Whew. What a weekend. I crossed another item off my bucket list. And it feels good. Really good. Well, other than my throbbing legs and toes that feel like they could fall off at any minute. But enough about that...let me tell you about our weekend. Before I even start sharing the ins and outs of our trip let me just say that the half marathon ended up being the easiest part of the whole experience. You will see what I mean later.
We had plans to leave for OKC on Saturday around noon. This left Hallie and I just enough time to go to cousin Peyton's birthday party that morning at Boiling Springs. The weather was gorgeous so Riley was able to have some fun of his own turkey hunting with Papa Bill. I hear that they didn't shoot their guns but I'm sure the pure manliness of his morning suited him just fine. Here are a few pics from Peyton's 4th birthday party which was cowgirl themed. The lil cutie was looking just like Jesse from Toy Story.....
She made a beeline for the playground the moment she spotted it.....
Peyton was so sweet to Hallie and hid colored bean bags for her to hunt down on the playground. I can tell you with 100% certainty that Hallie's favorite part of the morning was CAKE. She was clear about letting me know this. While the other kiddos ate their cake quietly and were satisfied after one piece Hallie was requesting more in a not so subtle kind of way. She crawled up on the picnic table numerous times reaching for some more sugary sweetness. Keisha had made an adorable cake that looked like a horse pasture with a fence made out of pretzels. Very talented momma she is! We enjoyed visiting Aunt Betty, Aunt Alta and cousin Kara as well before we had to head home. This one little girl I know was looking a tad bit rough by the time I strapped her in the car....
"Say what?!?! We are leaving town??"
The runny-nosed, cake coma baby had to fight some very heavy eyelids on the short trip home. We found Riley already packed and ready to load the car when we got there. We hurried as well and were on the road by 12:30. Fast forward through a very bipolar car ride. We went from extremely giddy to giggly to angry to sleepy to groggy to snotty to sweating to happy to mad......yeah, it was fun. ;)
My lady looked pretty rough about mid-trip when I looked back to see her drenched in sweat and looking flushed. Her nose was still running so she was in need of some TLC upon waking up after only an hour long nap. After being pampered from the front seat a bit she was feeling a little better and read me her new Elmo book...
"Melmoooo!"
The shopping went greeeeeaaaaaat. That was complete sarcasm by the way. BUT we did get lots of outdoor goodies for the house. Riley was a happy man! After an afternoon full of whining/running crazy/protesting in the various stores we entered we finally put an end to the madness and made our way over to Laura's house where we found my very eager running partner ready to head downtown to pick up race packets. (I was feeling pretty thankful for my dear friend at that point...after all, she'd jumped on board the half-marathon train with me awhile back). We made it just in the nick of time to the expo to pick them up. Downtown was a madhouse...what with the hockey game, Thunder playoff game, marathon expo and the Arts Festival...holy moly! Riley dropped us off in traffic, we hurried to pick up our packets, ran into Julia and gave a quick hug and had a quick chat and made it back out to Riley pulling the car up in traffic. We had made plans to go to the Blessing of the Shoes ceremony as First Methodist downtown but we quickly made alternate plans upon spending the afternoon with a less than cooperative chick named Hallie Grace. Riley had been pretty pumped about going to this ceremony as we'd heard about it before but never actually gone to one. We attended First Church when we lived in OKC after just getting married and had been looking forward to visiting again. But alas we chose instead a quiet evening of Ted's and relaxation at Laura's house. I'd planned to do carb loading the right way and eat a ton of them the week leading up to the race but that did not happen. Instead I nervously stuffed my face with anything and everything that I shouldn't have. So why not dine on some pre-race Mexican food?! Laura's boyfriend Tyler made his way from Norman to have dinner with us. Four of us were civilized at dinner....and one was bouncing off the walls! I felt like she needed a tarp on the floor underneath her and a net around her waist to catch debris falling from her mouth and to catch the cheese and rice she was slinging off her hands. After dinner the little lady cleaned up and headed outside for some time on the porch.....
Sheesh, it had been way to long since I'd spent time with Laura. If I remember correctly the last time Laura saw Hallie was when she was a wee lil infant. This visit was long overdue...
Hallie the homebody began heading toward the door and giving us signs that she was ready for bed. I guess we were taking too long acting on her suggestions so she found a nice cozy spot to curl up in the dog bed....
"Maybe we ought to ditch the crib and get one of these..."
Riley and Miss Priss had a hotel less than a mile from Laura's so that they could sleep in undisturbed in the morning. After all, my alarm was going to buzz at an alarmingly early time. So I kissed my babies goodbye and settled in out on the porch for some dessert and catch up time with Laura and get-to-know time with Tyler. I was thoroughly entertained by text messages from Riley as he and Hal got settled into their room. Well I'm not sure about him but I have proof that she wasted no time getting comfortable....
"Could you grab me some juice and crackers dad? And it's a little chilly in here, check the thermostat please."
My baby girl missed her momma. This picture made me want to take off running down the road just to give her one last hug and kiss....
"Hi momma"
I wanted so badly to stay up and talk, eat more mango pushups and watch nonsense television but the thought of 4:30 coming too quickly scared me into bed. Slight problem though....a storm had kicked up and lightening and thunder made it pretty difficult impossible to sleep. I believe I finally fell asleep somewhere around 1:00 and woke up on my own one minute before the alarm was to go off. The thunder had given me a nice jolt at least once an hour from that point on so sleep was not easy to come by that night. EEEEEK! Race day. Surprisingly the morning went great. No nervous jitters....no yawning and dragging. One shower, one apple, one bottle of water and one pep talk later we were getting out of the car and there was no turning back. We met Natasha before the race and made our way toward the start line.
We arrived just in time for the start of the race. No, literally. Just in time. We had about one minute left to get down into the fenced in runners area before the race started. Instead of walking all the way down we decided on a shorter route. The three of us could be seen jumping the fence while the announcer counted down over the speakers "9, 8, 7." Laura had made it over the fence safely. "6, 5." At this point my shorts were conveniently caught on the chainlink fence...score! "4, 3." Natasha dropped down into the crowd of people. "2, 1." And we were off (after an eight minute walk with a giant mass of runners to the start line, of course)!! The race itself was an amazing experience. Having not trained properly for such a distance I had expected it to be pure torture but it wasn't. It was actually pretty fun. We chatted for the first nine miles and then got a little more into checking our mileage and little less into chatting. Mile ten is when our knees started to ache....and mile eleven is when it started to rain. The humidity was atrocious but the precip cooled things off a bit. The last two miles went by pretty quickly and the last quarter mile was run at a pretty speedy pace considering we were surrounded by the people lined up cheering at the finish line. We crossed the finish line, grabbed our medals and made our way to a place to collect ourselves. But the only thing I was collecting at that point were muscle cramps. Holy Moses! I kept thinking to myself "oh yeah, this is why you were supposed to train, Ashley." The run was fairly easy...but the after effects were rather unpleasant. We spent the next thirty minutes walking up and down the street finishing off bananas and Powerade while we searched for Tyler, Riley and Hallie. No such luck though so our tired legs made their way back to the car. Six blocks felt like one hundred. We made it to the car and called our guys. They were both still back down by the finish line so we moved the car a bit closer and walked back down to meet them. It was not an easy task locating Riley and that lil read head but I finally found them! Hallie was so excited when she spotted me walking up. The little runner girl was looking cute in her hat and raincoat.
I was feeling abundantly blessed to have both of them there with me on raceday. It was a great feeling knowing that they were there waiting for me after the race....
It had been since I was 17 years old that I'd run 13 miles. It felt good to prove to myself that it's still possible. High fives all around for finishing in two hours and 16 minutes! We were pretty excited about our time considering we had just wanted to finish. Period. We can only get better from this point on! A tradition has begun!
So what was Hal gal doing the morning of the race? Well, she was probably yawning. From what Riley told me it sounds like she got just about as much sleep as I did. Zilch. I laugh inside everytime I think about how there night must've gone. Riley says that he put her in the pack'n'play around 10:00 and about ten minutes later he heard a big "thump." He looked up to see a little girl walking toward him with a look on her face that said "I hope I'm not in trouble, dada." She repeated her new escape trip two more times after that and finally fell asleep around midnight. Is it bad that I giggle when I think about this? Her lack of sleep the night before didn't stop her from celebrating after the race with me. She was quite fond of my medal and wore it around her neck with pride....
We stopped at one last Lowes store on the way out of town after having lunch at Chiles. I'm still wondering why the half-marathoner girl didn't get to pick the dining location instead of her husband but I'll keep pondering that one. ;) The car ride home was long. Hallie was too exhausted to sleep (if that even makes sense) and I think I may have been too. My legs were revolting against me and it's safe to say that I've never been so excited to pull into our driveway. But the fear of stepping out of the truck was too much to bear so I sat there contemplating my exit for a couple minutes. The legs did manage to support me when I stepped down...but oh my....they were ready for a nap. After we unpacked the car that is just what we did. We decided that naps were a definite MUST....and Hal surprisingly obliged. We all slept soundly from 4:00 to 6:00 and woke up feeling much better. Well that is excluding my knees and my right big toe. All in all, it was a successful weekend. It's not everyday (or ever for that matter) that I can say I'm proud of myself). But I am. I'm proud. And I'm ready for the next race. Bring it on!
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