Zooma Annapolis Women's Race 2013

Finish Line

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18:22 - In Spring 2013, I decided to get healthy, super healthy. In that vein of thought, I signed up for a 10k race. I have mastered a 5k and have participated in a a couple of 8k races. Those last 2ks were going to be tough. Before this journey, I let myself go. Basically, I could not run more than a mile. Actually, I could run less than a mile. My muscles cramped up when I ran about 0.75 miles. I thought I was seriously injured the first time this happened. I was not, but I did need to build up.

Swag Bag!

The build up was intense and so was the DC heat. I picked out a training plan. I never picked out a plan before. I mean I have always been able to run my races, except the 5k in grad school. I blame that race a victim of the night before. They didn't even have the ice cream left when I finished. This race was going to be different. I had been dieting and sticking to the plan.

I signed up for the Zooma Annapolis Women's Race Series. We decided to make a weekend of it with me running it and Rob actually running it. He volunteered to be the turn around guy for the 10k people. The race had both half-marathon and 10k runs. Rob was the guy who had us 10k gals turn around so we didn't run 13.1 miles.  We stayed in a nice bed and breakfast to make sure we can get to the start line in time.

Spoiler alert: I finished!

The day of the race was blazing hot! Annapolis unlike the usual coastal towns I have been in is hilly. The hills took me by surprise. I mostly trained on flat surfaces in DC. Despite all of this, I finished the race. I hurt my foot, but I did finish! The race was a lot of fun. I like doing "women's runs." Everyone dresses up nicely and is really pumped to run. This helps a lot when you are not sure you can actually finish the race.

Brew At The Zoo

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18:21 - Sometimes you feel like going wild and day drinking. Brew at the Zoo is the way to go when both these feelings are running through your veins. You have to try at least all of the beers there twice. The worst beer there is Sam Adams. That should tell you all you need to know about the quality. Most of the beers were animal themed, but here is a run down of the best:


1. Shiner Wild Hare Pale Ale - Awesome, I am not a pale ale. This ale hops around in more way than one. Hey-o. I will stop that, Focus Foxies.

2. Harpoon Honey Cider - Nectar of the gods. Enough said. It glistens in the early Summer light.

3. DuClaw Sweet Baby Jesus - Only one thing could beat number two, that is sweet baby Jesus. It is true. I mean a stripper referred us to this beer. That is not a lie, Focus Foxies. More importantly, it tastes like a peanut butter cup. Do not doubt me or our stripper friend.

After we toured the beers, we took the tram to the animals. I wanted to check these awesome beings out first, but the boys wanted to get in line to get into the beer section. I mean they were right because the line was so long. Nonetheless, we had time for the wild. There is an order in the Maryland Zoo. A order of animals, if you will. I know the zookeepers don't let the animals know that, but there is. First you walk into the zoo and spy the prairie dogs. They are cute, run around, and dig. Then you tram like you do up the hill. The hill is basically were it is at. There is the Arctic section and the African section.

1. The Arctic section - your classic foxes and polar bear mix. No penguins. Penguins live South of the hemisphere.

2. The Africa section - you see the giraffes; you see the lions. Then you see the PENGUINS!

Focus Foxies, this is an amazing event that helps out a good cause. You will find me there next year.

Focus Foxies in attendance: Rob, Chip, and actual foxes

Private Breaux Vineyard Tour

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18:11 - Not too long ago, we discovered a little vineyard by the name of Breaux Vineyards. An excellent name for an establishment, if I do say so myself. We decided to investigate it for my birthday. I am not saying that we got special treatment, but Rob called the vineyard up and started dropping some names. So we got a private tour of Breaux Vineyards.

Our tour started off with a wine tasting. You know, like private tours of vineyards do. We had nine wines to taste. I am not much for nonsweet wines, but that is what Breaux Vineyards specialized in. After the wine tasting, a guy named Sam with an amazing mustache with a twirl at the end took us around to show us the barrels in which the wines aged and the bottling station.

After lunch we went to Summit Racing to go-cart. We got some kick ass outfits including some helmets. However, I did not need it. I basically Sunday drove around the course. I had no idea if those crazy little cars could flip over. Every time we went around a corner, I felt myself almost lifting off. Everyone else kept lapping me over and over again. I didn't mind. I was having fun and not ending up in the emergency room.

As far as second celebrations for my 25th birthday go, this is the best.

Reunion tour in Aggieland

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It had been a long time since I had a proper reunion with Aggieland, and for my 25th birthday, I got a world class tour of the place. You see, Focus Foxies, Aggieland (College Station) had been through quite a few changes since I graduated and went gallivanting off to the big district. The biggest change I wanted to see was the Memorial Student Center. For those of you who may not know my college political career, the MSC was quite the point of contention back in the day. I wanted to see what three years and a bunch of money got us. It turns out, quite a bit. It has a ton of natural light, study spaces, and places to not study in. The MSC was pretty much the living room on campus, and I am glad that it returned to being one.

Something new I got to try was meeting the polo team's horses. My sister, Kim, plays polo for Texas A&M. She is kind of a big deal. We got to watch as she took care of the horses. We met this fun little horse to the left, named Fortuna. We were not bitten, so I call it the beginning of a beautiful friendship. We forgot to bring carrots. If we did bring them, these horses would remember us forever! Horses love carrots, but these horses needed to be in shape for the game.

Found out later this bar was shut down

Later that day, I went to one of our watering holes on Northgate. Pretty much all of the bars you want to go to in Aggieland are on one, maybe two blocks of land. Fitzwilly's happens to be one were you could smoke cigars and buy pitchers of Shiner for $6 (that includes a dollar tip). I met up with my friends Nick and Ashleigh to catch up and remember old times. They were pretty interested in the guy I was dating. Mostly because, they are protective like that.

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On my actual 25th birthday, I had a hell of a time with Mark and Bethany Womack! They took my to
Polly's Cocina for Saturday morning breakfast tacos. There is only one other breakfast food I love more than tacos: kolaches. However, both are hard to come by in DC. I can make my own breakfast tacos, but these are so much better. Plus, they have a little aTm branded into them and chorizo.

The business reason why I was in Aggieland was the chance to be on a panel for the Bush School. We basically encouraged new students to attend the Bush School. It is nice to know that people view me as being a mildly successful adult that can encourage others to come to attend graduate school. I spoke with all the incoming students about what I did in DC, how I got the job, and how the Bush School prepared me for life on the outside.

Stolen from Bethany

Business came to a close, and we went out to celebrate. We fueled up on some epic Layne's Chicken Fingers. I didn't hold back. Five piece meal, double fries because I do not need arteries in the morning. Also, you will not be getting a picture of this meal. I ate it too quickly. We made our way to my most favorite bar of all time. It could not be a better night! We, being older than the rest of the crowd in College Station, got out there early and got my favorite booth. There is something amazing that DC lacks. Booths for people to sit in a pub and have an honest beer. Speaking of beers, check the list below. It blows your mind every time. Every of the time. We drank many beers and had a surprise visit from our favorite Krishna. He promptly got Irish car bombs for my birthday. So good. We even got free Texas glasses for my birthday or Texas' birthday. Yes, Focus Foxies, Texas has a birthday and it shares it with me. Just another reason why Texas and I are meant to be.

This just needed to be large

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Overall, it was an amazing weekend, but I had a few things waiting for me back in DC. Most importantly, these cupcakes. I loved being able to get back home, even if it was for a little bit.

Celebrating Focus Foxies: Mama Breaux, Kimmie Swimmie, Aimee showed up for a bit, The Two of the Four Womacks I know, Krishna, Old Man Nick, and the lovely Ashleigh. Oh and Fortuna. Kelley Mac provided the cupcakes.

Time to Move On!

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11:23 - Well, Focus Foxies, this has been a long time coming, but it is time for me to move on from my apartment.  I know I have only been there for a few months. What you really need to know is that I was dealing with a stage 4 maybe 5 crazy person where the best things I could say about her was that she mostly paid her bills on time and did not steal from me or stab me. That is no exactly a ringing endorsement.... 

Luckily I have found someone else to live with in a near by apartment. That someone is the sweet and awesome Kelley! She has chosen to live with me despite my faults and knowing my love of shenanigans. So win win.

I think I am most excited about decorating this new place. My previous place was a dirty cave, but this place will be bright and sunny! I went to town/pinterest to create for myself a lovely little feminine bedroom complete with a makeshift canopy (see above). The canopy consists of Ikea curtains and curtain rods and some led lights (they don't heat up). I decided on purple because I love all things purple.

The next was the living room! Kelley got an awesome purple rug...notice the theme of the place. I painted a bookshelf along with a couple of other paintings for the walls.

Red Hook Lobster

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15:45 - On a cold day, (far colder than in the Dominican Republic) I decided to indulge a love of mine: food trucks. I had nothing in my fridge for lunch and wanted to continue to walk on the wild side, so food from a moving vehicle fits the bill. For this particular culinary adventure, I chose the Red Hook Lobster.

Red Hook Lobster has a claim to fame as being the best DC lobster truck. They specialize in Maine Lobster Rolls. What qualifies as a ‘Maine Lobster Roll’, Focus Foxies? I am not sure. I really do not have that type of regional knowledge, but the sign on the truck mentioned mayo. I was mostly sold on that point. I went with a shrimp roll meal. This buttery roll was covered, nay suffocated with little shrimp. I mean a pile of shrimp on a bun. The shrimp was coated in a homemade lemon mayo, which was tangy to say the least. The shrimp were on a bed of lettuce, but I had to fight my way in to figure that out.

The meal felt like a little trip to the Northeast. It came with the traditional Northeast Cape Cod chips. They are your typical kettle chips that I adore. The most notable thing about the truck was their drink selection. They had a fountain right there on the side of the truck. All of the cokes were made by Maine Root. This is a small, independent 'soda' manufacturer. They have bunches of different organic sodas to try. I decided to go with something more regionally familiar to me: Mexi-cola. I enjoyed it. It was spicier than your usual coke. It was cool to see Red Hook Lobster support local (by local, I mean Maine) companies. It made it feel more authentic.

This wouldn't be your typical lunch at $12 a meal, but it did make for something different in L'enfant plaza. As I was walking up, the cook/owner and a guest were talking about DC chef twitter fights. It was pretty legit place. I felt like I was a part of something. Soon you won't recognize me, Focus Foxies. I will be a part of the culinary underground.

Four Boats and No One's Funeral

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Our last day in the Dominican Republic, we decided to visit the South side of the island. We booked a tour that led us on four different boats that explored the Southern coast.

Boat 1: We sailed on the catamaran along the coast, catching wonderful views of the Parque Nacional de Este on land. The National Park is one of the few in the world that tries to protect the whole coastal ecosystem from the ocean to the mangroves to the shoreline. It’s actually one of the largest marine national parks in the region. We sailed on the catamaran until we reached the channel between the main island and Isla Soana.

Boat 2

Lunch

Boat 2: Our second float was just that a float. Our tour guide made a joke about it being what Cubans tried to get to Florida on. So we figured it was pretty sturdy. We took the canoe raft into the mangroves to see the breeding grounds of frigate birds. Fun fact, frigate birds are large and have huge red necks that can be puffed out. They would swoop all around us, giving us the feeling of being wild adventurers. The tour guides were also able to drudge up some weird looking jellyfish for us. They were up-side-down jellyfish, meaning their tentacles were on top. I’m not going to lie, Focus Foxies, I petted one. I did not get stung, but it did feel gross.

Up-Side-Down Jelly

Boat 3: Next, we flew past the channel between the main island and Isla Soana in a speed boat. Our destination was the sand bar where the Caribbean and Atlantic Oceans meet. So they let us out to drink and have fun in crystal blue waters.  We watched as the waves came crashing into the sand bar and intermixed forming some outstanding blue hues. This water was much choppier than the sandbar we were on the previous day. Also, the wind came in pretty strong as well. We just stayed under water with our drinks for warmth. That's a free survival tip for everyone out there.

Boat 4: Our final boat consisted of paddle boat that took us upstream into the main island. It seemed like a trip back in time with the old school transportation and the Jurassic vegetation.  It was as if the boat and river pierced a hole in the gigantic wall of jungle. Focus Foxies, I think we were in the Rio Yuma that borders two providences in Dominican Republic. There is actually no way to be sure. Our guide just dropped off after a while.

As the sun set, I held a rum cocktail in hand and propped my feet up. I felt peaceful amongst the jungle and happy about our last day in the Dominican Republic.