A Weekend on the Cape
Feb 27th, 2009 : 10:59am
This past weekend, Tim and I went on a mini-vacation (which, of course, included a race). We drove down to Chatham Friday afternoon, and checked in at the much-fancier-than-us Wayside Inn for a two-night stay (Christmas gift from Tim’s parents). On our way to the Inn, we went for a drive along the shore, and checked out the Chatham Bars Inn. Holy Fancy! Check out the view from the front door:
My partner in crime was not so impressed with the “proper attire required” sign posted on the front door. His general thoughts on places like this are “If I’m going to pay that much (which I never would!), I’ll wear whatever I want!”
We headed over to our Inn, and hung out in our hilly room for a little while. Yup! The room had slopes all over the place! It was downhill from the bed to the bathroom door, and uphill from the bathroom door to the shower. Tim had a bit of trouble with the camber and was pulled into the wall several times. Pretty funny from where I was sitting!
Around 6:30 we went in search of dinner. You’d think this would be a relatively easy endeavor as we were right on Main St. Wrong! Apparently, Chatham is not much for the night life. It’s a beautiful, quaint little town, but this creeped me out:
It was 6:30! CVS wasn’t even open! Two places were open: a pizza shop, and The Red Nun. The Red Nun it was! We had some stupendous turkey tips and colored on the “table cloth” while we waited. As we walked the half mile back to the Inn, it was all I could do to keep the Unsolved Mysteries theme out of my head. It’s weird how used to noise you get living in the old city o’ champs!
Saturday morning, we played “old married couple”. After sleeping in, we walked over to the local diner for pancakes and eggs. On the way, this little joint caught my eye:
Think they have Cape Cod gift shops in Tibet?
ANYWAY, we chatted and read the local paper while we waited for the deliciousness, and then spent a good 40 minutes savoring every bite as we had no where to be and no training to get in. We followed up breakfast with a nice drive to nowhere-in-particular and listened to news radio. Then it was back to the room to chill for a couple hours before lunch. By early afternoon I was just wiped out! All this sitting around and eating was exhausting! So we napped. We rounded out the day by using what was left on the “tab” down at the Inn’s restaurant, and hitting the sack by 8:30.
Sunday morning, we had our pre-race applesauce, and banana, and headed over to Hyannis for the half-marathon. Here we met up with a bunch of friends, lost eachother a couple times in the crowd of 4000+ runners, and got about a 5 minute warm-up in before cramming into the starting corral. I was pretty wired – I was going for a PR and had quite a bit of caffeine making it’s way through my system. I was rockin’ my new Fastwitch racing sneaks and feeling good!
I took the first mile out a few seconds quicker than I planned to average for the day, and found myself in the lead pack of three right off the bat. As we came through mile 3, I felt strong and dropped the other two girls. Around mile 7 I passed a relay baton-swap site. A couple minutes later, some completely anaerobic relay-team member came running by only to slow down right in front of me. Anytime that I attempted to pass this fellow he surged for couple seconds and then slowed down again. Awesome! Luckily I had my trusty Garmin to keep me steady, ’cause this guy was all over the place!
As we came through the last mile I began to gain on my buddy Wheeler. He was close enough that I could have spit on him (not that I would – that’s gross!), but then we made the final turn toward the finish and he took off! Bastard! We both PR’d, though! And Tim won! Woop woop!
Here are some photos from the awards ceremony:
Rockstars Michelle and Chrissie (watch for both to rock IMLP!).
Me with Frank Shorter (marathon gold-medalist at the ‘72 Olympics!).
The weekend was wrapped up with a totally-sweet 3 hour ride on the trainers. Yes!! At some point it will be sunny and over 30 degrees on the weekend! Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun’ll come out tomorrow…
Tags: Chatham, Fastwitch, Frank Shorter, Garmin, Hyannis, travel
Category: Random Jibber Jabber
