For anyone who has ever traveled with us, this should come as no surprise. We (especially me) just seem to trail destruction. So I welcomed our visitors into the chaos that is our home, and began chugging water. I needed to provide 90mL of urine. Huh! 90mL? I gave ‘em over 100! Then I had to divy it up into two bottles (A and B samples), lock the bottles up (only a machine can open it), list the supplements that I’ve taken over the past three days, sign several forms, and they were off. With my urine! I did get to keep the cup. Watch out if you ask for a drink and it’s served in a cup with a red cap! Hahaha, I crack myself up! (Rest assured, the cup is in the trash.)

Cradle 2 the Grave buy

Tales of the Riverbank hd

• Stepmom release

20000 Leagues Under the Sea movie full

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?

• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Great Clubhouse Hunt release

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…

We blew up dust as we skidded into the parking lot, got dressed in the car, and cut off the bridal party on our way into the wedding (I kid you not)! “Hurry! In there!” the father of the groom directed us as they lined up for their entrance. Because it was Valentine’s Day, we were wondering if they were going to go the super-cheesey construction-paper hearts all over the walls, red wedding dress route. Luckly they did not. It was a really nice wedding with normal portions for the meal (not that sampler crap some places like to get away with)! We danced the night away (pretty much me holding onto Tim and hoping not to end up plastered to the wall when he gets a little over zealous with his self-taught swing moves), and peaced-out to destination number three: Salem, NH.

For Your Eyes Only move

I barely made it to our room in the Holiday Inn before I was down for the count (it was only 10:30, but I RARELY go to bed after 8:30 – a loser, I know!). Everything was going really well- I was hitting that sleep hard- until I was awakened by the buzz saw immitation that a certain someone was practicing. Oh, wow! That was some impressive snoring! Even with the interuptions, we managed about 8 hours of sleep which is the minimum that I require if you don’t want me to go infant-without-a-nap on you around 3 in the afternoon. We hit the “fitness room”, and did a little redecorating. Basically, we moved everything in the 8 x 4 room to the sides and set up our trainers. We got the recovery ride done, and headed out for the long run. With my lack of navigational skills, these can get pretty interesting when done in areas that I don’t know well, but we found a damn-near perfect loop, which we repeated 4 times. This allowed us to focus on the run and not the land marks at every turn. It ended up being a really good run! Again, took down a recovery drink, showered and headed out for destination number 4: Amherst, NH.

• The Ant Bully trailer Deadwater video

This was a quick stop at the family of the groom’s house for a post-wedding breakfast. Hung out here for half an hour, and took off for destination number 5: Lawerence, MA.

After a few road-rage-induced outbursts, and a short loop around the city, we found our way to the Sons of Italy, site of the TriFury clinic. Luckily we were not the only ones running a bit behind, so we were able to slide in the back and sit for a minute before it was my turn to get up in front of everyone and talk about my past season, the years leading up to it, and my goals for the future. This has been a bit strange for me as I feel the story is really not all that exciting (started relatively young, trained, raced, etc), but the athletes always have good questions which makes it more entertaining. We chatted for about an hour, and then Tim and I departed for home. 36 hours after the beginning of our adventure we rolled into the driveway having not missed a second of training – good work!

Stepmom psp