First Race of the Year

Last fall, I signed up for a 14k in Va. Beach in honor of my friend John Kainer. My awesome posse of TG40, Annnn, JenBo, and Patty signed up too and then recruited CJ, Anita (the coolest sherpa evah), Route, and Route's cute son.

Consider it a girls' weekend at the beach. With a little run thrown in for the hell of it.

TG40 and I hit the road a little later than the others and had just a bit of catching up to do:

Fortunately, we were up for the task and jumped right into the festivities. We initially feared we were going to get thrown out of the restaurant but soon our charm won over the staff and they became our photographers.

Annnn promised surprises in store at the hotel, so eventually we went to check it out, and to stage more merriment. Somehow we managed to forget that we had to run the next day!

The next morning, we awoke to a room that looked like a bachelorette party (or a fairy convention gone wrong) and sadly two sick friends. I must hasten to say they were NOT hungover (although I'm sure that didn't help) but suffered from the stomach flu or something similar.

We were down a few good (wo)men but we persevered... and finally headed to the race, garbed in angel wings, halos, and boas. We were so late arriving that we couldn't even get to the parking lot. As we were jogging to the start line, Annn, Patty, and I finally figured out that we could stop and wait for the race to come to us. None of us were wearing chips (because we are that serious about our race) so it wouldn't hurt a thing.

Annn quickly ditched us. I ran with Patty and her friend's son (I'll just call him Cutie because I can't remember his name) for awhile but they were determined to run the whole 14k and I knew I couldn't hang. When we hit our first out and back, I stopped to wait for them. Man it was cold standing still... Fortunately TG40 blew by. I ran to catch up with her and she put me through my paces for awhile. I saw another out and back and opted to blow off some more of the course to wait for her. Patty and Cutie ran by, still determined to run the whole race. When TG40 finished the loop, I rejoined her - motivated by cupcakes at mile 6. We finished the race together, found Annnn, and saw Patty and Cutie cross the finish line. We had a quick Yuengling while shivering and then headed back to our sickies and showers.

It was almost enough to motivate me to exercise again so that I can actually participate more fully in these events.

Or maybe I'll just continue to plan out of town girls' weekends with races thrown in!
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