I am so directionless with my running as of late. 

After dealing with a lot of sinus issues for most of the summer, I eventually abandoned my Richmond Marathon dreams for this year because too much of the training cycle had already slipped away from me.

I’ve still been doing a lot of thinking about whether or not I want to find another race to focus on this fall (leaning heavily towards yes, but am nervous I’m going to start feeling crappy again and be right back where I started)…

But in the meantime! I am trying to have fun with my running while I’m not tied to a training plan.

And today that meant running The Brew Hop 5K up at Randall’s Island — a combo 5K/craft beer festival. HI HELLO YES. So clearly I brought with me a dear friend who writes a beer blog and is starting to run more.

I live right where the explosion was last night, so I was really happy to flee my neighborhood and head to Randall’s Island. It only took me about 20 minutes to get up to 125th Street and then we took the bus over to the island and picked up our bibs and started waiting. I was more antsy than I’ve been in a while, perhaps because I knew fun was waiting on the other side of the finish line. So…we may or may not have taken advantage of the opportunity to sip a little Spiked Seltzer and HELLO OBVIOUSLY FLASH TAT. 

The race didn’t start until after noon, which was pretty sweet from a sleeping in perspective, but meant that it was HUMID. Meg had asked me to pace her, so I was happy to have a running bud. The first half mile or so was completely packed, which was frustrating, but the pack spread out. 

The course was…interesting. In just 3.1 miles, we ran on pavement, grass, a bridle-path like surface and an area that just had some wood chips down? It wasn’t terribly hilly, but still moreso than we expected. With the humidity, we were both more than happy to get to the beer portion of the day! 

There were about 15 breweries representing (a lot of them local!)…and we endeavored to sample as much as we could! I let Beer Expert Meg lead the way. Most of the beers were lagers or ales (probably wise for a daytime event after a race)

My favorites:

Crabbie’s Alcoholic Raspberry Ginger Beer

Kelso Nut Brown Lager

Alphabet City Brewing Company Easy Blonde (I swear, not just for the name.)

We also enjoyed some A+++ chicken fingers + fries from a food truck.

Marathon, 5K…same thing?

Fave beer/themed race?

I’m currently watching the U.S. Open Women’s Finals on my couch on the Tennis Channel. Nope, no problems here…

I had some amazing experiences at the U.S. Open that I wanted to share with y’all/document here.

On the second day, I was lucky enough to attend with Chase. We had grounds passes, and we were able to get into all of the amazing lounges and had COURTSIDE seats in the grandstand. Oh hello Kei Nishikori. I could actually see his sweat, we were so close.

Oh hey there chair umpire.

BRB, quitting my job to become a ballgirl. (I was always curious what you had to do, so I just looked it up.)

Chase also had this super cool charge & watch gadget you could use while on grounds. It (obviously) charges your phone, but you can connect it with the U.S. Open app to watch other matches anywhere on grounds.

And obviously I had a Honey Deuce…which ended up being my ticket BACK the following Sunday for the women’s doubles finals. Man, I forgot how hard doubles are — you really have to communicate with your partner…or lose/get hit in the head.

That next Saturday…Chase again invited me back, this time to watch the women’s singles finals (yep, same one I’m watching right now) from the Chase Lounge. 

We drank more Honey Deuces, hobnobbed with Andy Roddick as he Periscoped the match live, and it was amazing.

Followed only by…

Returning the NEXT day with my friend Courtney courtesy of Grey Goose…for a little surprise with Andy Roddick AGAIN. NBD.

Cheers to @Greygoose and the 2 winners with a #HoneyDeuce at the #USOpen! pic.twitter.com/Y83XqbrJH2

— andyroddick (@andyroddick) September 11, 2016

Wow 🙂 And here’s the long version of it. And, yes, I saved the dress I got in the Lilly After Party Sale just for the occasion. On a sidenote — a lot of these bloggers were using mirrorless cameras. I do love my Canon, but it is HEAVY. Are these mirrorless cameras where it’s at, and should I get one for Australia? 

Only 50 more weeks until the U.S. Open is back…