Remember that trail race I was super excited to run on Saturday morning? It didn’t happen. Well, that’s not the entire truth: the trail race happened, I just didn’t run it….and I’m still pretty sad about it.
As planned, the rest of my fam went up to Georgetown on Friday night to cheer Mama on during the Slacker Half Marathon on Saturday morning. I’m a peach of a daughter, so Will and I agreed to stay at my parents’ house on Friday night to watch their dogs so that the pups had one less night with a dog sitter. Clearly, this was the worst decision ever because it led to me not running the Summer Solstice 10k!
Will and I had a lot of work to do so we ended up not getting to my parents’ house until 11pm—far later than I wanted, but still doable. The race didn’t start until 10am the following morning, so that still gave us plenty of time to get some sleep and make the drive to Beaver Creek. However, we settled in for the night, and this demon struck almost immediately.
The Demon Himself
Apparently Tiger didn’t like the fact that Mom and Dad were gone. He was clearly disgruntled with Will and me as the substitutes, so he went bananas all. freaking. night. He whined; he barked; he growled; he got stuff out of Mom’s closet to chew on; he rummaged through my suitcase to find new toys to chew on; he climbed on the bed; he jumped off the bed; he stepped on Will’s face; he stepped on my guts. In short, this dog did whatever he could to ensure that Will and I literally did not fall asleep. And no, that isn’t an exaggeration! Finally, at 4am I lost my cool and totally had an irrational moment of yelling and hysterical crying at the dog. He decided I was upset enough so he settled in for the night…I mean, morning, but it was only 45 minutes before our alarm was supposed to go off. Needless to say, I was exhausted, immobile, and frustrated to no end, so I didn’t have it in me to drive two hours into the mountains and run a race. I slammed the alarm off and went back to sleep. Sigh.
But, since I always like to look for the silver lining, missing my race meant that Will and I could still drive up and catch Mom finishing her second EVER half marathon! So, we finally hustled out of the house around 8:30 (yes, on a whopping 3 hours of sleep!)and made the drive to Georgetown. We found the rest of my family and made it to the finish line with plenty of time to spare. Mama ended up running the entire half with her friend Pat, and the two of them crushed it! She finished in 2:36.21, which is over a 12 minute PR and 17th in her age group. I was so proud of her as she crossed the line!
Pat and Mom, crossing the finish line
After Mom’s celebratory beer and ice cream, we cleaned up and headed out to do some touristy things for my sister’s boyfriend and my cousin. We bought tickets on the Georgetown Railroad Loop and headed up the mountain via this old school train.
As long as I’ve lived in Colorado, I’ve never been on this train, so it was kind of a fun experience! The train is an old fashioned steam locomotive that takes you along Clear Creek where the original mining settlers formed their mining camps in the late 1800s. Colorado was huge with the gold boom, and some of the mining areas still exist. The train didn’t show me anything I hadn’t seen before, but it was fun, kitschy way to spend the afternoon.
Will and me, doing our best Zoolander impressions on the train
After the train, the herd of us headed back to Georgetown where we annihilated copious amounts of food for dinner. Seriously, y’all would think that some type of banquet had occurred on our table by the amount we packed away. Naturally, we didn’t stop there and we headed to a nearby gas station for some post-dinner snacks (i.e. gummy bears and Mike and Ikes). We spent the rest of the evening drinking wine and enjoying our sugar. We had thought about going out for a night on the (mountain) town, but Will and I were still exhausted from the Tiger saga. Plus, we had a big day planned on Sunday…we were going white water rafting!
Check back manana for the white water rafting recap…complete with my ever- spectacular GoPro video. Plus, one lucky person is going to win a free white water rafting trips of his/her own!
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Have you ever had the night before a race go totally awry like this?