Saturday morning, I ran an easy 3-miler on the road at home. It was late in the morning by the time I went out, which shouldn’t be an issue this time of year, but for whatever reason it’s still hitting the mid 80s around here. It was pretty warm. I wanted to take it slow anyway, so it worked out.
We got some laundry done, and then Clark and I packed up for our races the next morning.
Our first stop was the Dogfish Head brewery in Milton. I got Dave’s and my race packets. We didn’t hang around any longer than that though. The tasting room looked like it was swarming with people.
We drove up to Bethany next, where Clark got his race packet for his triathlon, and then we drove to the beach house in Fenwick.
One of Clark’s coworkers, who was also doing the tri, and his wife stopped by the beach house for a bit. They left right around when Clark’s parents got back from dinner. So we left Pepper with Clark’s parents and got our own dinner at Our Harvest.
I really like this place. The menu is mostly a ton of small plates, so instead of picking one thing to eat each, we get to pick a bunch of different things and share them. We had uni (sea urchin), roasted broccoli, tuna tartare, shiitake mushrooms, Wagyu flank steak, soft shell crab, this ridiculously good cheese that was served with an equally ridiculously good peach chutney and, to top it off, toasted pumpkin bread with cream cheese frosting.
We went straight to bed when we got back.
I slept fine. My race didn’t start until 9 a.m., so I didn’t really need to leave the house too early, unless I didn’t want to have to park half a mile away from the race site at the brewery. But Clark had to get up early, since his race started at 7:30 and he had to set up his transition area beforehand. So I decided to just get up early too and snag a premium parking spot.
I had a text from my brother already when I got up. It was a picture of a half-dozen Dunkin Donuts — he ate three of them for breakfast, the capstone to his rigorous training plan of a single run a few weeks ago haha.
Clark (and his dad, who also did the tri) left the house around 6, and I wasn’t far behind them. Pepper stayed in Fenwick with Clark’s mom. No cute race pictures of my dog this year, but, on the other hand, I also never had to apologize to other runners because my idiot dog almost ran them over!
The only on-site parking at the brewery opened at 7 a.m. I got there about 15 minutes after that and got a spot. Score! And my brother had gotten there right before I did.
We had an hour and 45 minutes to hang around before the start. I’d planned to run a couple miles to warm up, since I’d have so much time, but Dave convinced me to just stand around with him and run our mouths instead.
At one point, we were talking about when we used to go to Williamsburg every single year for vacation. The first year we went, when Dave was almost 8, he got lost twice; once at the Governor’s Palace in Colonial Williamsburg, because he followed the wrong tour group out of the last room on the tour, and again at Busch Gardens, when he got sidetracked by a gift shop when we were all on our way to get in line for the Big Bad Wolf.
I never knew this before, but after those two near-miss experiences, Dave was convinced the only reason Mom and Dad took us to Virginia every summer — the only time we ever left the Eastern Shore — was to TRY to lose one or all of us! Every year after that, Dave made sure at least one of us kids was with Mom and Dad at all times, so they couldn’t run away haha. It sounds so dumb now, but I guess I can kind of see how he came up with that at that age!
Anyway, at about 8:45, they called us all over to the start corral. It was another warm day, definitely the hottest it’s been of the four times I’ve run this race. I went with my standard summer racing outfit of shorts and a sports bra.
I told Dave I didn’t feel like running too hard. He said that was fine, he’d just run my pace.
We got the starting gun and we were off!
The first mile of the race was a little crowed, as usual, as everyone tried to sort themselves out by pace. I could feel the lack of a warm up in my legs, as well as those 23 miles I’d run over the previous two days. We finished that mile in 7:43.
The second mile had a little elevation change, a couple small up- and downhills. We also ran that one in 7:43.
By the third mile, we started passing people who’d passed us at the beginning. My legs felt like they’d loosened up too. (That’s what the warm up is for haha.) We sped up a hair, running that one in 7:37.
The fourth mile was more of the same. We just kept picking people off. Right near the end of that mile, we made a turn and started climbing the only substantial uphill on the course. We passed the mile marker on that hill — 7:28 for mile 4.
Less than a mile to go, but that hill KILLED me. I’d felt pretty good up to that point, like I was running hard but not uncomfortably so. I was gasping for air by the time we finally got that hill behind us.
We kept it moving though. There was a long straightaway, and then, with about a half-mile to go, we turned onto a bike path. Another short stretch of road after the bike path led us to the brewery entrance, and we could hear the cheering at the finish line, just around one more corner.
As we made that last turn, Dave decided to try to push me to pass a woman we’d been closing in on for the entire final mile. I never have much of a sprint at the end of a race though, so in the end, that woman beat me — and so did Dave haha. After running the whole race together, he beat me by a freaking second!
I’m all the way to the right, Dave is next to me, and the woman in the purple tank top is the one I’m (unsuccessfully) trying to catch.
My chip time was 37:25. Dave’s was 37:24. (Our final 0.97 mile was 6:52.) His winning streak continues!
That time placed me 19th of 511 in the F 30-39 age group, 41st of 1,237 women and 159th of 2,439 overall.
I was pretty happy with the effort. It was a few seconds slower than last year, but I liked that we’d started off easy and gotten progressively faster. It was also definitely hotter than last year.
As soon as we finished, volunteers handed us a small towel and a Purist water bottle full of water.
I only really wanted one thing though — a port-o-potty! About a half-mile from the end, my guts had started rumbling. Fortunately, there was a whole line of them right there around the corner from the finish line, and one was open. I felt much better after that!
Past the port-o-potties, we got our first beer, a can of Sea Quench Ale. Since the car was right there, I traded my running shoes for flip flops, and then Dave and I went back to the finish line to watch for TK.
After TK, her mom, her sister and her sister’s fiance all finished, we hung out at the post-race party. Once we finished the can, we got our second and third beers in a stainless steel pint. We could pick Sea Quench Ale or 60 Minute IPA. There was also a filtered water station where we could refill the bottle or pint in between beers if we wanted.
Finishers pint and water bottle.
It was a great time. I love this race so much! Definitely worth setting an alarm for noon on April Fools Day every year to sign up the moment registration opens.
When I got back to Fenwick, Clark and his dad had made it back too. The tri had gone well. Due to the conditions (big waves and a hefty current), the ocean swim had to be replaced by a half-mile beach run for everyone but the elites. The bike and the final run went on as advertised. Running a half-mile, even in sand, is easier than swimming one, so Clark’s overall finish time was quite a bit faster than when he did the same tri last year. He’s got one more sprint coming up next weekend in Berlin.
Oh, guess what — we just happened to have the same bib number in our races.
We spent the rest of the day at the beach house. In the evening, we went with Clark’s parents to the Dogfish Head brewpub in Rehoboth for dinner. They went back to the beach house after, but we came home.
Pepper was exhausted after waking up at 5 a.m. and worrying about both of us for hours while we were at our races. He slept with his chin on my right arm the whole drive home, barely bothered by the shifting, and then as soon as we got in the house, he climbed right into bed and collapsed haha. Poor guy!
Today, Richmond Marathon training continues with an easy 4-miler.
A Simple Running Log 