Posts tagged travel

St. Michael’s Running Festival Recap

May18
2013 2 Comments

Written by Linda

Today was the St. Michael’s Running Festival Half Marathon. This is a small half marathon (1180 finishers) in the little town of St. Michael’s MD. According to my expert source, Wikipedia, St. Michael’s is a town of about 1000 people with an area of 1.15 square miles. How can you have a half marathon (13.1 miles) in a town that consists of only 1.15 square miles? Good question.

As you can see from this picture, there is a lot of water around St. Michael’s. It is on the Chesapeake Bay. Did we see any water during the race? No. Not a drop.

I went to St. Michael’s on Friday with my friend Kathryn, and we went to packet pick up, then walked around the little town. We had dinner at a restaurant on the water, so I can at least say that I saw water this weekend.

The town is touristy, but beautiful. Lots of old homes and churches, and cute bed and breakfasts. The next time I go I’d like to spend more time by the water and less time in the town.

After dinner we went to bed. I think it was about 8:00pm, seriously. For some reason we each had an outrageous number of bags – regular clothes, running clothes, and food, plus other various items. Of course, I always have to bring lots of food wherever I go. This is five of my bags – I had a couple more in the car.

Between us, we brought 9 bananas. Kathryn likes hers green.

Race day was cool, humid, cloudy and breezy, which was perfect, except for the humid part. This race was totally flat – I think the advertised elevation was 10 feet. We wandered around and used the porta-potties.

When the race began, we ran down the main street, then through a golf course community. That is where the interesting part ended. Unfortunately that was at mile 4.5. The rest of the race was along the highway, 3 miles in one direction, then back 3 miles in the other. 6 miles of narrow shoulder on the highway. The rest was through a neighborhood and then on a little trail to the finish line.

There was another problem. At the second water stop, there were no cups. We were offered the jugs of water to drink from. That didn’t give me a good feeling. Unfortunately at about half of the water stops there were no cups, but luckily Kathryn had an empty water bottle on her fuel belt that I could drink from with the water at the water stops.

Other than that, everything seemed to go fine, just massive quantities of boredom. Around mile 8 I had to start singing songs in my head. For some reason the first song I thought of was “America The Beautiful”, you know that “amber waves of grain” song. Then I switched to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and the ABC song, which are actually the same song with different lyrics.

My worst problem was my foot. I have a ganglion cyst on the side of my foot, and it has never bothered me when I ran before, but I think I tied my shoes too tight, so there was pressure on it. And rather than stop to loosen my shoe, I thought I’d just run through it. Not smart. It started hurting at mile 6. Around mile 9 I stopped to loosen the laces, but it was too late. You know how when you have a pain somewhere, and it feels like that is the only place on your body that exists? That was me…a pain in my foot. My entire being was a pain in my foot, which then started going into my ankle and shortly thereafter overtook my entire body.

Oh wait, there was another problem. Kathryn had told me that she had been running her half marathons at about a 13 minute pace. This would have been perfect for me, since lately I have sucked at running, and I haven’t been eating right, and I am totally out of shape. I told Kathryn that I was just going to go at her pace, and she set the pace. Well, we did mile one in 11:27. This continued to mile 5 which we did in 11:22. We did slow down a little after that, but by then my foot was hurting, so I told her to just go ahead. I just kept getting slower and slower, and I had to basically walk the last mile. Except, of course, when I saw the photographers, and then I ran and smiled. Gotta look good in the pictures.

As soon as I crossed the finish line I went immediately to the medical tent, took off my shoe and got a bag of ice from the EMT.

According to my best friend, Wikipedia, a ganglion cyst is a little benign tumor, like a knot, under the skin. Mine is small, about the size of a pea. I don’t know how something so innocuous could be so painful. In the old days the way to get rid of these things was to smack them with a bible. I might try that, but first I have to find a bible. I wonder if the Veganomicon cookbook would work, that is the biggest book I have. Unfortunately I wouldn’t have a good angle to smack it myself, I would have to get someone else to do it. Not sure if anyone would volunteer for that.

Apparently a needle can be stuck in there to drain it, if the bible doesn’t work. That sounds more medically sound I think.

After the race we showered at the high school, and went for lunch. Checking my happy cow app, I found one place in town that had a vegan option – Ava’s Pizza. What the vegan option was is a pizza with vegetables and no cheese. Which is fine, but really, any pizza place can say that on their menu, right? Actually the pizza turned out to be delicious.

And the day called for chilled white wine, which I never drink. Not that I don’t drink wine, I just don’t drink white wine.

It had started to rain, but we walked around the town a little, and bought chocolate, and then came home.

It was a nice place to visit, not a great run, a race I’m glad I did, but won’t do again. I did get a really nice medal though!

Posted in Running - Tagged half marathon, race, racing, running

Yesterday

Jul16
2012 7 Comments

Written by Linda

It was a Beatles song. Something about all my troubles being so far away. Since I was an odd, awkward kid I had some troubles, they weren’t really very far away unfortunately. But I decided to revisit my old town this weekend.

First stop – the beach. It was cloudy, but the beach was crowded. Yes, you have to pay money to get onto the beach in New Jersey.

There was a burrito place on the beach. And they had blueberry lemonade – I had to get one of those.

Next I drove to Matawan, where I grew up. I passed some landmarks like the Garden State Arts Center, now named after a bank. Sigh.

When you are in Central Jersey all you can do is go north or south.

I shopped at Monmouth Mall when I was in high school.

Here is the house that I grew up in. The man who bought it from my parents in 1984 was outside when I pulled up and I told him that it used to be my house. He gave me a tour inside and out, and it was kind of a strange feeling – seeing my room and my backyard and my garage. The mailbox and the light post out front are still the same. So are the house numbers. We moved there in 1963! He told me that he raised 3 children in this house. It must be a wonderful house to have been a home to two complete families in 49 years.

This is what it looked like in 1984 when my parents sold it.

This used to be my room, I’ll have to find an old picture of it to post. I didn’t have all of those dolls. And when I lived in it, it was purple and chartreuse.

I saw my elementary school, middle school and high school. They all have fancy signs now. And the high school has a beautiful stadium and concession stand. When I was in high school we sold hot dogs from a little shack. The stadium didn’t have lights so we had to play all of our games in the daytime.

Yes, high school now seems to be sponsored by restaurants, banks and grocery stores.

And some of my favorite places are still there – the bowling alley and the bagel shop.

Next I went to visit my father’s grave, I hadn’t been to see him since he died 14 years ago. I had a little trouble finding him. It was nice to see that his gravesite is well maintained, and I stayed for a while. The sun came out. I’ve been thinking about dad lately, maybe because June would have been his birthday, his anniversary, and father’s day.

It says “A sweet and gentle man who will always be remembered.” We used to say that my father was “a likeable guy”. We said it a lot and he loved that. We joked that we would put it on his headstone when he died, but we didn’t. We should have though.

Am I the only person who likes cemeteries? I like to wander around and see who is there and imagine what their lives might have been like. And I get sad when I see the graves of babies or young people. And impressed when I see the graves of people born in the 1800’s. And kind of creeped out when I see graves with people’s faces etched on them.

And there are double headstones for a husband and wife, but sometimes the husband side or the wife side is blank because they haven’t died yet. That’s a little icky too.

I went out to dinner at a restaurant called Yesterdays. How appropriate. There’s nothing like New Jersey. Where else can you hear the phrase “Youse guys”? Well, maybe Philly. I sat in the bar section and was forced to watch a Mets game. I was never a Mets fan, always the Yankees in my house.

This must be named after a person called Yesterday. Otherwise, why the apostrophe?

The next morning I ran on a trail that I found, it is one of those trails built along an old railroad track, the Henry Hudson trail. A really nice place to run, paved and mostly shady, with other runners, walkers, bikers and dogs.

more bicyclists on the Henry Hudson Trail

I went to a wedding shower on Sunday, and frankly, there was not much for me to eat. Even the salad had cheese in it, but I was able to get one made specially for me with no cheese. Other than that I had half a bagel and some potatoes. There was a beautiful cake and cupcakes, but alas not vegan. I checked out happycow.net and saw that a Whole Foods was just 5 miles away, so after the shower I made a stop there for some real food. Pasta salad, tofu with a coconut sauce, and vegan cupcakes! I didn’t eat all four of them, really.

You definitely can’t go home again, but you can certainly visit.

Posted in Fun - Tagged beach, family

Quick Catch Up

Apr26
2012 4 Comments

Written by Linda

I had a great time in Florida, it was fantastic to get away for a few days. My aunt and I did lots of cooking, there are such wonderful fruits and vegetables in Florida, I’m jealous!

Tomorrow I leave for the beach because my half marathon is Saturday morning. I have been anxious about this race for weeks. I always have pre-anxiety before races, but never for this long. I haven’t run a half marathon in 2 years, and that one was a “virtual” half marathon, so basically I’ve never run one that has the race atmosphere. And I’ve never run a race out of town, so I have to pack and I’m worried I’ll forget something.

And I’m worried about the weather. Tomorrow Ocean City, MD is supposed to have 25 mph winds, gusting to 35! Saturday the weather report says 10 mph winds, and no rain until the afternoon. But only 45 degrees at 7:00am. I hate that! What to wear in a race that lasts two and a half hours when it starts out at 45 degrees. Well, I’m bringing a running skirt and capri tights, so I can decide when I get there. I have a short sleeved shirt packed, but I’m thinking of bringing a long sleeved one also, but if it gets up to 50 degrees long sleeves will be too hot. Ugh, I’m obsessing!

I decided to write down everything I am worried about so that I can see how ridiculous this is. Here we go:

What if my legs start to feel like jello?
What if I feel like I can’t finish?
What if I don’t get my goal time?
What if I forget my shoes? (I had a dream once that this happened to me.)
What if I start out too fast?
What do I do about the boredom? (Actually ipods are not prohibited, so I can listen to music!)

Then I answered all of the questions with things like:

slow down
walk
eat a gu
breathe
visualize crossing the finish line
rely on my training
use a checklist to pack
bring 2 pairs of shoes
take more frequent walk breaks
count
sing the ABC song
repeat my mantra
do my times tables
run to landmarks

I think the most important thing is to rely on my training. I’ve been training for this, and I only missed one run in the last three months or so. I’ve done long runs of 11 and 12 miles. I can do this!