Saturday, March 5, 2016
Time: 4:26:18
Overall Place: 98/185
Thursday, March 3, 2016
On the road again. This was a quick
turnaround, I just flew home from Phoenix on Monday and was back on the road to
Atlanta, and a short drive to Columbia for the first of two marathons on the
weekend. I was looking forward to meeting Stephanie in Atlanta who agreed to come
and join me on this trip. I was feeling okay but not
great. Really
curious to see how the body will handle two marathons on the same weekend after
having just run one the week before.
That’s three marathons in the period of eight days.Just an observation, but Delta beverage cups are bigger than Air Canada, and they have great cookies, just saying.
Bad start to the day, I lost the first 2 out of 3 games to Maria in Yahtzee. I got kicked. Ouch
Well that was interesting, as we started to get off the plane in Minneapolis I realized I was sitting around the Manitoba Moose hockey team.
Next up flight to La Guardia in New York City. Yes it's a milk run. Good thing I like
flying.
Sitting beside a girl that's having twins in June. One last little trip
for them before it gets impossible to travel. Or even move for that
matter. Cute
couple.Well that was a nice flight. I played Yahtzee, and slept most of the way. Coming into New York was cool though. I got to see a little of it since I was on the wrong side of the plane. What I did see was impressive.
Spent some time in the airport walking around. Then I parked myself
for over an hour and a half. Sat at an iPad/charging station. Starting to see this
more at the bigger airports. Found out our next flight was about 15 minutes
late, no big deal.
I liked the last plane we were on. There was a lot
of leg room. The last flight between New York and Atlanta was a newer plane and way
tighter.
How do I feel today now? Actually not bad. I did take an Advil
because I have a real tight left calf.
It feels much better now. I know my recovery was
not long enough. The last time I did this I had four weeks rest before the double. This time only a week. We'll see.
It has been neat communicating with Stephanie in
Atlanta, Heidi and Jennifer in Winnipeg, Wendy in Calgary, and me in New York. How technology has
made communication so much easier and brought us together no matter where we
are.
Made it to Atlanta, now the trick is to find
Stephanie. When we touched down I checked an app the iPhone had which allows you
to track another person that has the app activated. Sure enough, I found
her in the airport waiting for me as I came out to the general area. Stephanie spent the
afternoon in the downtown and then came back to the airport. We headed over to the
car rental area which was a tram ride away. Met a nice guy at the
Hertz car rental counter.
Got our car and drove 2 hours east to Augusta,
Georgia. It was raining the whole way
but at least it wasn’t snowing. Just a short drive left for tomorrow but not before we go see the golf course where they play the Masters.
It was a good day and the best part was watching an
episode of Hogan’s Heroes, a show I grew up with. Did that bring back memories.
Friday, March 4, 2016
I woke up rather startled as Stephanie tried to
shake me like I was dead or something.
It was a great sleep though and I felt well rested. We got dressed and
headed down for breakfast in the dining area. It was the usual scrambled eggs,
biscuits and sausage gravy. They also had a choice on cereals and pancakes, so a lot of great
food.
We had driven about two hours out of Atlanta last
night to a town called Grovetown, Georgia which was right beside Augusta. Home of the Masters
Golf Tournament. We drove out there in the morning to get a look at something that we
could recognize. We found the members entrance and walked over to it. This course is heavily
fortified and security is tight as well. We got as far as the
gate and could see down the main drag which was lined with magnolia trees. The Masters is in
about a month and everything will be in bloom. It will be very
beautiful at tournament time. 
 |
| This is the member entrance which goes to the clubhouse. The three posts in the road are lowered into the ground to let the members car go in. |
We got to our hotel and wondered where the Expo was
until we walked right by it in our hotel. We checked in and then
came right back down to the Expo.
It was a small Expo but very nice. We talked to a lot of
people at the booths and had a great time.
After the Expo we wanted to get out and explore a
little so we walked through the University of South Carolina to a shopping
district called Five Points. Kind of like small shops and quaint bars and restaurants. We had some lunch at a
Chick-fil-A. By the way did you know
that Chick-fil-A is a fast food restaurant which is not open on Sundays? They also have some very healthy meal choices
as Stephanie was very impressed with.
We went back to our hotel via the State House and a
Starbucks.
By now it was supper time, so we found a mall about
15 minutes away. We had some Chinese food and Stephanie got to ride on a white tiger on
the carousel in the food court.
It was a great day and time to get some sleep before
race number one tomorrow morning. It's been great having
Stephanie along.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
The day was very simple, wake, run, drive, crash. I got up at 6:00 for the 7:30 start. Stephanie got up at 6:00, 6:10, 6:20, and 6:30. It's called snooze button. The morning was a cool plus three or about 38, so I had a throwaway shirt. We got to the race about 7:15 which was great timing. It's not a big race, maybe 1000 for both the half and the full.
Our plan was to run the first 10 miles together and
then Stephanie would leave me and go for a strong finish. The course was
anything but flat, but somehow it was easier to run than my last two races. I felt good and
Stephanie was also running strong.
It's nice to see what some hard work will do. We ran through some
very nice neighbor hoods which Stephanie really enjoyed. Along the way we met
two girls from Seattle who were also Marathon Maniacs. One of the girls was
originally from Victoria, BC, but had moved to Seattle. They went ahead as
they were stronger than us. It was great to meet them. As planned Stephanie
took off at just past 10 miles and finished very strong. I followed in behind a
few minutes and continued to run the course again. I felt stronger in the
second half but continued to run comfortable. I only started to tire
in the last three miles but finished strong. We met after the race
and I stretched out at the race because she had checked us out of the hotel
already.
We had about a 6 hour drive to Chattanooga. We did well and made
it right on time to pick up our race kit. It was quite the drive
and I found it amazing how fast the drive. I don't think they
worry about getting caught for speeding because everyone does between 10 and 15
MPH over the speed limit. There was a bulletin on the HI way that said there were over two
hundred deaths on Georgia HI ways this year alone. I believe it. We got held up by two
accidents along the way. Anyway we arrived safe, ordered some pizza and went for a swim. It was a great day.
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