USA Adventure

Life accelerated.  7 days since departing Antarctica, back at D.I.A (Denver Int’l).  Fast become my home-from-home this year.  TWELVE, that’s the 2020 marathon count 😊

Louisiana’s Big Easy.  Mentally plugged in; awesome part of America to kick-off a post-Antarctica run.  Heavy accented & redneck.  Dig the South.  Childhood, my people.

Big PARTY town, New Orleans.  the Land of Mardi Gras.  Conversation starter with every Lyft driver (no rental this journey).  Big letdown, dude’s a marathoner.  LOL>

first stop: NOLA Convention Center.  Bib pickup, registration.  Rock n Roll EXPO.

Quick walk-thru the Brooks tent (I’m a shoe junkie).  Small bowl of red beans-n-rice (another addiction).  Lyft transport back over the Bridge.  Couple blocks off the French Quarter.  Sleeps shouting-distance from tomorrow’s Start.  Location, location, location.

Sidewalk tour of Hurricane Katrina history.  Café du Monde beignets.  Bag of soulful fried chicken take-out.  Headache, chilled.  Early night.  Physically off this trip.  Touch of fever, then couple hours I’m fine again.  Marathon/flight/hotel all prepaid, so… I’m here.

Sunday alarm.  FEVER.  Showered.  Race dressed.  I can do this.  Could hear muffled announcements thru a closed window.  Twenty minutes more.  It’ll pass.  Fever-finished Charleston last month.  Don’t PANIC.  No rule against race-starting a later Corral.

10 minutes.  Not happening.  Not my day.

Rock ‘n Roll DNS.  Crazy disappointing, big Easy FAIL.

 

 

Rock ‘n Roll EXPO

 

 

9-11 Memorial

Bigger, bolder, brasher.  Not the Colorado Rockies, but good to be USA home.

What I learned from my 50 State journey (twice), no matter the accent or our politics – Hawaii, Texas or Maine – we’re American.  We ALL stand together 🇺🇸

Trans-Atlantic flight, Amsterdam to JFK.  Customs, luggage retrieval.  Rental van to our Saturday nite sleeps.  All the years I NYC-worked, never ever on Long Island.

Hampton Inn.  American TV.  Food Network!  Thirty minutes more, downstairs with the Questers – PIZZA nite!  SOAKING in the junk food.  Nothing more American than pepperoni pizza & 2-liter Coke.  U-S-A!  We’re not the healthiest bunch of folk.  LOL>

BUSINESS CLASS sleep – and a FULL nite on Long Island.  Despite the massive time difference, ZERO problem staying unconscious ‘til the morning alarm 😊

Breakfast, shower.  Luggage at the Front Desk.  Goodbye, first Half adventure.  Ash & Tom (already in New York) exchanging marathon totes while I’m running in nearby Eisenhower Park.  Goodbye sweaty shorts, hello Antarctica sleeping bag.  YES!

Registration, bib pickup.  Soooo many runners.  Triple 8 story back-burner’d this day.  New Yorker accents, fancy run shoes.  Thin guys to the front – winner’s breaking 3 hours today.  Photo opp with the Six, then crowd bunched close at the Start.  Kinda overwhelming, sheer amount of people.  Weather?  Couldn’t be better.  Legs?  Heavy.

Lap 1, Ashton.  Lap 3, Sis.  emotion OVERLOAD.

Sis saw yesterday’s Amsterdam post & booked a New York flight, same day/hours later.  Just WOW.  Reason I ran my first marathon (Alaska 2013).  Reason I ran all 50 States TWICE (her Hawaii Birthday ultra).  And today, will be the reason I FINISH all 8 continents.

[I mean, once you finish six… the last 2 – with no time cutoffs – should be a cake walk.  It’s just another 52 miles, right?]

More walk than slog.  More slog than jog, but Sis stayed with me.  Six-hour course limit.  Slow-n-steady.  Legs moving (or not) – she’d make sure I’d hit the time.  Well until lap 8, then… see ya.  2pm.  Plane to catch, work in the morning.  Absolutely SERIOUS!

Clocks a sub-10 5k, medal/finish pic, husband waiting with the car.  CRAZY proud! & sooooo very appreciative ❤️

LAST LAP.  It’d be tight.  16-minute walk pace.  Certainly, wasn’t setting any speed records – but FINISH I did.

6 continents, 6 marathons, 6 days.  Anything is POSSIBLE… with FAMILY. 

 

 

Icebreaker Marathon

 

 

“It doesn’t matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last.  You can say, ‘I have finished.’

 There is a lot of satisfaction in that.” ~ Fred Lebow

 

Woke early cheerleading myself; only 3 to go.  Little bounce day-over-day.  Legs stopped moving day prior – think ‘lead legs‘ the new norm.  No real recovery.  Lack of sleep taken its toll.  Trained for ‘miles‘ & throwing multi-day distance.  Never foresaw sleep deprivation.  Mind fuzzy/cloudy, nothing’s ever crisp.  Reality/dream states blurred.  And emotional.  Even at Christmas, my family… we’re not huggers.  Certainly not weepers.

Suck it up buttercup, it’s Race day 6 – and today, this day I’m running 26.2 in the Red, White & Blue 🇺🇸

Sunday.  BIGGEST race field of all 8.  Hundreds of participants.  Flat course & NYC confidence.  Crazy fast field.  End of Lap 1: Ash & Tom.  Taste of HOME, my Colorado FAMILY.  Lap later, had it settled in my head.  I got nothing to prove.  I’ve got folks who love me.  I’ve been to Chile, marathon’d in Antarctica.  Nothing left in the legs, spirit dinged.  Finish the Half & heading HOME.  5 continents in 5 days.  I can live with that.

Lap 2, no Ash.  Text’d to meet at the tennis courts.  It’s just ahead; they were geocaching.  Got it!  Thankful they weren’t hanging idle while I’m slow-slogging ‘round Long Island.  New York State not… ‘the City’.

Ahead on the right.  There they are.  Smile.  Short wave.

Left.  Look LEFT.  Tunnel Hill mirage.  So weird.  Same headband, same hydration vest.  Smiling, laughing.  Talking.  No, it’s REAL.  Half-a-country away from her St. Louis home.  She’s HERE.  HOW?

Long embrace.  TEARS.  No words.  Sis – in Garden City, New York ❤️

And Ash.  And Tom.  And my in-law bro, Paul.

They’re all here.

Run, walk, crawl but finish.  I can do this.  Triple 8 FINISH.

 

 

NY Sibling SURPRISE