Ouch. Part 2

A Half Marathon Play by Play:

Friday Afternoon:

• Alyssa is sent home early from work due to excessive vomiting - gross.
• Alyssa goes to Med Express and is diagnosed with the stomach flu and prescribed anti-nausea medicine
• Alyssa informs me she will let me know by 6 if she's going to the race

Friday Early Evening:

• Texts fly back and forth between myself, Bob, and Alyssa - the consensus is I need to go to their hose to help force her into the car

Friday Night:

• Finally on our way, Bob drives through a mixture of rain and snow in the dark to get us to Canton
• We check into the Days Inn
• We crash for the night

Saturday Morning:

• Snow is on the ground
• Complimentary breakfast at the hotel - bagels and waffles
• Check in at the winery
• Sit in the car trying to stay warm for about an hour (we later learn the temp never rose about 35 degrees)
• I venture out of the car's warmth to use the facilities and check out the winery store - it's super cute!
• After reporting back to Alyssa and Bob the cuteness of the store, we three spend the rest of the morning inside
• Bob and I eat fresh pumpkin donuts while Alyssa shoots us dirty looks (her instructions from the doctor say she can only eat bland food)

The Race:

• Lining up we are behind another guy from Pittsburgh (he commented on Alyssa's Steelers hat)
• In later conversation, I dub him "Pittsburgh" (i.e. Pittsburgh just passed us.)
• The first half wasn't too horrible except for the congestion in the park where the relay exchanges were taking place.  Having to fight our way through runners, spectators, and vehicle traffic was not pleasant.  After crossing over the half-way split, we were subjected to the torture of running past the finish line, and being as slow as we were the leaders were crossing as we were only halfway!  Boo to the course layout.

Most of the other highlights I detailed in Part 1, but here's a couple other random things:

• Animals passed
• Living - Cows, horses, dogs, and 2 adorable kittens keeping one of the cops company
• Roadkill - Raccoon, groundhog, and a snake (I don't think Alyssa saw this though, and that is a good thing ;o) she is Mary Warmbein's daughter after all)
• Name that the group who came in last dubbed themselves
• the Waddlers
• Our official finish times
• Alyssa - 3:01:19 - 656th place
• Me - 3:20:00 - 680th place
• Number of official pictures we appear in
• Alyssa - 2
• Me - 0 (boo...)
• What I bought myself to commemorate the fact that I completed a 13.1 mile race

 

(it's a car magnet)