Days until NYC Marathon:7!
Last weekend I went to Cherokee, NC with about 20 people from our training program. We headed up for a road trip to run the Cherokee Harvest Half Marathon. The 9 hour road trip with Krystal and Rich was lots of fun! We also rented a sweet cabin up in the mountains. Not long after arriving we went on a (scary) trail run. Ok, it wasn't so scary but I was terrified that I would trip, fall, and break something right before NYC. From there we headed to dinner at the local Mexican place which was delicious!
Road Trip!
3 miles on the Scary Trail!
Getting ready to run the trail.
Life is great at the Cabin
The next day our itinerary got wrecked and we had to change our breakfast plans. Then our fearless leader took us on a 3 mile hike up a mountain to the top of a fire tower. I was still worried about tripping, falling, and breaking something, but I sucked it up and made it to the top for a pretty amazing view! Off to dinner at the Cork and Bean after that. Only a small sweet potato fry fiasco but our pre-race meal was great!
Breakfast!
Don't mind the Drink Chia! placement on the top of the fire tower!
Saturday morning was race day. I'm glad I stayed with people who get up crazy early like me and don't mind getting to the race hours before we need to be there. Going in to the trip I wasn't sure what my plan would be. Maybe practice the 2:45 pace I have to do for OUC, maybe do NYC race pace (2:37), maybe go for it and run the best race I could. While not sure that it was wise to go all out 2 weeks before NYC my coach, Susan, said it would be ok, and said she would run the race with me. It was nice and cold (thank the lord!) race morning and I took off pretty fast. Susan claims my walk breaks aren't really walk breaks but I think that's only because I have some really long legs! I tried not to really pay attention to my watch and just run the race where it felt good. I also couldn't look like a wimp in front of Susan, so I was pretty determined to run as hard and fast as I could and not take any namby pamby extra walk breaks. The only extra walking I did was us the really nasty hill in the middle of the race. By about mile 11 she assured me that no matter what I did from there on out would be a PR so I felt pretty good about finishing strong. We came in to the end and low and behold I took over four and a half minutes off of my half marathon time! 2:22:10! I'm so thankful to Susan for running the whole thing with me! I am also thankful for all the people who went on this trip with us because they were all there lining the finish and cheering me on even though some of them were done almost an hour before me! It meant so much that these people who are much stronger and fast runners than I am were there supporting me as well.
On the course
Coming in to the finish
PR and Bling!
Best Coach Ever!
After the race - all the Orlando runners
The next day we got up and hiked the Appalachian Trail. It was a long hike and at one point I didn't think I would go all the way (thanks Gideon for forcing me to go past the scary part) but I made it 3 miles up and 3 miles down the scary mountain. Luckily, I did not trip, fall, or break anything on this whole trip! I am so thankful that I decided to come on this great runcation! We had so many laughs (none of them blog appropriate) that my abs still hurt!
About to hike
6 miles on the Appalachian Trail
At the top of the Jump Off
It was an AWESOME trip!! So happy to have shared it with you!
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