A Well Deserved Break

Not much running has been done in the last few weeks after the Monumental Half (still smiling from my PR! woot!). This could be because Alex and I went on vacation! That's a great reason to take a nice break from running. Alex and I have been trying to check some places off our bucket list (also known as the "before kids" list), and took a trip out to Hawaii! We spent our first few days on Oahu. Beautiful and extremely busy. We stayed by Waikiki beach, near a whole bunch of stores I cannot afford to shop at ;) We ate a lot of good food, took a nature tour of the North Shore, and visited Pearl Harbor (on Veteran's Day ... pretty awesome). 

Waikiki Beach at sundown

Where they film all those Hollywood movie scenes

My tootsies in the sand at Waikiki Beach

Scenes from North Shore nature tour

Monk seal on the North Shore

Waikiki Beach at Sunset

U.S.S. Arizona Memorial

 We then spent 4 days on the island of Maui! Maui is probably the most beautiful place I've ever been to! Amazing! Green scenery, mountains, blue water, beautiful beaches ... just paradise. One of our favorite things that we did was travel the Road to Hana. We saw waterfalls, stopped at local food stands, swan in the Seven Sacred Pools. It was awesome. We also went snorkeling, visited Haleakala National Park and drove to the summit (over 10,000 feet up!), and went to a luau. It is so much quieter there than Honolulu lol. Again, we ate lots of delicious food and our resort was beautiful. We also ate ice cream or gelato most nights ... it's vacation! 

Standing in front of a waterfall

The view from our balcony ... Amazing!

An artistic shot of Alex

Apparently this is from an opening scene in Jurassic Park

Eucalyptus Tree

Beautiful Black Sand Beach 

Self explanatory!

On our last day in Hawaii, we decided to hop a flight to the big Island and went to Volcanoes National Park. Alex really wanted to see the active volcano ... and hey, this was a once in a lifetime trip. Why not!? We saw some active lava flow, visited steam vents and hiked on hardened lava fields. It was a whirlwind trip, but I'm glad we did it!

Active Lava Flow

On top of hardened lava

It was an amazing trip! Some hiking, but no running! Alex and I did start back up when we returned home. I have just been doing some easier running to try and stay in shape and will build back the mileage up before half marathon training begins again. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and Alex and I participated in the Gobble Gallop at our local YMCA. My intent was to just run it comfortably. I wanted to do this anyway, especially since I unintentionally found myself in a P90x workout class the night before the race. To my credit, it was supposed to be PiYo ... they had just moved up the class after PiYo because the gym was closing. My legs are so angry lol I did end up getting 3rd in my age group, no PR, though! Alex got first in his age group and won a pumpkin pie! Hooray for a fast husband :) Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!