Flying Pirates & missed opportunities

"it's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack
of  cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses ..."

Obviously anyone who follows my blog knows I've been unable to run enough this spring to get trained for a Half Marathon. The Half Marathon
was exactly 5 weeks and 2 days after my pneumonia diagnosis.... so... yeah, about that. I am out and about, and getting my fitness back one step at a time, but running 13.1 miles would have been a death wish.

All that drama didn't stop me from spending the weekend with a posse of giggling women who seem to appreciate mocking themselves as much as I enjoy mocking myself.

We went down to the race venue, picked up bibs at the surprisingly good expo, and admired the GIANT costume contest trophy.

I made eye contact with T right then, and I'm pretty sure we were thinking the same thing... well... I was thinking, "I wonder what it takes to win this hideous trophy..."

We drove the rest of the way down to the cottage and did some touristy things ... ok, ok, we did all 4 touristy things you can do at the beach this time of year.

1) We visited the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

2) Drive past a known Osprey nest to see if the birds are home (they weren't, sorry T, Kim & Erika)

3) Got our feet into sand and take a photo on the beach that should be an album cover for our next CD, which will be named "Hill Repeats" and the first single will be "Flat Sand Running", which will be UBER appropriate because I'm probably going to be off key. "We'll put the band back together, do a few gigs, we get some bread. Bang! Five thousand bucks." Blues Brothers

4) Admire the inappropriately young HOT surfers <~ seriously, this is actually an acceptable tourist activity.  holy carp....

Still, I think this is a post of Important Safety Tips:

Important Safety Tip: Check the race location in relation to the cottage you own before offering to host everyone for the weekend.  not that it was a major problem, but I thought the race was on the Manteo side of OBX, not on the Kitty Hawk side of OBX... right.... so after an hour and a twenty minute drive to the start I parked the car.

Important Safety Tip: When snuggling your friend in the porta potty line, make sure the guy behind you  understands you're joking when you tell her, "I don't know you but here let me hug on you". .. unless of course you want a hug from a RedShirt named Daniel. In which case, go ahead... #seriously #HuggedARedShirt

Important Safety Tip: Take a photographer with you on the cool parts of your MTB adventure... otherwise all the photographs will be of you MTB on PAVEMENT. I assure you, I had a wicked good time exploring the trails on the way to find the girls out on the course, and I am TOTALLY looking forward to MTB in OBX ASAP...

Important Safety Tip: Be a bad ass.... oh, wait. seriously though, I had a great weekend and pulled some ridiculousness, like cycling while spectating, taking photographs while cycling, and convincing another runner to take our photo while he was running...

And finally:

Important Safety Tip: If you're planning on running with us next year at this race, be prepared to share that hideous trophy for 1/5 of the year, because we are so going to win it.

Uh yeah. Cos that's how we roll.

I'd guess it's about 18" X 24"... maybe 30"