Hotcake Hustle (and weekend) Recap

Saturday morning I ran the Hotcake Hustle 5K/10K in Addison, TX.  Not only was this my first race of 2013, it was the first time in my entire racing career that I have changed my mind about the distance I would run while standing in line for the race to begin.  Overall it was a good race but I was disappointed that I could not stick around for the hotcakes from the Orignal Pancake House afterwards because I had to hustle off to a prior appointment.

Let me explain why I signed up for the 10K, changed my mind and decided to run the 5K, then changed it again and decided to run the 10K approximately 5 minutes before the gun went off at the start of the race.  To be honest, it all has to do with my hair.  When I signed up for this race last month, I forgot that I had also scheduled an appointment that same day for a haircut and highlight.  Earlier this week my stylist texted me to make sure I could make my 10:00 AM appointment.  I quickly checked the start time of the race and realized that it did not start until 8:30 AM.  Uh oh.

IF the race started on time and IF I managed to run the 10K in about an hour and IF I did not stick around for pancakes after the race, then there was a chance I could make my hair appointment as long as I drove straight there in my sweaty race clothes.  4 Real: I was so worried about making it to my hair appointment on time that I considered dropping down to the 5K.

Oh, this is not the first time that my hair has got in the way of my exercise plans.  Before I cut my hair short, I used to use my hair as an excuse to skip my lunchtime workouts!  I’m really not that vain, this time I just knew it would be weeks before I could reschedule my appointment and I did not want to wait that long!

When I arrived at the race Saturday morning, I met up with some friends who were also running the 5K.  Then I saw some girls from church and went over to say hello and to take some pre-race pictures.  When I asked what distance they were running, they all told me they were running the 10K!  I felt shamed for skipping out on the distance I had signed up to run, just so I would have time to eat pancakes before getting my haircut!

So as we walked over to the start line, I changed my mind.  I would run the full 6.2 miles!  It was a surprisingly warm and humid morning for January, with temperatures around 65 degrees at the start of the race.  It was a fairly easy course that included two loops for the 10K with a couple of long, slow inclines over the bridge.  Since it is a popular, family friendly race there was a crowd of people at the start line and we ended up weaving around people for most of the first 1 – 2 miles.  It helped that we started slow and steadily increased our pace.   Not a big fan of courses that loop because it can get boring, however I enjoyed the chance to run with friends and we chatted almost the entire race which always makes the time fly by.

Then I glanced at my watch and realized it was almost 9:20 and I had almost two miles to go.  I told the girls that if I disappeared, it was because I needed to get to my hair appointment on time.  Slowly I increased my speed as I climbed the last incline over the bridge, then I basically sprinted the last mile.  My finish time was just over 1 hour and which is a great time considering we started so slow.

At the finish line I grabbed a water, my finisher cup and walked straight towards the pancake line.  It was waaaaayyyyy to long so I just jogged to my car and drove to my hair salon, where I arrived at a punctual 10:03 AM.  In my sweaty running clothes and frizzy race hair.  Luckily my stylist did not mind and got me looking beautiful (meaning she covered up my roots and trimmed off my dead ends) in just over an hour.  Did I mention that I wore my new crazy adiaero pants, pink tank and pink & purple Karhu running shoes to the race?  When I showed up for my appt, I told my stylist that I was the most colorful person she was going to see in her chair all day (maybe all week).

THE REST OF THE WEEKEND…

After getting my spanking new hair-do, I met Trey and the kids at a birthday party at Cosmic Jump which is basically a huge room covered in trampolines.  The kids had so much fun playing at the party and it was a great way to tire them out for the day.  Once I was home, I showered and got ready for date night with Trey.  We have been sticking to our plan of eating clean all week and having one “cheat” meal on the weekends.  Since Trey’s request for a cheat meal was a burger and fries, I picked Liberty Burger on Keller Springs for an early dinner.  Not gonna lie, I picked the Keller Springs location because I saw they had a full bar and I wanted a my post race beer!

Trey is less than thrilled when I make him sit there while I take pictures of our food.  He is used to it by now and is a pretty good sport about it, but he was HUNGRY and ready to eat his burger!

The Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday and it made me realize that we have not been to a movie (unless you count Hotel Transylvania at the dollar theater, which I don’t think counts) in months.  I want to see several of the movies that are nominated for best motion picture including Lincoln, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook.  When I suggested that we see one of these movies over the weekend, Trey was thrilled!  His picks were Lincoln and Argo while I was leaning towards Silver Linings Playbook.  We arrived at the Angelika at about 6:30 on Saturday night and it was packed!  I am sure everyone else had the same idea we had to see the nominated movies, because Lincoln and Argo were sold out.  Luckily we got tickets to Silver Linings Playbook which was really, really good (and I am not just saying that because Bradley Cooper was in the film).

When we were planning date night, Trey and I realized that we have different ideas for our cheat meal.  Trey wanted a really good burger or pizza while I wanted dessert.  So we compromised and had burgers before the movie and dessert after the movie.  Last week I saw a picture of hot chocolate from La Duni on Dallas Foodie’s instagram feed, so I decided to check out their coffee and dessert menus.  Yeah, without question, I could get my dessert cheat “on” at La Duni.

So after the movie, we drove to the McKinney Avenue location and each ordered a specialty coffee.  Since we could not decide which of their delicious and award-winning cakes we wanted to order, we settled on the cake sampler which is four half slices of cake.  Wow, I think I fell into a sugar coma just looking at the platter that arrived at our table.

Going clockwise from the top left, the cakes we ordered were the Rollo de Canela Y Nuez; Venezuelan Rum, Pastry cream and Chocolate Truffle cake; Venezuelan Triple Chocolate Truffle cake and the Nutella Milk Chocolate cake. Even though we only get one cheat meal a week, there was no way we could eat all of the cake.  We did taste all of them so we could decide which one was our favorite.  Mine was the Triple Chocolate Truffle cake and Trey loved the Nutella Milk Chocolate cake.  We took the rest of the cake home, where I wrapped it up and put it in the freezer for another cheat day.

Sunday morning, even though cheat day was officially over, I was still craving the pancakes that I missed out on after the race so I decided to make my own.  Trey was at church and the kids were still at their grandparents, so I made “Single Girl Pancakes” from the Joy the Baker cookbook.  Simple, buttermilk pancakes that I got to enjoy all by myself… they were delicious! Now back to eating clean and exercising for the rest of the week!

How did you spend your weekend?  Are you sticking to your goals or resolutions for the New Year? What Oscar nominated movie do you want to see?

Tagged as: 4 Real, Date Nights, food, Pancakes, Race recaps, Running