When I was planning my trip to Charleston and asking friends for recommendations on what to do and where to eat, almost every single person told me the one thing I had to do while I was there was "run the bridge."



The Arthur Ravenel Jr. bridge is a 2.5-mile bridge over the Cooper River that connects Charleston to Mt. Pleasant. It's also the location of the very well-known Cooper River Bridge Run 10K.

I wasn't in town during race weekend, but I figured it was still worth it make time to run the bridge. So Monday morning, Meghan, Michelle and I drove from Michelle's apartment to the base of the bridge to set out on our run.



Let me tell you, running up the Mt. Pleasant side was not so fun. The hill on that side is definitely steeper and I was moving slooooowly.





But the views from the bridge were pretty spectacular.


USS Yorktown from the bridge

After we cruised back down and off the bridge, we looped around under it and ran out on to a little pier that extends into the river.

The sun was shining the entire time we were running, and I actually ended up with some hilarious runner tan lines.

I definitely appreciated the novelty of running over the bridge and loved the views. It was a fun way to kick off my last day in the city.

Hi friends! Sorry to be MIA again. End of semester crunch time over here, but I wanted to pop in and say hi.

Since we've last chatted, I've returned back from my trip to PA with a much better attitude about school, work and life in general. I'm going to credit the spring weather for that one and all the fun things I have planned this month. I swear it's like someone flipped a switch, and I'm a million times happier and feel like myself again.

Other than the weather, here's what I think is contributing to my happiness:

1. Softball is back in my life.



OMG there aren't enough awesome words to describe how happy I am that softball season is back. Every time I talk about softball to someone I word-vomit about its awesomeness and literally can't shut up. The freakish euphoria I get from hanging out with friends and playing this sport is probably extremely off-putting. Sorry friends.

I'm coaching a new team this year with a bunch of work colleagues, and going into the season, I was a little nervous about how things would go, if people would get along, all the general concerns one has when 20 random people show up to play a sport for the first time.

But it's been 100 percent awesome the entire time. I feel like I've made 20 new BFFs. Plus we're good, which helps, because winning is way more fun than losing!

2. Opening Day



Opening Day in Baltimore is one of the most fun days of the year. This year Meghan and I took off work to spend the day in the city. It was definitely the right choice. It was so much fun, in fact, maybe too much fun. It's probably best Opening Day only happens once a year.

3. The Cherry Blossoms

Usually I avoid the cherry blossoms like the freakin' plague because tourists in DC drive me crazy, but this past Sunday I the weather was beyond perfect and I ventured down to the Tidal Basin to check out the trees in peak bloom. The tourists were definitely annoying as heck, but the view from the steps of the Jefferson Memorial made it all worth it. I didn't take a picture, but everything about the view reminded me why I love this city.

The only thing lately that hasn't been rockin' my world is my running.



My long run this weekend was a struggle. I tried to do it on Sunday and my legs were so shot that I turned around after 2.5 miles and walked the remaining 2.5 back home. I tried again on Monday and managed to at least finish the 8 miles that were on my training plan, but it wasn't pretty. I know bad runs happen and all, but a bad long run only a few weeks out from race day makes me nervous.

My training was going really well until my calf issues, and I'm worried that I'm not rebounding very well from that. I'm probably going to make a few tweaks to the amount of rest I'm taking and try to give myself some more recovery time so that I can make sure my remaining long runs are strong.

So this past weekend, I spent a glorious 3.5 days at my parents' house in PA. The trip couldn't have come at a more perfect time since I was going through some serious burnout and desperately needed to escape the city.


Home is where the heart is

I spent a lot of the weekend relaxing, but also did massive amounts of homework, and some running.

My long run on Saturday was 10 miles, and I got to wind through some of my old routes that I used when I was training for my very first marathon.

The first six miles were pretty uneventful. I was cruising along at a pretty decent pace, despite the hilly terrain, and my legs were feeling good. Even my stupid tight calf seemed to be cooperating.

Somewhere around mile 6.5, things on the run took a turn for the small-town interesting.

I was running past a house where two golden retrievers were out front playing kind of in the street and not in the yard. They weren't on a leash and the yard wasn't fenced in, so I ran by with care. Dogs love runners. One of the dogs totally ignored me. The other one ran up to me and started jumping at me. (I should note, not in a menacing going to bite me way, more in a "play with me" way...that is the only reason I did not have an epic meltdown).

I stopped and sort of told the dog to go back home, pointing toward the house. It listened and jogged off.

So I went along my merry way, when I notice the dog has started following me again. By this point I've turned down another road, and the dog is running in and out of the street, all over the sidewalks, up to me hitting me in the leg with its nose.

Luckily, it's a small town and there wasn't a bunch of traffic, but we got to another intersection and the dog darted out in front of some cars. An older gentleman stopped his car. I think he thought the dog was mine and I was letting it run off leash. (No chance I'd be that careless).

I told him it wasn't and that I was going to call the owners listed on the tag. I got the dog to sit down for a second, grabbed its collar and pulled my phone out of my fuel belt. (Guess it's a good thing I run with it). The tag had two numbers and an address in New Jersey. I called both. Both went to voicemail.

At this point, I was a little annoyed at the very careless owners who let their dog run all over the world, didn't pay attention and didn't answer their phones. After some more antics, the dog ran away from me, and there wasn't much I could do. So I headed off on my way.

Until the stupid thing caught up with me again. I turned around, determined to run past the house where it started following me, figuring I'd try to ditch it there. It took me about three tries near that house for the dog to finally stop following me. Mainly because it found another dog to bark at.

I have no idea what happened to the dog. The owners never called me back even though I'd left two messages. I have some not so nice thoughts about the owners, and I hope the dog is OK.

Turns out, in my running up and down the road the dog lived on a few times, I racked up about a half a mile of running.

As I took off to finish my 10, I could tell my good groove was gone. Things were tight and my pace was slowing. Thanks a lot careless dog owners!

Not more than half a mile later, I was trying to motivate myself to pick up the pace when a poor, very lost driver pulled up next to me and asked me for directions. Man only in a small town could I possibly be stopped this many times on one run for weird stuff.

I stopped, dropped my hands to my knees and was sucking wind while trying to tell him where to go.

After that, my running mojo was gone. The last three miles of the run were not good. I hit the wall hard at mile 9 and ended up doing a lot of walking. But I eventually made it back home, rounding out a 10 mile run.

It was more eventful than I ever expected.

I have never been so happy to put a month in my review mirror. March was just awful. The weather sucked, work was beyond stressful and school just about made me want to cry. It was all around a really, really hard month for me mentally.

April, on the other hand, is going to be beyond awesome. Softball season starts, Opening Day is upon us, I have a great trip to the South planned. It's going to be so awesome.

So let's quick recap March and then move on to April.

Sports

My Terps made a nice run in the tournament. We bowed out in a heartbreaking loss to West Virginia, but man it was a fun season to watch the Terps.


Gamewatch for the B1G tournament

And with Melo coming back next year and Diamond Stone committing to the Terps, we are going to be so good!


Watching our first tournament win.

Also caught my first Caps game of the season, finally.



In terms of rec league sports, volleyball wrapped up a few weeks ago. Our team didn't win a game all season. Oof. But it's all good. Softball season starts on Monday, and my team had a practice last week, and man we are going to be good!

Miles

I did a ton of running in March! The month started with the St. Patty's Day double (5K and 10K) and then I quickly rolled into half marathon training.



In total, I think I've run about 40 miles this month before I ran into my calf issues and had to take some time off. Not bad at all for not running much in January or February. I was hoping March would bring some warmer weather, and while I did get to do a run or two in shorts, most of my runs were still in my cold gear.





Books

Thanks to my spring break, I was able to actually do a decent amount of reading this month. Here's what I read, with my brief Goodreads summaries.

Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty

I read this book after reading Moriarty's other two big books, and this book is definitely more deep and a little bit darker. I think this is my favorite of the three of read. It was a good read with more substance than the other two books and tackled a serious issue like domestic violence as seen (or not seen in some cases) through a group of friends.

What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty

I like a book with a good happy ending, and spoiler alert, this book had one. The premise was kind of ridiculous though. A woman falls at the gym, hits her head and forgets 10 years of her life, including the fact that she's going through a divorce. Then suddenly a couple of hundred pages later, the memory is back, the marriage is basically fixed and we're out. Light, fluffy and a little bit silly, but I still enjoyed it.

Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand

I'm not a huge nonfiction reader, but I couldn't put this book down. The story was fascinating and captivating and tragic. Highly recommend.

Where She Went - Gayle Forman

This is the sequel to If I Stay, which I read earlier this year. I mainly read this because I wanted to know how the story ended all those years later. This was told from Adam's POV this time around and was a quick and easy read. Didn't love it. Didn't hate it.

Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

I have yet to meet a Rainbow Rowell book I haven't liked. This book might actually be my favorite so far. It's about a girl and her twin sister as they start their first year at college. One girl is super outgoing and fits right in, the other is quiet, shy and feels like she doesn't belong. She prefers to write her fanfiction and hide from her social anxiety. Great story, loved the characters, never wanted it to end.

Attachments - Rainbow Rowell

I loved the format of this book. Half of it was told through emails and the other half was told from the point of view of a tech guy who was hired to real all the emails for security purposes. This book was obviously set a while back when companies were first getting email, but it was a fun story. Rainbow Rowell tells really good stories.

The Best of Me - Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks' books always make me want to pick up and move to a small Southern town. This book was heart-wrenching and now of course I want to see the movie. Super fast read, really good.

Looks

True story pretty much forgot to take pictures of any of my outfits until the very last day of the month. That was a fail.



But here's something I threw together when I was desperately trying to get some color into my outfits!

And that's a wrap for March. Good riddance you terrible month. Bring on all the awesomeness of April!