The Seven Hour Saturday

Let's talk about Saturday.

 

 

Specifically, this past Saturday. It was a 7 hour, 17,000 steps kind of Saturday for us.

 

It started bright and early that morning on Sumter Street, down by the Horseshoe on USC's campus and the Long Street Theater. The first weekend in March is the Run Hard Race Series in Columbia: a marathon, half marathon, 5K, and a 1K fun run for kids.

 

 

I had signed up to run the 5K and had convinced my mom and my sister-in-law to come watch me at the finish line.

 

 

After putting on some more clothes {since it was 36 degrees out!}, we hung around for the awards ceremony.

 

 

{Plenty more about this race to come tomorrow!}

 

From there, we only had a couple of loose plans: pick up a couple of cookies at Blue Flour, walk down Main Street to Soda City Market, and get a manicure somewhere. We figured we'd be done downtown before noon.

 

7 hours and 17,000 thousand steps later...

 

We wandered through Soda City Market and Jen bought George the Octopus while I debated over bringing this elephant home with me. One day, I'm going to buy something from this vendor. One day.

 

 

All of the Run Hard races turned on Main Street right at the end of Soda City Market and they sent all the runners through a chute through the market. So we got to see quite a few half and full marathoners making their way down to the finish line.

 

 

After the market, we grabbed a drink or two at Liberty's Tap Room down in the Vista.

 

 

We ventured down Gervais Street looking for a nail salon and stumbled across Gervais Nails & Spa.

 

 

I've driven past this place a hundred times and had never stopped in for a manicure. I'll definitely be going back here! We had awesome service, it wasn't super crowded for a Saturday, and two manicures/1 gel manicure was only $60 total. Win.

 

Obviously, at this point, it was time for another drink.

 

 

... and some French fries. We stopped by Grill Marks and had some of their truffle parmesan fries, fat fries, and skinny fries.

 

Were we done yet? Nope! We walked back up to Main Street to pick out a baby shower gift at my favorite store downtown {Uptown on Main} and to see my friend Lindsey.

 

 

With one last hug, we finally left downtown after we realized it was nearly 3pm. Where in the world had our day gone?

 

It was an absolutely gorgeous {even if it was slightly on the chilly side compared to the weather lately} day to be out and about in Columbia. I'm so glad that my mom and Jen were up for whatever and were 100% on board with the spontaneous wandering we did around town.

 

Happy Monday, y'all!