2 days of dc food & friends

A bunch of flowers for you. Thanks for everyone who congratulated me on my marathon! It’s really encouraging to hear you guys comment on my ginormous race recap :).

Speaking of which, it’s time to get to the best part: post-race food and friends!

Since the race was Saturday (I love Saturday races btw — so much better than Sunday races. Don’t you agree?), Anthony and I had alllll of Saturday evening and Sunday to hang out with our old DC crew. First up was Miriam!!!! She’s my long lost running buddy. I’m guessing we’ve run over 100 miles together since we met way back in 2010…

And on Saturday, she was my pizza-eating buddy. Her and her boyfriend Dan made us a delicious homemade feast!

Pizza with ravioli on it. Just as brilliant as pizza topped with Fritos…

After a mile-by-mile race recap, we sat around and talked over wine and dessert pizza :). So good hanging out with them — we even stayed up past 10 pm! Wild.

The next day Anthony and I took a lovely (and slow-paced) walk through Eastern Market. The trees!

It was pretty fun being back in DC as a “tourist” — it forced us to get out and enjoy the city!

And go eat at places we always wanted to, but never did when we lived here. Like Cava Mezze! The place was pretty packed with the Sunday brunch crowd, but we managed to grab a table after waiting a bit.

Alanna and Milad drove down from Baltimore to meet us! Alanna and I have been friends since freshman year of college. She’s the best and also leaves the best blog comments.

Cava has a tapas-like approach where you share a bunch of small plates. My two favorites were 1. these crispy brussel sprouts:

and 2. this “salad” which, let’s admit, is just a giant block of cheese in a pool of olive oil.

Thanks for coming to see us, Alanna and Milad!

Anthony and I ventured on to Shirlington — a suburb of the city we’d never been to, since we didn’t have a car when we lived in DC. We spotted this giant Christmas tree and I made us take a family holiday photo:

Then we saw Birdman, which was really weird but really good. Anyone else seen it? Thoughts?

And for our LAST meal in DC, we met up with one of Anthony’s old coworkers at the Curious Grape, another spot I’ve always wanted to try!

I was still in marathon celebration mode.

And usually I’m pretty indecisive when it comes to choosing an entree, but for some reason I saw STEAK on the menu and knew I had to have it. Maybe my body was craving post-marathon meat or something? Also, from now on I’m going to create Jenga towers with french fries. It makes eating them even more fun.

And THEN I flew back to Nashville at 6 am on Monday morning and headed straight to my office. Yesterday was one of the longest days of my life, but the weekend made it so worth it :). Glad to be back, and glad to be not running for just a few days

See you tomorrow!

• DC peeps: Thoughts on Cava and/or Curious Grape?
• Have you seen Birdman? Did you think it was weird in a bad way or a good way?
• Big question: Do you prefer Saturday races or Sunday races? (or, for my Boston friends – Monday races?)