DC is GUR-reat!

We were so excited to be doing the GUR DC race with our friends Kathy and Bob last Saturday!  Kathy's Dad even joined us in the city and helped with the scavenger hunt tic-tac-toe - thanks Art!  We had beautiful weather and a marvelous time.

Kathy and Bob got our team shirts for us, very creative.  The funniest part was that whenever someone else took our picture with my phone (so the shirts were visible), Google Goggles would show a link to "The Office Stapler" (from the movie "The Office") as it recognized what we were wearing.  Made me laugh every time.

Our shirts (and ourselves) in a pre-race group photo:

After a crowded exit from the starting line bar (McFaddens), we studied the clue sheet.  Kathy knew something about several of the clues right away, so we decided to head to U-street.  We speed-walked over to the metro.  While getting on the train, another team remarked about the guy with the beard ahead of us.  So I worked on snapping a photo for one of our tic-tac-toe squares.

This would turn out to be my best selfie...even with the front camera on my phone, I still need a lot of practice....

This is the one photo that I did better than John with.  For the rest of the CP's, I'll show you my lame attempt and then follow up with John's improved version.  He was using a normal camera, and I was trying to stretch my arm in front of me while still connected to the phone via an ear piece.  So that's my excuse  :)

John and Bob's photo with a guy with facial hair:

Up in the U-street area we located CVS for the Ronald McDonald House charity purchase and drop-off, then Kathy noticed some GUR racers exiting an unmarked door - that turned out to be the bar for CP5.  Nicely done, Kathy!

Here we did a smell test.  The first item neither of us could smell at all.  Kathy suggested a very faint raspberry odor.  I tried dipping a finger in the mixture and putting some on my wrist, but only succeeded in getting sticky.  The other two were easier - maple (as a Vermonter I better get that one right) and jalapeno (as a transplanted Texan I probably better get that one too).  Luckily Kathy's raspberry guess was also good, and we were done.

The flyer at the smell test checkpoint:

We found some Chevy cars for our next challenge checkpoint:

Then it was time to head south toward the harbor.  Amazingly, we ran into John and Bob on the subway platform so we ran over to give them hugs.  Apparently that caused them to just miss the next train - they claimed we were trying to sabotage them  :)

At the library for the QR code challenge.  The harder part was figuring out the "namesake" of the library, as we couldn't find anyone's name anywhere.  So we got a photo with the library sign and hoped it was right:

Now to the arena and the live animal portion of our show.  The snake-holding part was awesome.  Then one of us had to eat either a dead scorpion (stinger removed) or 3 live mealworms.  I was happy to take one for the team, especially since I need the practice as I normally race with a vegetarian husband.  I started with a scorpion leg, and it was fine - crunchy but no taste - so I chewed up the rest while Kathy got water ready for me.  No problem.  I looked over at a woman who was choking down mealworms and decided that given the choice, always eat the dead bugs.

Kathy and I skipped the can challenge (which was the same one we did in Boston) because the line was really long.  Forget that.  John and Bob had arrived earlier and gotten it done without a wait:

Now to Chinatown!  We started at a dim sum restaurant where we had to pick out colored grains of rice with chopsticks.  Kathy and I both thought we would be better at this, but it turns out there is a big difference between picking up 1" items to eat and getting ahold of tiny grains of rice.  We eventually managed 20 pieces to finish it up.

John and Bob not long later:

Next we went up the street to Jordin's Paradise, which turned out to be our favorite checkpoint of the day - belly dancing!  My Mom used to belly dance and I learned a little from her.  Kathy and I got costumed up and followed the fun lady through a routine.  Very cool!

We told Sheila on the phone that John and Bob HAVE to do this one - luckily they did  :)

Next we found a bar where one of us had to roll a quarter to stop in between the tines of a fork.  Kathy made an attempt and we were both shocked when she got it in several rolls.  Nice going!

Then it was a walk over to the Capitol City Brewing Company where we did a money-related puzzle and got our photo:

One CP to go!  We headed to a Segway company, hoping to ride Segways around (Kathy and Bob are experts and John and I have always wanted to try it).  We were disappointed to find a trivia puzzle instead, but we were happy to meet up with Bob and John there at the same time!

Pretending to ride bikes:

Back to the metro - for a very long wait for the next train.  We traveled back to the finish with a bunch of other teams, included Bob and John (although the platform and train were very crowded, so we didn't see each other until Kathy spotted them on our way out the exit station).

There we found Kathy's Dad waiting with a postcard and 2 cups for our final tic-tac-toe squares:

Bob had found a couple cups earlier for their version:

Running to the finish:

Our collection of stuff - all items and photos were good!

One of the teams with excellent costumes:

Post-race snack - we needed a drink after that warm day:

Back to McFaddens for the awards ceremony and some monkeying around:

Showing Art our belly dancing moves:

We finished the day in place 28 (Bob and John) and 30 (Kathy and Marcy).  Yay for that, and yay for all the fun we had!

Do run (and bike and paddle) Boston!

Great Urban Race Boston!  John and I were excited to return to Boston and do our first urban race of the year.  It's funny, I love Boston but I don't really know it all that well.  We are enjoying learning as we go.  Maybe not ideal as an urban racing strategy, maybe we'll need to work on that for next year.

The race started in Harvard Yard, which is a really cool area to hang around in and explore.  We met a nice volunteer at the Visitor Info booth with the most awesome Boston accent - I can't get enough of listening to that.

The race itself started at noon a block from the Harvard Square T stop.  We checked over the clue sheets and for once didn't have a really solid idea where most of the clues were.  We picked out Sargent's Wharf and decided to head downtown.  There was an inbound T just about to close its doors as we ran down the stairs and jumped on - lucky catch!

On the T we studied the clues and searched our maps for Somerville.  The only useful thing we managed to get off the clue sheet was reading the really small print that was part of CP 5 and writing down the important part - I was happy to have an immediate answer when Sheila asked about it after we got back above ground.

We started out on State Street at the Black Rose, which was a lucky choice as a first checkpoint.  The challenge was to arrange colored cans into a "64" pattern by sliding them (no picking them up or moving them out of the rectangle already defined).  It took us awhile, there were only 4 puzzle stations, and a line had formed by the time we were done.

 

From there we ran to the wharf, briefly passing it up because it looked like just a parking lot, but then we discovered the volunteers over by the water.  They gave us each a large chunk of butter to coat our hands, and then pointed us to a large, heavy (not alive, at least) fish that we would have to transport down the boardwalk.  The person holding the fish couldn't move, so we handed it off as we went, making sure not to drop it, and not ever considering trying to toss it!  Not sure why the butter - to make it harder to hold the fish or to protect our hands from the scales or to keep us from smelling fishy?

Down at the other end, far away from the paper towel rolls we had seen when we started, we were told to crab-walk down to the dock where a couple "lobstah" guys were waiting.  Time for the live animal part of the show - sweet!  John got to pick up a lobster while I used a tool to clamp a rubber band around one of its claws.  The creature seemed mostly curious about the whole thing, moving its eyeballs around to try to get a view of us.

The real challenge was how to get the camera out with butter-coated hands - luckily the second guy went along with the idea of pulling it out of John's pocket (the cord was hanging out, at least) and even put it back for him afterwards.  These Boston lobstah guys ain't shy.

After much paper-toweling of butter from our hands, we headed across the North End to get the center point for our tic-tac-toe square (a sign with the word "Famous" in it):

Around the corner we found a gallery called Shake the Tree where they had put out a few copies of a book about food trucks.  We were to look through it to find ingredients from a certain recipe - I asked them if they knew we were coming in with butter on our hands?  We tried to be careful with the books as we also tried to read fast.  Eventually I copied out 7 ingredients, they gave us a flyer, and took our picture out front with John shaking something that is NOT a tree:

Sheila (on the phone) guided us southwest across a few streets and up a small hill to a bar called the 21st Amendment.  Other GUR teams lined the sidewalk working on something, so it looked like a puzzle of some sort - John ran in to get our copy.  We discovered we needed to match up 21 states with their respective wacky laws prohibiting things like slurping soup or keeping an alligator in your bathtub - funny!

This took awhile but we finally finished that task in return for a flyer from the bar.  We also got our picture with each of us displaying the number "21":

Running over toward the Boston Common, another team joined us and John chatted with them briefly in a mad downhill dash toward a food truck for another tic-tac-toe square:

Next we needed to "head east on West" where we found the Brattle bookstore and a cool mural:

That was all for downtown - back to the subway to visit the Back Bay.  On the crowded T we worked on other tic-tac-toe squares but didn't find anyone wearing red socks or a Baltimore Orioles jacket.  Oh well, we were getting well-versed in what we needed to finish that CP, so there was hope we could do it.  And we got to talk with some locals.

Back at street level, I tried getting ahold of Sheila again, but our test of a new phone system was failing rather completely.  John reached her and chatted for a minute while I jumped up and down on alternating legs.  That was when I decided my knee must be doing OK (I had been resting it since the previous weekend and we had wrapped it for the race).  So that was something.

We finally found our next CP, Kings Back Bay bowling alley, where we needed to complete a fill-in-the-blank celebrity puzzle and get our photo with a set of photos and bowling pins:

We went back to Mass Ave to look for a bus going north, but didn't see any coming so we opted for the T back into town and then out again on the red line.  While making the transfer, we wandered the platform looking for red socks, when we came across team The Fast and The Furious - hi guys!  They had soundly beaten us in the Boston GUR last year, and we were pretty stoked to see them.  They weren't nearly as excited to see us.  None of us could believe that we were over 2 hours into the race and still had a whole 'nother section of CP's to hit.

Sheila directed us to the Somerville area, which was completely off our maps and a place I had not even heard of (whereas most of the time around Boston I'm at least familiar with the name but still that doesn't help me in the least).  We got off the T and started running north, following the Boston guys (TF&TF) up to a park.

Here we were instructed to do a wheelbarrow while transporting a frisbee, a soccer ball, and a softball.  John stuffed a couple items down his shirt and the soccer ball between his legs, then I carried his feet while he hand-walked along the grass.  Once at the other end, I returned to the start so John could toss me each item in turn - 3 solid throws and catches, and we were done, yay!

We actually managed to get out of there slightly ahead of TF&TF, running back down toward the main street.  Look, there's a woman with red knee-highs!  John ran up to ask her about getting a photo, but she turned out to be another racer, and she obviously had been getting the same question all afternoon as she was by now well-versed in the rule that "strangers must be non-GUR participants" for the tic-tac-toe.  Oh well, good try John!

Sheila helped us find Comicazi (cool name!) on Highland Ave where we had to find a Star Wars character and take our photo to apply an Instagram filter.  I was a bit worried about this one... we just bought smart phones for the first time a week ago, and we have spent the last week getting used to how they work and setting up various apps.  Would we manage this on the fly?

Find yoda - check.  Open Instagram and get the camera on - check.  Take a selfie with our new phone - check.  Apply the "1977" filter - check.  Upload picture - "Failed" - uh oh.  This caused some consternation, but I left that window open and hoped the photo wouldn't disappear before the end of the race.

To dispel the suspense, here is the photo in question:

While all that was going on, we had forgotten to get a flyer from the business, but luckily Sheila thought to ask about it - thank you for saving us, Sheila!

Next was a quick jog down the street to a place vying with Comicazi for the coolest checkpoint name - Kickass Cupcakes.  I yelled up to John that this is what we were looking for, and a woman walking toward us with a white bakery box in her hands was like "Yes, you need to go there" - awesome.

We found the bakery (but not TF&TF - they skipped this one) and ran in to get our little cupcake with a note on the top.  It said "Take a picture with a frosting kiss mark on your cheek" so we quickly got this shot:

Then the lady behind the counter explained that we also needed to each apply a tattoo and use the materials at the little table to complete the tasks.  There we found some wet wipes to help get the tattoo part done.  A photo of the result (and it's still on my leg today - kick ass!):

Also on the table were several tubs of frosting, little spoons and cups, and a sign that said "Do not eat the frosting..." - aw, fake frosting? - "... for Great Urban Race only" - oh phew!  We ate the little cupcake in a couple bites and proceeded to discuss whether we needed to draw something on my face in lieu of the blue frosting shmush, so we decided to be safe and get something on the other cheek that looked like a kiss mark (while the team next to us had to do cat whiskers - very funny!)

After spending way too long in the bakery, we were finally back on the street and running toward a school parking lot.  We still had not finished the tic-tac-toe and I had visions of us running around the Harvard campus at the end looking for one photo with 2 people with different university shirts on.  How hard could that be?

Sheila guided us to the spot where there were several Chevy cars, so we got in to figure out a short car-related puzzle (we did not need to call Click and Clack, sadly).  Then we got our photo with the car - just like the product placements in the Amazing Race!

Sheila let us know about a street one block away that was an intersection of two streets with names of trees.  John wasn't aware that this was the goal of this photo, but he did manage to capture it even so:

We had several options now for finishing the tic-tac-toe.  Running toward the T station, John veered off and yelled "Red Sox!" which I didn't interpret correctly because I tried to tell him that we actually needed Baltimore Orioles instead.  But no - actual RED SOCKS!  The woman was more than happy to let us take a picture with her ankles, thanks so much!  Tic-tac-toe - check!

We ran into the T station and then waited a while for an inbound train, but it came eventually.  One stop south, then we booked it up many flights of stairs and to the finish line where The Fast and The Furious (but no other teams!) were waiting.  Just over 3 hours to complete the course, wow that was a long one!  Our Instagram photo was still visible on my phone, phew, and we had all the other photos and parts and pieces that we needed.  Second place, score!

The costume contest was awesome, as usual.  A couple of Cinco de Mayo characters, our favorite entry:

The winners!

That was wicked cool!  And a nice start to our 2012 urban racing season.  Thanks for a fun event, GUR folks!

And to finish off the explanation of this blog post title... on Sunday we rode bikes around the Charles River bikeway and rented a kayak to paddle on the river among the sailboats.  We enjoyed the heck out of that.  The cameras took the day off, you'll have to take our word for it  :)

Flat-CAT flat-ass not-quite-100

The CAT-100 was originally a low-key 100-mile event with a few (25) entrants, running along the Catoctin and Appalachian trails in western Maryland.  This sounded like an interesting "training" event for me, and a chance for us to visit with Kathy and Bob for part of a weekend.

Various events, including a permitting problem, conspired to change the weekend up a little.  Gone were the trails from the official race, now it would be run in two 50-mile sections on the C&O towpath along the Potomac River.  This sounded nice, for about 1/3 of that distance.  I'm nowhere near trained (not sure I ever would or could be trained) to run 100 flat miles.  Not just somewhat flat, but super-duper flat with only a slight rise/drop over the 25 miles of towpath the race would cover.  At least it was a nice surface (crushed gravel) and not pavement.  I decided I would try for 50 miles of that, and then do my own thing for the 2nd half of the training event.

It was fun meeting Jim the RD and other runners from the area.  Everyone was very nice, the volunteers were great, and the area was so pretty.  John had a good time exploring, in between supporting me and jumping online to help with a couple teams doing the Austin GUR race on Saturday (they came in 1st and 2nd, yay!).

The actual running - not too much to say about that.  Luckily John took some pictures so I can just summarize.

First 20 miles felt smooth and fast - I wasn't sure how long that would last, so I went with it, staying on the "easy" side of the effort.

It's not often my running pictures actually look like I'm running:

The towpath was scenic, green, very pretty, and since I was going to see each part only twice (out-and-back upstream, out-and-back downstream) I didn't mind the sometimes monotonous feel in certain stretches.  It was great running next to a river again, especially in the area that had some little rapids and a bunch of geese (and later in the day, rafters).

John looking across at Harpers Ferry and looking down at me on the trail - see me way down there?

Hi John!  The guys running behind me caught up and asked me how he got up there.  I could only say that John is a mountain goat.

John enjoyed driving to West Virginia and Virginia briefly, learning some of the history of the area and the tow path itself.  Apparently there was a race between building the railroad and building the canal.  The railroad won.

John ran with me for a few miles here and there, and it was fun to talk with him in between catching up on my podcasts (by the way, we just discovered "3 Non Joggers" and they are too funny!).

At the 30-mile aid station taking a short break:

Raiding the watermelon tub:

The volunteers were so great, we appreciate everything they do.

And I appreciate my husband!

Back on the tow path.  The last 20 miles got tiring, not at all a surprise.  But I was happy to be heading back to the start/finish, glad to be aiming to get off the tow path.  50 miles of flat running starts to wear you down. A bit of speed-walking every mile helped.  By the time I was done with all that, my quads were completely shot.  I'm about trained for one flat marathon, not two in a row... I cannot even imagine how other runners did the whole 100 miles there, wow.

Interestingly, the slight rise on the way back (vs. the slight drop on the way out) made a difference and a nice change of pace on my legs.  It ever-so-slightly changed which muscles were taking the brunt of the work, and I was still mostly running by the end of the 50 miles.  Squatting to use the bathroom, however, got really difficult by the afternoon.

It was a really nice day for running - cloudy and cool, barely any rain.  Birds singing, a relay race going on at the same time, hikers, bikers, lots to see.  I couldn't complain!

Back at the start/finish, studying the maps to get started on the next 50 miles:

My "non-race" second half of the training started back down on the tow path for a few miles, a hilly climb up to Maryland Heights for a nice loop and some great views, and back down to the tow path to find the AT and John.  I was heading north now instead of east-west, happy to finally feel like I was going somewhere.

Starting on the AT was great - we have been near it but not much on it over the years, in Georgia, Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont.  I was dang excited to finally be speed-hiking on it for real.  I crossed under a highway and started climbing to the first ridge.

There was a sign near the start of the trail, so I went to check out the map.  It was here that I had a "Bill Bryson moment" - I could see where I was starting out at the southern border of Maryland.  I scanned upward to see how far into Maryland I was planning to go.  Up - up - all the way to the top!  What?  That certainly explains what "Pen-Mar" means - Pennsylvania-Maryland, the northern border.  That was slightly stunning; we had talked about maybe doing sections of the AT in the form of one whole state at a time, but I had missed the concept of doing it this actual weekend.  It's not the widest part of Maryland by any means, but it was still weird to think about.

That kept my mind busy while I climbed up through the trees.  The trail was a bit rocky but for the most part much better than the Long Trail in Vermont.  Along the ridge at the top I wished my legs weren't so tight from the first 50 miles, as I would have loved to really run it.  The legs never loosened up like I had hoped, so I tried to run a bit here and there.  But mostly focused on speed-walking as fast as I could.

It got dark.  My handheld light nearly ran out of battery by the end of the section, but I made it down to Gathland State Park where John was waiting.  Kathy and then John's dad both called while I was sitting in the car, that was pretty funny.

In the next section it rained on and off.  Part of it was rocky and slow, but then there was a really nice runnable section and I made up some time.  Coming to the car I discovered that Kathy and Bob had driven an hour just to see us for a bit, how sweet of them!  They had a crazy busy weekend and we didn't know if we were going to get to see each other at all, but happily I got to say Hi and John got to visit with them for a while.  Thanks y'all!!

Getting out of the car was chilly but I was climbing again so I soon warmed up.  The climbs were never too long, just long enough to stay warm in the cold, clammy night.  This next section was short on mileage but long on challenges.  I found the George Washington Monument park, had to figure out the trail a couple times, and checked out some sign boards about GW's life along the way.

The AT followed a footpath toward the monument but then diverged.  I debated going up to see it, but decided not to make the trek up the hill.  It turns out that the subsequent downhill was hard enough as it was, so it was probably good I had not made it any longer.

Here began the tough part of the trail (at least with the condition of my legs) - large log steps every few feet.  I'm sure they are good for reducing trail erosion and such, but they were quite difficult for me.  My left knee (the one I fell on 2 weeks ago) had been aching a little all day, and these steps really did a number on it.  I carefully stepped down each one, favoring the aching knee.

Another uphill (with log steps), another downhill, and another, and another.  I could hear the highway a long way away (time-wise, if not distance-wise).  Eventually I got there.

Crossing over the interstate on the AT bridge at night was really cool.  I'm glad I got to do that.

On the other side I saw a sign toward "Annapolis Rock", and I didn't think I should be heading in the direction of Annapolis, so I took the other trail which seemed to head toward a parking area.  Luckily I chose correctly, and our yellow rental car was parked and waiting (with John inside napping).

I wasn't really excited about getting back out of the car, but I put on more clothes, drank my Gookinaid, Ensure, and hot coffee (yay for hot coffee!), and took a 10-minute shut-eye.  Then John walked me out as I told him about my achy knee.  I was shivering a lot but knew that I had a big climb (yes, up to Annapolis Rock, which apparently is nowhere near the city it is named after).  Thanks John, see you when it's light out!

The climb warmed me up quickly.  I even took the quarter-mile side trip to see the scenic view from the Rock, but couldn't tell much about it in the darkness other than there's another town to the west.  Back on the main trail, I just tried to keep moving, not kick too many rocks, and be patient because this was a long section.

Partway along, there's a drop down to a creek crossing, and here is where my left knee gave up for good.  Every downhill step was painful and my leg didn't so much want to bend.  It was an easy decision to give up on the final 10 miles and stop after the end of this section.  It was a lot harder to actually get to the point where I could stop.  I still had about 6 miles to go.  At least it was uphill and then flat along a long ridge until the last drop at the end.

The uphill went fine.  The ridge started out OK but that didn't last.  First there were rock gardens, reminding me of the last section of the Bandera 100K.  That wasn't so easy.  Then - then! - there were large rocks all over the place, reminding me of the last section of Hardrock (below Putnam AS) - what in the world?  This took forever.

Finally it was like whoever built the trail said "Hey!  We don't have to be directly on TOP of the ridge, we could put the trail a little lower and it would be a lot nicer".  Thanks a lot (sarcastically) to whoever routed the trail through the boulders in the first place, and Thanks So Much (heartfelt) to whoever came to their senses and found the bench below the ridge.  I was still walking, but with purpose and without curses.

The sun shone on the ridge, and while I was still in shadows, I was happy that I had made it to morning.  Eventually John appeared - Hi John!  He had hiked up to find me, and I was almost to the downhill.  It took a little while to get down, but I made it, and I was done.  90 miles in ~26 hours, works for me  :)

Waving "goodbye" to the last Maryland section of the AT - next time!

Sunday was a beautiful day, including warm sunshine, a trip to Waffle House, more time visiting with Kathy and Bob (that alone was worth stopping early), lots of sleep, and repacking.

Monday we got home to our new toys...

Time for the Beards to get into the 21st century!