Boom, first amazing things – these mugs!
These are the coolest mugs I’ve ever seen. (On the back, they have your distance – 26.2 or 13.1) And they were only five dollars! What?
I don’t usually make purchases at expos, ’cause golly, I’d be poor by now, right? I totally splurged today, though. I bought a mug – an amazing mug that I’ve taken home and use all the time. (I don’t know that I’ve ever owned a mug before. Yay!)
Speaking of splurging, let’s get it all out of the way now. I also paid for a massage. I justified it to myself ’cause it was only 15 minutes. It wasn’t too terribly expensive, and I had done 39.3 miles in the week thus far. It was a good, helpful massage.
Lastly on the money front (yes indeed, I did spend even more money), I registered for Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona. I wasn’t positive if I was going to tack on a “celebration race” at the end of my 52 half marathons in 52 weeks. But let’s get real. I knew I wanted to do it. End where I started. End with a Rock ‘n’ Roll race. (It’s cheaper to register for them at expos.) A lot of it makes a lot of sense to me.
(The only reason I was hemming and hawing about it is because the best part of last year’s race was hanging out with my truly incredible friend, Taylor. Now, she lives in Georgia. She’s actually planning on coming down to the Disney World marathon to cheer me on! Then I was kind of of the mindset of “start with Taylor, end with Taylor?” “Disney’s gonna be a freaking huge event. I don’t know if it’s super necessary to go out with another bang.”
Nonetheless, I took the plunge and registered for the race. I like the Rock ‘n’ Roll series, and I have all of the other North American heavy medals besides the Double Down. So, why not, right?)
I also got these $2 “throw-away” gloves at one booth. (I put throw-away in parenthesis, ’cause they seem like fine gloves to me that I don’t plan on tossing aside.) The booth said all the glove money went to charity (bonus). I need constant reminders that places get cold. Even though I was in Seattle, it would’ve never crossed my mind to prepare for the cold if it hadn’t been for the booth. (Sorry I don’t remember name of said booth, but thank you.)
Besides the fact that I apparently spent a billion dollars at the expo, I met Aimee and Shane with Vibrance Nutrition and Fitness that had a sign saying “Drinking chocolate milk after Sunday’s race is like putting cheap gas in your Ferrari!!”
This was a big shock, considering how much chocolate milk is touted as the most awesome thing ever at practically every race I ever run. I haven’t looked into Vibrance Nutrition, but I am a little interested in hearing more about their philosophy.
However, if there’s one thing I think we’ve all gathered from my blog throughout the year, it’s that I don’t really know anything about nutrition and I’m horrible at learning about ’cause lots of people say lots of different things and I’ll never know how to sort that all out.
Speaking of food and drink, I tried this Sparkling Ice flavored water. I’m not big on flavored water. I love water. It doesn’t need any extra flavor to me.
(Granted, I don’t really have a sense of smell, which greatly affects my sense of taste. Maybe that’s why I don’t care about water tasting differently. Everything is more about texture to me than taste.)
The Sparkling Ice booth was a really fun booth, with a really energetic, cute mascot. I tried the water, and it was actually pretty good. It was a little carbonate-y, which was a little shock party to my mouth. Still good, though.
One other fun little cute thing they had – in expos, there’s often an area where you go over a timing mat to make sure your chip is working correctly and is assigned to the right person. At this one, you got a little encouraging message on the screen next to your name!
“Enjoy the sights!” “Set a PR!” “is carbo loading tonight!” Cute stuff.