Saturday, September 24, 2011

Bring Your Own Spectators

This morning I ran a half marathon in East Hampton New York.  I have never been to Hamptons before.  The marathon course was so far east that we ran along the eastern tip of the island near the end.

Our hotel was a 90-minute drive from the hotel, so I got the boys up at 530am to eat at 6am.  The hotel had a free buffet.  And the buffet was much better than I expected.  I thought I would just eat a bagel or two, but the coffee was good, the eggs were good and so was the bacon.  The boys ate three sausage patties each, eggs and about 10 strips of bacon.

I should not have eaten the bacon.  I felt fine at the beginning of the run, but at mile four I felt pressure.  At mile eight I sprinted to a Port-a-Potty and lost six minutes.

After the stop, my pace dropped from 10:30 to 9:30 per mile.  I caught up to and then ran ahead of my running partner--she was slowing and said go ahead.  My sons were waiting 100 yards from the finish.  I finished then went back to them and the three of us ran back to Kristine.  We all ran toward the finish together.  I hung back so I would not go through the finish cameras twice.

Jacari waved to the crowd like her ran 13 miles instead of a half mile.  He is a ham!

We ate some post race food:  bananas, hummus, blue corn chips, sport drinks, and drove back toward the hotel and showers.  The traffic was so slow a mile from the race that I got out and walked a mile beside the road.  I had to wait just before a traffic light for Kristine and the boys to catch up to me.  After the shower stop, the Kristine took us to Queens.  We got on the Long Island Railroad, went to Penn Station and ate pizza before traveling on NJ Transit to Trenton.  then we drove to Lancaster.

A long day but the boys were very happy.  Since they eat well most of the time, a 24-hour holiday of TV and junk food is a real treat.

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