The Bourbon Chase October 7-8, 2011

9:00 AM on a Friday

"The Gang Goes to Jim Beam"

It was a beautiful Friday morning as Van 1 from team Fueled by >51% Corn drove from Lexington to the Jim Beam distillery in Clermont, KY to begin the journey that is the Bourbon Chase.  They arrived to shots of bourbon lining the bar.  And our full team ended on Main Street in Lexington, KY amidst booths of bourbon and (my personal favorite) Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale.

Our team of 12 runners ran this beautiful 200 mile relay course that stretched from Jim Beam all the way to Lexington, KY while hitting all the major bourbon distilleries along the way.  The adventure was filled with laughs, mishaps, and killer tunes (think Careless Whisper).  My van, Van 2, met up with Van 1 at Makers Mark.  We took a quick tour of the distillery where we came across one of the funniest scenarios ever.  As we were walking back to the transition point where our 6th runner would pass the baton...errr...slap bracelet to our 7th, we passed by a warehouse full of aging bourbon and two people locked in side.  Yes, you read that correctly, two people were locked inside. As we walked, the front door was being pounded on from the inside with a guy yelling "Excuse me!  Can you open this door?  We're locked in!"  In between fits of laughter, we informed the imprisoned that the door was padlocked.  One of my teammates answered, "Can't you just go out the way you came in?  How did you get in there?"  The gentleman answered, "It said self-guided tour!  So we came in!  Then they came behind us and locked the door!"  I ran to get someone from Maker's while the rest of my van stayed behind to laugh at them some more.  Well, walked briskly to get help.  I mean, I was crying from laughing so hard so my vision was too blurry to actually run.  After a couple of minutes, Maker's managed to get the door opened and the couple came out safely and in surprisingly good humor. 

 After that, we joined the race.  My van ran its first round with no problems - with the exception of the middle earth-type heat our first four runners had to endure.  

9:00 PM on a Friday

"The Gang Sees an Apparition" 

Our first round ended in Perryville, KY where Van 1 took over again and we left to grab dinner and head to the hotel for a nice 3 hour nap.  I should mention here that my van was unfortunate enough to have Cynthia, my GPS, as our navigator.  Cynthia has never liked me.  I'm convinced she is jealous of my relationship with Micah and is doing everything she can to get me lost for good.  Getting rid of me is one thing, but she put the other runners and our hero of a driver in peril as well which is absolutely unacceptable.  In looking for the hotel, she took us down a very dark, very scary road.  We knew something was wrong so Craig, the driver, pulled into a gravel driveway to turn around and figure out what our next move should be.  We were all tired, a little frustrated, and, quite frankly, afraid for our lives so when Craig said "well, that's a little creepy" the whole van was ready to overthrow Cynthia from her oh-so-powerful spot on the dashboard.  We looked up at the barn in front of us and saw something like this...

...Okay, maybe they weren't flesh eating ghosts...maybe it was more like a cherub angel statue watching our every move from the loft a very obviously haunted barn.  Either way, total creepers. Anyway, where Cynthia cannot be trusted good 'ole Google came to our rescue.  We made it to our hotel with a quick stop at Fazoli's for dinner.

3 hours and a nap later, we were on our way to Danville where we met up with Van 1 again to start our second round of runs.  It was the middle of the night so everyone got to enjoy a nice, cool run.  My van peeps blew their times out of the water, and then it got to my run.  

5:50 AM on a Saturday

"Sweet Allie Loses a Leg" 

I felt great starting out.  I knew Leg 23 was a hilly run, but I was ready for it and got off to a nice steady pace.  About 2 miles in, I heard my van cheering me as they passed.  Not 10 minutes later, I heard more vans coming up behind me.  At this point, the road was narrowed to about as wide as one lane and I was a little nervous about cars passing me.  I did my best to get over as far as I could.  With it being 2AM and about as dark as I've ever experienced, I couldn't see where the pavement ended.  I ended up getting over too far to let the vans pass and turned my ankle.  I got up immediately thinking that I could just run off the pain but after a few minutes running became nearly impossible because my foot was swelling so bad my shoe was cutting off the circulation.  As I ran, my arch got so swollen that my foot was actually convex and I was rocking from my heel to my toe.  Uncomfortable, to say the least.  About 3 miles later, I made it to the exchange point and begged for some ice.  Yeah, I said it, 3 miles.  Hardcore.  Not like I had much of a choice, but I was given the Beast Award for that one.  Here is a scientific portrayal of exactly what happened:

Clearly, with all the snapping, popping and ka-powing going on I was unable to run my third leg.  Luckily, our driver (a very handsome, giving man) ran the final leg for me.  

7:00 PM on a Saturday

"The Gang Finishes"

The Bourbon Chase is beyond words.  Never mind just trying anymore, in just over a year I have triumphed 2 half marathons, 1 full marathon, and completed a 200 mile relay race. What's the difference between try and triumph you ask?  Just a little umpf.  I may not be the fastest but I'm labeling this one as a success. 

Oops, I did it again...

I thought I learned my lesson after the Tough Mudder.  If you came up to me and said "hey, let's go run up and down a mountain," I would reply without hesitation "absolutely not."  Do you know why I would say that?  Because it's stupid.  But change the question to "hey, do you want to do a mud race?" the answer is always "YES."  Because, for some reason, that sounds like fun and not stupid at all. 

The eve before Hurricane Irene (dud) was scheduled to demolish the Greater Boston area, Micah and I ran the Spartan Race for the second time.  Last year we ran this race with a group of people.  It was our first mud race and if you were to take out the 32 hornet stings we endured collectively it was a lot of fun.  You ran up the mountain once, went through a few fairly easy obstacles, and ran back down.  Apparently, a lot of people complained that the course was too easy last year.  It seems the Spartan team took these comments personally.  This year was unexpected and ridiculous.  They took out the "girl-side" of the 8 foot walls you had to jump which was not good for Micah or myself since he had to help me over every single one of them.   The barbed wire crawl went from a nice and easy 5-minute army crawl to three sections of barbed wire about 30 yards a piece straight up hill, split up by 6-8 foot walls you had to jump. In mud and rocks.  As if that wasn't enough, they added obstacles.  One of which required us to take a 5 gallon bucket, fill it up with gravel (1/2 for girls, 3/4 for guys), and carry it up and down a hill.  Why do I pay to do this stuff?  The good news is, this is the first of the three mud races I've done where I didn't get stung.  Isn't it sad that this is the good news?

All in all this was a great race, but I wish I would have been prepared for it.  I expected to drive up to Amesbury, roll around in the mud, and have some fun.  Instead I returned home broken.  It hurts to get up, sit down, and breath.  And I know what you're thinking...the answer is yes, I will be back next year.

On another note, we learned Sota doesn't like earthquakes.  We knew that she wouldn't be pleased about Irene, but this is what we came home to after the earthquake the other day...

There are two windows in this bedroom.  The other set of blinds was completely torn down.  Our guest bedroom looked like a murder scene.  And look at Baxter sitting there like nothing happened.  Worthless.

St Pete Beach

Micah and I decided this year we needed a vacation, just the two of us.  So, as continued punishment for failing to complete the duties assigned to him as we planned our wedding and honeymoon, I left all the planning and booking up to him.  I vowed to do nothing but show up to the airport at whatever specified time necessary.  And that's exactly what I did.

Only it wasn't just the two of us.  We have a new friend that joined us on our trip.  His name is Möl, he is from Sweden, and he is a snake.  He first made an appearance in our coffeemaker when my mom came to visit.  Then, he managed to wrap himself around the vacuum cleaner and later slithered his way into a pitcher full of tea.  He ended up in Florida by stowing away in our beach blanket, surprising Micah our first day on the beach.

Not one to hold a grudge, Micah allowed Möl to join in our vacation fun and what says vacation better than Cheez-Its?  Nothing.

I decided Möl needed a taste of the high life and took him to Madfish where he rattled his way onto Micah's entree (with the help of two very bored servers).

And on and on it went.  At first, Möl was just a source of entertainment (and a really good way to annoy one another) but on the third day of our trip, he saved our lives.  Here's the story:

We were on the beach reading our books and decided it was time for lunch.  We had a couple of sandwiches and a box of Cheez-Its in our beach bag ready to go.  No big deal, right?  I mean, growing up we went on vacation every summer and I distinctly remember having a sandwich or two on the beach without incident.  Clearly, my parents never took us to St. Pete Beach.  This beach has the most aggressive, violent birds I've ever encountered.  (The duck at Burdette Park who chased me around the pond when I was 7 comes in a very close second).  As soon as Micah pulled out his corned beef sandwich he had a bird hovering over his shoulder waiting for the perfect moment to snag the lunch right out of his hands.  It looked something like this:

I screamed like a little girl, causing the people around us to laugh and the aerial attack to switch focus to me and my peanut butter sandwich since I was obviously the weaker human of our group.  One bird quickly became 100 (okay, maybe 8) and all I could hear was their evil cawing and the beating of their wings around my head.  I ducked and dove but couldn't shake them.  Micah used this opportunity of freedom to hide his sandwich back in the bag, but I wasn't so lucky.  Knowing I had a back up in the bag, I threw my sandwich as far away from our stuff as I could and curled up in the fetal position.  The birds followed the sandwich and left us alone.  Once the coast was clear and I stopped hyperventilating, we resumed lunch.  Only this time we had security.

Besides being attacked by flesh-eating sandwich-loving seabirds, the vacation was a good one.  We even went paddleboarding!  My experience was slightly more successful than Micah's.

And, for the record, we attempted to continue training but within the first mile running on the beach I stepped in a hole in the sand and twisted my ankle.  Oh well, vacations are meant for eating and lazing not exercising.

MosquiDO's, MosquiDON'Ts

I wish I could be one of those people who woke up early every morning to greet the day with a smile and a positive outlook. I tried that today.  Instead of waiting until after work to run in the heat of the day, I've started setting my alarm clock early enough to run a couple of miles while it's still cool out.  This morning there were two major problems: #1 I have NEVER been a morning person and #2 it was anything but cool.  The temperature may not have hit the high for the day but have you have been tempted to run laps in a sauna?  Me neither.  My goal was to run 3 miles, take the dogs for a cool-down walk, and make it to work before 8:00AM.  Triple fail.

The alarm went off and as any self-respecting procrastinator would do, I hit snooze three times.  I finally dragged myself out of bed but the extra snooze hits left me no time for a pre-run breakfast.  Who needs food or water before running?  Not me.  I walked out the front door and ran smack into a wall of humidity.  I was covered in sweat before I even started running.  Trying to muster through the steam, I decide to keep my running on the bike path.  I thought it would be nice to run on the nice quiet path through the trees and past the lake.  Even better, the bike path is paved but there is a nice dirt shoulder that's perfect for running.  Tranquility. 

I knew I wouldn't be breaking any records on this run.  Not only was it too muggy to breathe, but I've taken a couple weeks off running because of a minor foot injury (don't worry, I Googled it and I'll be fine).  But this run was tough.  Glacial, I would say.  And the bugs - oh, the bugs.  About one mile in, a mosquito (or other buzzy-flying thing) started following me.  She stalked my whole life on the bike path.  She hovered around my ears, waiting for an opportunity to enter so she could lay her eggs in there.  I know this to be true because it is scientific fact that this is what mosquitoes want.  See the scientific equation below for proof if you don't believe me.

Well, I wasn't going to just let her in without a fight.  No way.  I did everything I could to get her away.  I jerked my head from side to side, slapped and swatted around my face and ears, and screamed in frustration.  All I managed to do was make whatever small children happened to be near cry.  I was officially slow, hungry, tired, frightening to the young, and a walking mosquito nest.

I went home in defeat with my shoulders slumped.  My run was too slow to take the girls for a walk and I rolled into work around 8:15.  Greet the day with a smile?  Come on.  Get real.  My days go much smoother when I greet them complaining and grumbling one full hour of sleep later. 

Houdini Update

After Sota's last escape (Prison Break) Micah and I completely replaced our fencing in the backyard.  It went from cheap-o plastic fencing to heavy duty wire fencing and t-posts.  A few weeks went by and we had no escapes so I thought we were in the clear.  Wrong.  I went outside earlier this week and found Sota across the street in a neighbor's yard.  I called her over and she came right back (no chasing this time) and I went straight to the back yard to find the area of the fence that had been compromised.  I couldn't find a thing.  The fencing wasn't bent or moved, no holes in the ground...nothing.  I gave her a stern look and told her "you just wait till Micah hears about this."  She was excited.  Micah gives her lots of treats.

When Micah got home, I sent him to the backyard to do a more thorough search of the fence.  He came up empty handed.  Our only other solution was to try to trick her into showing us what she was doing.  It worked after the first big snow (Snow Moat, Snow Problem) and we were able to do fashion a temporary fix until we could replace it, so we gave it a shot.  Micah, Buttercup, and I left the backyard with leashes in hand.  Sota watched us from the porch with a look that said "surely they're not going on a walk without me...wait a minute, they can't do that!"  Before I could even turn around to try to coax her out of the backyard she was up and over the gate and sitting right beside me, ready for her walk. 

It happened too fast to capture on film, so I did my best to recreate the moment.

It was as if the 4-foot gate wasn't even there.  She just floated over it. 

In light of this revelation, I decided I needed to build up some good karma on the pet front.  It just so happened that the next morning on my walk to Alewife I saw a small beagle running around the field without a care in the world while his poor dog-sitter (a close friend of the owner, I learned) stood exasperated on the bikepath.  This poor guy had treats, leashes - the works.  Unfortunately Baxter the Beagle knew all the tricks and avoided getting caught. 

 

 

Again, no camera but this is exactly what it was like

I couldn't stand by without at least trying to help so I dropped my things and caught Baxter's attention when he came close to me.  As soon as he got close enough I started scratching his ears which turned out to be his kryptonite.  He was putty in my hands.

I feel like I have paid it forward from Sota's last escapade where if it weren't for the kind lady willing to cut Sota off at the pass I may never have caught her.  Hopefully if Sota figures out yet another way to escape my good doggie karma will bring her back to me.

Back in the Saddle

It's about that time.  We are officially 13 training weeks away from the Bourbon Chase in Lexington, KY.  Our team is manned up and ready so now it's time to get back in the habit of running.  I wanted to wait until the nice, cool weather went away and the heat of the summer came to actually start training again.  That seemed to make the most sense to me.

In an effort to make our lives more training-ready, Micah and I signed up for a CSA - Farmer Dave's to be exact.  This is our first year purchasing a CSA and even though we've only gotten one delivery, I'm pleased so far.  This week we received bok choy, spinach, lettuce, green onion, garlic scape, rhubarb, pea pods, and radishes.  It was so nice to have fresh produce in the house without having to do any work to get it.  When we  go to the grocery store, we usually buy the boring veggies and a bunch of meat and potatoes (when I say "we" I actually mean Micah - this is his contribution to the family as there is nothing I hate more than the grocery store).  A typical shopping trip would not leave us with things like rhubarb.  As I unpacked our CSA treasure on Wednesday and saw the rhubarb I immediately thought strawberry-rhubarb pie.  Not exactly part of my training diet, but a made-from-scratch pie is good for the soul.  That is scientific fact.  Trust me, I found it on Answers.com. 

Here's my pie, step-by-step:

 

Yes, it is as good as it looks.  But hopefully this CSA will end up being more helpful when making wholesome, healthy meals.  Weekly pies may not be such a good thing for the running...although I could probably get used to it.

Prison Break

Imagine this:

It's about 70 degrees out and you're walking home from running your Sunday afternoon errands.  The sun is shining and you start thinking "today would be a good day to do some yardwork or just hang out on the porch and read a book."  You turn off the bike path, pass the soccer field and the playground, and hit Herbert road.  You look up ahead toward your house and see a dog with no leash walking toward you.  And, wait, what's that behind the dog?  Is that a lady in a bathing suit with no shoes on?  No way.  It's a sunny day and all but it certainly hasn't been warm enough to be hanging out poolside.  She seems to be speaking to the dog but you can't tell if they're actually together because the dog isn't responding.  Not even a little bit.  She keeps switching from a nice "good doggy" voice to something that sounds eerily familiar to Linda Blair.  You think that maybe at one time she liked the dog but is quickly changing her feelings.

That was my Sunday afternoon.  No, not the one walking home from Sunday errands.  I was the crazy lady running the streets in a bathing suit chasing after a dog who suddenly decided she wanted nothing to do with me. After the Newton 10K Sunday morning, I headed home while Micah left for his softball practice.  It was such a nice day outside, I decided to throw on the bathing suit, breakout the lawn chairs, and finish Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres.  There have been a few instances where Sota escaped the yard (Snow Moat Snow Problem) but I thought that there was no way she would try a stunt like that with me sitting right in front of her.  Apparently I was wrong.  I look behind me and I see her pulling our make-shift fencing down with her paws.  I yelled at her and she got down.  30 seconds later, different spot, same move.  Again, yelled at her and she got down.  I decided to take her inside once I got to a better stopping point in the book, but before I made it to the end of the page she was scrambling to get over the bushes.  Without thinking, I launched myself out of the lawn chair and tried to catch her in the air but I only managed to terrify her.  Normally when she gets out, she just goes to the front door or comes right back when you call her.  Since I scared her she refused to come within 5 feet of me.  That's how I ended up 3 blocks away from the house in my bathing suit and barefoot.  We passed someone about a block and a half from the house who asked what was going on.  I briefly explained that my husband's dog (she's Micah's dog when she's doing bad things) found a way out of the back yard and wouldn't come back.  The woman walked off and I didn't think anything of it until about two minutes later I saw her walking toward us.  I told her Sota was afraid of strangers and not to try to catch her.  So she just stood in front of Sota until I could catch up.  I guess Sota decided that of the two options, I was the least scary (I had access to her food and water, which helped a little I'm sure) so she went with the lesser of two evils.  I led her home by the collar and told her she was never going outside again.  Ever.

This whole ordeal really killed the laying out mood, so I changed and focused my attention on fixing the fence.  Micah and I replaced the entire fence with a sturdier wire and t-posts.  Hopefully that will keep the beast at bay.