Easter Weekend

Happy Easter! Now that I'm older and live so far from home, it's weird to celebrate smaller holidays like this. As a kid I would wake up Easter morning to a basket filled with goodies and a note "signed" by the Easter bunny, with an actual paw print as proof! Then we usually went to church as a family, followed by an Easter egg hunt of some sort. In the days leading up to Easter, we usually dyed and decorated eggs, too. So now that I'm a 22 year old college student hours away from family it's a little harder to celebrate. Not wanting to ignore the holiday altogether, my roommates and I put a college spin on Easter and put on summer dresses and headed downtown to have brunch : ) We ate at a restaurant called Sambo's along the oceanfront, which we often pass on Saturday morning long runs. Known for their breakfast menu, they did not disappoint. I ordered the Santa Barbara omelette with avocado, salsa, a little sour cream, and mushrooms subbed for the bacon, with hashbrowns on the side of course. It was delicious! We also ordered huge mimosas that were quite bubbly and wonderful : )

After brunch we headed back to the car, which happened to be parked next to a small field of grass that was filled with pretty yellow flowers. I immediately had the idea (or maybe it was the mimosa's) to do a photoshoot in the grass, which turned out to be so much fun and had us all laughing most of the time (again, maybe it was the mimosas?). Don't judge us - but feel free to laugh at our posed silliness!!

Now on to running! Yesterday morning the Team met for a fabulous 2 hour 15 minute run from Crane School in Montecito to Leadbetter Beach. It started out a bit chilly but it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day.

As we headed into Santa Barbara we passed the ritzy Biltmore Hotel right in front of the ocean, then ran along a gorgeous flowery bike path looking out over the Pacific - I so wish I had pictures of this!

Then we passed the bird refuge lagoon, hit East Beach and the endless palm trees, and ran along the bike path til Leadbetter before turning around. I felt great the whole run, and focused mainly on consistent pacing over speed since I was running with my roommate Jordan and this was the longest she's ever run! Tom turned up in perfect spots throughout the run and took some awesome photos.

We ended up doing an even 12 miles and actually came in a couple minutes under 2:15. Our average pace was 11:07 and I'm totally happy with it. We charged all the hills and finished strong at the end. Success! All my girls did great, too. A few cut back to 2 hours but still ran a good 10 miles. A couple even did the whole 2:15! I'm so proud of all of them, I knew they could do it : ) We also signed up as a team for the upcoming SB Chardonnay 10 Miler, which actually follows the course we ran yesterday and will be the first official race for many. Can't wait! Hope you all had a fabulous Easter weekend, whatever that may have entailed : )