Weekend Recap

Wowzers, what a weekend. It was awesome. And tough. Recap!

Amanda and I left on Friday afternoon, around 3. We had the car loaded with food and gear, and Jersey in the very back and Sadie in the middle seat. They were SO good on the way there, it was amazing. We stopped for dinner in Williamston (chosen for the name) and ended up at the "Hitching Post" where we partook of the "All You Can Eat Seafood Buffet" mainly for the novelty. We tried not to crack up too much as we tried to identify what fried marine creature we were eating. Pretty intense "cultural" experience. We got to Kitty Hawk, picked up the code for The Pearl, our house for the weekend. And the code didn't work. So we took the dogs on a late night walk while we contacted the emergency lock out people and finally got access. Stayed up a bit more chatting and enjoying a glass of wine, and then to bed.


Stephen and Trent left early early Friday morning to drive to Tennessee. Trent had a crazy day of kids locking themselves out of their vans, shortages of boats, and proctoring an economics exam to his kids missing class. Saturday morning they raced, and Amanda and I lounged about, napped, walked the dogs on the beach, read good books, ate our good food, and were generally lazy. Unfair for them.

Trent's team did really well, his "A" boat of novices got second out of 34 teams, and the only team that beat him was a "real" varsity team. Awesome!! They frantically loaded boats and kids and left Tennessee around 6pm. To drive to Chapel Hill, and then drive to the Outer Banks. Craziness!

While they were driving up a storm, Amanda and I continued to be lazy, finally making it to packet pick up to get our numbers and shirts and check out fancy running gear. Back to the Pearl where we dealt with more entry code issues. Lots more walks on the beach and naps, and I made a broccoli linguine in cream sauce for dinner. We laid out our gear for the morning and hit the hay, with the boys still on the road.

They arrived right around 5am, which was our scheduled time to wake up and get ready to race. However, we had to adjust the schedule for a little snuggling. We made coffee, ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches and Trent drove us to the start at 6:45, after a brief chase of a rouge Jersey.


This was my third time running this marathon, Stephen's second, and Amanda's first marathon ever. We all had very different expectations and goals, but it was great to have friends on the course. Trent got us there and saw me off to the start, reassuring me that my normal pace would be fine, regardless of training.


And for a majority of the race it was, I trucked along at 8 minute miles for the first half, chatting up with various new friends along the way and being amazed by the beautiful scenery. Trent was excellent race support and I felt pretty good.

However, around mile 15, I started to hurt. I had nice rally around mile 17-20 with a super friendly fella from DC who was encouraging all of us, but lost him right before the big hill. And then, man, I just kinda got exhausted. My whole body from my waist down cramped up and I was left to shuffle along.

But then I realized, I just got married, I've had a crazy month, that I comfortably ran 20 miles is pretty darn impressive. So for the first time ever, I walked during the race. And ran, and walked, and shuffled along. I was proud of myself for sticking with it, but almost more proud of myself for letting myself take it easy. I can be pretty tough on myself.

Finished under 4 hours, far from my fastest time, but I was satisfied. Met up with Trent and Stephen, who also had a rough race of starting to fast and bonking at the end. I am sure staying up most the night didn't help his race either.


Amanda came trucking in and was thrilled with her race. She was comfortable and on pace the whole time and had a great first race experience.


We sat around the race finish for a bit, Trent got us beers and fries and we took a quick nap in the sun. But showers were starting to sound very very nice. We hobbled to the car and headed back to the Pearl. We soaked our legs in the ocean, drank some nice cold Coronas, ordered pizzas and watched tv. We all napped and woke up and were lazy beings. It was fantastic.

This morning, we were all feeling better. I think because I let myself walk at the end, my legs aren't too sore and I probably avoided doing some serious damage. Definitely creaking about a bit, but I am doing pretty well. I made everyone spinach omelets, like my dad taught me, and we enjoyed the beautiful deck and played with the dogs.

We cleaned up the house and checked out around 10, but hung out a while longer. Sadie and I had a great play session and she is definitely getting more comfortable with the whole ocean phenomenon. She was really good this weekend, I was impressed. She is still not so bright, however...


Trent and I hit the road around 11, with a quick stop for some staples at the JCrew outlet. We made it home by 4 after an easy drive, and Trent went off to help unload boats from the races. I roasted acorn squash with brown sugar and sprinkled them with walnuts and cranberries and turned a bunch of apples that were about to turn (only two from SLO, mom!) into a big batch of apple sauce. The house smells amazing. Lots of cleaning, relaxing, and getting ready for our week. Hooray for a long weekend.