Catching Up...

So, for those of you who keep up with Au Courant, you may have noticed my dearth of posts recently...so sorry! I am back. Jury duty, finished; craziest time of year for my work, done; and final grades for my Social Work 222 students, posted. Whew.

So, here is my Crawfish Festival re-cap, and a preview of posts to come this week.

image via here

James and I started our Saturday by running in the Inaugural Crawdaddy Dash 5K. The run didn't start until 10 am, and while I enjoyed getting to sleep in a bit after a grueling week, the extra hours of sleep did not equate to happiness as I sweated in the humidity and glaring sun about 10:15 am. Columbia summer weather has officially begun--May 1st: mid-90's and sunny. Humidity had to be about 80%-yuck. All in all, it was a very solid run for me; I set a new PR of 29:24. While I am well aware that this is no great feat for many hard-core runners, I do not consider myself a hard-core runner, so I was thrilled to average a 9:28 mile. Here's to hoping that they move the race start an hour or so earlier next year.

After cleaning up and cooling off after the run, we headed back out into the thick air for a day of local festivities at the Crawfish Festival. I have attended this event in past years, and it is always fun. It is not as crowded or filled with drunken co-eds as the 5 Points St. Patty's festival, and is located in my old 'hood- Rosewood.

Line-up of bands at the event--we heard American Gun, Danielle Howle, and Marcy Playground.

Of course, people came running (literally) when Marcy Playground played Sex and Candy. A classic.

There was a play area for kids, a small section of local crafts for sale, the standard Rockaway's "Shot Closet," (which I steered clear of--liquor and heat don't bode well for me), and plenty of crawfish to be eaten. There was also a pole-vaulting competition, which seems a bit extraneous in this setting, but is great fun to watch.

Rockaway's Shot Closet

Pole-vaulting

It has become a Crawfish festival tradition to go to Labrasca's Pizza for an early dinner post-festivities, and we continued the tradition this year. Labrasca's is a Columbia classic-I have been eating this pizza since I was a kid. My mom used to go buy un-cooked pizzas from them on Saturday and save them to cook Sunday afternoon for lunch because they aren't open on Sunday.

Labrasca's cheese salad. Possibly my favorite thing they serve: 1/2 iceburg lettuce, 1/2 mozzarella cheese, served with Italian dressing and Captain's Wafers. In no way healthy.

Black olive and cheese pizza. Yum.

All in all, a super-fun day. Going to bed with a full stomach, just a bit over-sunned, a little sore (from the 5K), and a little tipsy (from festival beer), is a nice way to end a spring Saturday if you ask me.

This week's up-coming posts: my review of an awesome, yet hidden gem, the Great American Grill restaurant in the Hilton Garden Inn off Harbison, this week's round-up of Columbia stuff, and the usual Word for Wednesday and Thursday's Thinking of Food. It's good to be back!

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