BUT! We felt we had to post about our wonderful RUNNING weekend getaway to Door County, WI. We trained and trained for the Half Marathon on Saturday and.....we had so much fun.
It was nice to be able to get away and the weather was perfect! We got in late Friday night and carbo crammed at The Wild Tomato in Fish Creek. Patrick and I stuffed our faces with spaghetti marinara and some garlic bread.
A quick note. We did not track ANY points from Friday night on. This was the first weekend we've had together since December! Oddly enough, we went to Door County back in December as well. We've had a thing for the peninsula this year ;)
Saturday morning, I had a minor crisis. As I was getting out all my running gear, I realized I was missing a pretty essential...item. My sports bra. Really! I mean, those who know me... I cannot run without a sports bra. There'd be stretching and hurting and... no. My work week had been a touch stressful, so tears started flowing. A startled but calm Patrick called the Race Helpline. The man who answered was out MARKING THE COURSE but assured us that the vendors from packet pick up should be at the race start and should have sports bras. PRAISE THE LORD! I then forced Patrick to get on the first trolley to the race where I purchased a very expensive sports bra. The man at the North Face booth pretty much laughed at me, but it was okay because he was my savior.
We started out the race with 2:15 pacer group but soon got past them. Miles 1-4 were beautiful (read: flat) and we chatted as we clipped along on the paved trail along beautiful Lake Michigan. Quickly into mile 4, we started heading vertically. Some of the hills were gradual, but some were not. Like, very much not gradual. Like, up, up, and away. So that was a majority of miles 4-8.5. At 8.5, one of the course volunteers yelled, "This is the last incline! You can do it!" And we DID! The nice part about going up for so long was that the last part of the race was mainly downhill and then flat! My legs were like little jelly legs, though, and during mile 11, I thought I was going to fall over. But Patrick kept me going! True love, right? I believe I glared and scowled at him with so much love in my eyes.
Now, I don't know if it was the sports bra, the weather, or the course (it was definitely not the course), but I had my best race time to date! We finished that race at 2:07, which is just under 10 min/mile. I was flabbergasted. The first 4 miles felt good and we were trucking along. Our 6.5 split was just over an hour, so we definitely slowed down after that. I wouldn't be surprised if it took me 15 minutes to run the last 1.1 mile because I felt like crap.
But. All those feelings of crapiness and soreness and wanting to fall over and die quickly dissipated as we made our way past the finish line, received our medals, and sat down with our gatorade. It is the best feeling in the world to finish any race, but after a Half Marathon (and I'm sure moreso after a Full!) you just are on top of the world. There are so many people around congratulating you and you're sweaty and gross but who cares because you ran 13.1 miles! And you put on your medal of participation and think "I can't believe I just did that".
We treated ourselves to Mexican food and Margaritas that night. We still didn't track points. I mean, really, how could we? We had just burned about 1800 calories. There was no way I was checking how much my strawberry margarita was.
The rest of the weekend, we wobbled around (very sore legs) Door County, went mini golfing, and did a wine tasting at Stone's Throw Winery. We had such a great time! And we're doing it again next year!
Oh, and did I tell you guys we signed up for another Half Marathon at the end of the summer? Oy.
Happy Monday!
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