Fab 4th Weekend / Joker's Wild Half

My weekend started on Wednesday, since I took Thursday off as a vacation day.

Wednesday night: The kids and I went to the Cardinals game and saw the Cardinals beat the Mets, 8-7 with a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th.
GO CARDS!

Thursday: Such an exciting day off... I got up and went for a 7-mile run in the rain. It rained the e-n-t-i-r-e- time. It has been hot hot hot, so the rain actually felt pretty good.
In the afternoon, I took the boy (my son) to the dentist for his root canal and went to the eye dr for myself.

Friday (4th): The kids and I went to St Louis and checked into our hotel at Westport. We ate at Pujols restaurant in Westport Plaza and went for ice cream at Coldstone Creamery. Yum! We saw Carol, and we confirmed our plans to run together the next morning. Sweet!
Then, we rode the Metrolink over to Fair St Louis and saw Joss Stone performing and the beginning of the fireworks. My daughter was worried about the crowded Metro on the way back, so we watched the fireworks as we walked to the Metrolink station. Got back to our hotel around 11pm, and of course I couldn't sleep.

Saturday (race day): The race start time was 6am, so my alarm was set at 4:30am. I didn't want to get up, but felt ok once I got moving. I went to the race start around 5:30am and started my pre-race ritual of hitting the port-a-potty repeatedly. I saw Ed, who is also a local runner from our run club, and we chatted for a few minutes. I hadn't expected to see anyone I knew except for Carol. I never did see Carol on Saturday, and she didn't have any results posted today. I assume she must have gotten sick or something. This is a normal occurrence for Carol, backing out of races at the last moment.

I went ahead and lined up and the race started at 6:15am (yup, 15 minutes late). The course was 2 loops of the same 6.5 miles. There was also a "quarter marathon" that was one loop. The first loop went great, I finished the first 10K in 1:03. My goal for the race was to finish in under 2:20, so I knew I was well on my way. There were a couple of pretty good hills in there, one of the hills was very rough and killed me on the 2nd lap. I knew at mile 11 that I was going to make my 2:20 goal, even if I fell apart for the last 2 miles. My official finish time was 2:17:46. That's a 20 minute improvement over the Flying Pig 2 months ago, and I'm still not really training. It's embarassing how little I've been running this year! Aside from the 7 mile run in the rain on Thursday, the only running I've been doing for the past couple of months, is races!

After the race, I went back to the hotel and the kids were still sleeping! So, once we got cleaned up and checked out, the kids and I went to the zoo to see the penguins (the penguins are a fairly new addition to the zoo). Let me just say how much I love the St Louis Zoo. My favorite part: it's free!
Then, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe in Union Station for a late lunch/early dinner. I had a big, juicy cheeseburger. I deserved it! Then, we headed home and went to the movies to see 'Get Smart'.

Sunday: I enjoyed a day of rest. And, my air conditioner quit at some point yesterday. It was hot in the house when I went to bed, and it was almost 85 degrees in my bedroom when I woke up this morning. I did NOT get up and run. Grrr!

Tuesday and Wednesday, I will be in Boston for meetings. I'm hoping to get a run in on Wednesday morning. And, hoping to have my AC fixed by the time I get back!