1:38     1:41     1:40     1:42

Whew! My legs were KILLING me on Thursday morning…and now I am craving more speed work. I’m going to have to figure out how to fit it into my routine in the ‘burgh this summer.

What is your favorite summer time dessert?

Church festivals: Love them or hate them?

What’s your favorite track workout?