Hey everyone! Today is the start of my mini vacation with my sister! She’s going out to the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee to get her Ph.d, and the only way to get her car out there is to have a road trip! So last night I drove to my parent’s house in Reading, which is the starting point of our road trip. Today we are driving out to Pittsburgh, and tomorrow we will be driving to Chicago. On Friday we’ll make the final leg of the trip to Milwaukee. I’m really excited since I’ve never driven past Ohio! I’m also excited to visit my old sorority sisters from Pitt tonight!
One thing that I don’t like about vacations is how much I let myself go, fitness wise. I eat like crap and don’t work out. Luckily my sister loves working out and is doing the paleo diet, so this road trip might not be as unhealthy as usual! This morning we woke up and decided that we needed to get a workout in before driving out to the burgh. We drove over to Grings Mill park, the site of my last 5k fiasco. My sister doesn’t run, so she walked while I set out on a 3 miler. I decided not to go crazy with my speed and instead chose to simply enjoy running along the creek. I took a different route than the 5k and was surprised to discover a covered bridge along the trail! Overall it was a really great run and I was able to keep the negative thoughts away for the most part. I was surprised to discover that I finished my run 1 minute faster than my Grings Mill 5k time! I guess it really was just the pressure getting to me during the race! My sister and I took some great pics of the main trail during the workout, the rolling fields and the old buildings were so pretty!
The trail by the bridge
My sister got a pic of me finishing on the bridge!
Overall it was a great start to our road trip together, and now I don’t feel too bad about the grilled sticky that I’m going to eat tonight at Eat N Park! We decided that we need to keep running during the trip, which sounds good to me since I’ve never run in any states other than PA! Illinois and Wisconsin here I come!
Mom in the Mtns 
Have you checked for races in either of those states? This is a good opportunity to snag some out of state races for your 50 state goal.
I didn’t even try because we’re going to be in Chicago on a weekday, and then we will be moving my sister into her grad housing all day on Saturday. I’ll just plan on coming back soon!