Just a quick overview: Saturday, September 12th, was the Bird In Hand Half MArathon in Pennsylvania. Sunday, September 13th, was the inaugural Suffolk Marathon.
Schedule:
Busy busy weekend. No rest weekend. No recovery weekend.
My goal was to try to stay home as long as I can before leaving and so I decided on a target time of 7pm. As it was, Jeremy was working on a programming project that needed help from me and so I left at 7:30. GPS ETA was 10:30pm. Not great but I figured there wouldn't be any traffic the later I went so all good. Left the house and no traffic. All is moving well. Then I saw the flashing signs. There were 45 minutes delays on the Cross Bronx Expressway all the way to the George Washington Bridge. Can't be. Traffic is really moving well. I mean, I'm flying. Then I saw the sea of red lights. Traffic ahead was not moving. Sucks. Better get comfortable.
Bottom line is, I checked into hotel close to midnight. That was a 4 hour drive. Bathroom and setting up and it was 12:15 am with a 3 am wake up. I decided that I will get 3 hours of sleep no matter what, so I changed my 3 am to 3:15 am. Soon as my head hit the pillow, the alarm went off. I got up and turned the alarm off and the backup alarm. Better get started on the day.
Got ready, packed up and drove to race. I contacted Ken to make sure he's on his way too. Ken and his brother Brook and I were all doing this race. Oh, I guess I should also at this point, explain why.
Why on earth would I drive 3 hours each way for a half-marathon? You see this race is special. If you do either the Garden Spot Half or Full Marathon in March and this half now, you get a special Road-Apple award. What's a road apple? Road apples are horse poop. They take horse poop, petrify it, purify it and some other "ifies" it and mount it on a nice plaque. Awesome. By the way, the finisher's medal for this race is also awesome and is on the top 10 Runner's World list of must do races just because of that. They take a horseshoe and medalize it. Two great reasons to do this race...
So, Ken and I did the Garden Spot and his brother Brook suprised him and did it too and now we are here. Luckily too since originally, I think, they were going to have race day pickup and now suddenly they didn't. Luckily, Brook and his family were heading down early Friday so he picked our stuff up. Cool.
Anyway, got to race site and parked. Looking for those guys and I decided port-a-potty first. Cool. Nice and clean and even had motivational signs in there. Haha...
Found them, got my stuff and back to the car to drop off stuff. Lined up at the start. This half in the middle of Amish Country actually had something like 3,500 runners and the medal was definitly a reason for it. The road apple was even more of a good reason.
We started and soon after I hooked up with Brook and Ken. I was suprised. Brook is fast. Well, he wasn't feeling it and we stayed together. It was awesome. Just talking and running and joking around. I meant to take it easy certainly much easier but just had a good time and all and so we stuck together.
One aid station, I grabbed water, drank and wanted to throw the empty cup away. As I just started the throw, a female runner got between me and the garbage. I managed to lob it up over her head. Unfortunatly just then wind hit and the empty cup flew back and landed on her head. Oh no... I apologized so much and she was ok with it. Laughed it off but I couldn't help wondering if it would have been better if there was water in it. If it was heavier (water) would it have continuued it's trajectory or land on head splashing her with water. The thoughts I have.
Pennsylvania being what it is is all about the hills and the course was just rolling hills. Thankfully we didn't have that crazy headwind like we did at Garden Spot. We ran and all was well until Brook said he has to use the port-a-potty. Ken said cool because he needs to go too. I asked them if it was short or long and brook said it may take a while and that I should go. I did. That was somewhere between 8.5 and mile 9. I kept the same pace we did throughout the whole time wondering if I would see them again.
Mile 10 was the gravel road they mentioned. I liked it but felt real bad for those barefoot runners we saw. I ran this section much harder and really liked it. It was like a mini trail race. Before that section was over, I suddenly heard a familiar voice and Ken and Brook were next to me complaining that it was the hardest mile they had to do in a while. Nice.
The three Musketeers were back together. We continuued on and mile 12 was there. Unfortunatly we just couldn't see the end. At about 12.5 Brook too off. Ken and I stayed the course but did increase the pace a little. I want to see the finish first before I take off.
Ken is faster than me but his 2015 PR for the half was 1:57 and he really was hoping to beat it. Luckily for them, I continuued when they stopped and continuued the pace as well so it gave them a target to shoot for. We were right there for his 2015 PR. Finally we saw the right turn to the finish and I took off aiming for a distance runner. I got him and finished strong getting a very heavy and cool looking medal. Ken finished after me, happy he beat his 2015 PR.
We got our road apple awards, met up with their family and eventually I took my leave. Really didn't want to do the 3 hour drive but procrastinating was going to help. Also, Jeremy had tennis at 2pm and I needed to get back home.
Remember how I was going to try to relax once I got home? Yeah, right.
Got home and about 10-15 minutes later drove Jeremy to tennis. Back home, showered and made some food and ate. Started falling asleep at the dinner table but so did Elizabeth. Sucks. I was hoping that she would pick Jeremy up but oh well. She napped and I went to pick Jeremy up. Ok, maybe a nap when I got back? My mom was there. I give up.
Jeremy procrastinating with his project. I was hoping to go to sleep by 11am with a wake up of 3am until I realize that I really need a 2am wakeup. Went to sleep at 9:55. Just gave up and hoped Jeremy would be ok. The project was due at 1:05am Sunday. He asked me if he can wake me up if he still has issues. I told him only if it's a big issue that he can't figure out.
He woke me up to tell me that he finished it but there's one print statement that he can't find and can I help. I told him to try to look for the message printed and track it backwards. He asked again if I could come down and help. I answered him that "he needs to check with his grandmothers" and my head hit the pillow and I was gone. He told me later about this conversation about the grandmothers. I didn't remember any of it but after he told me, it sounded somewhat familiar. I was tired...