A Fun Day Hanging with Kim in Arlington 

A couple of weeks ago, Kim emailed asking if I had any availability to meet her on Friday before the Marine Corps Marathon. She would be arriving several hours before she could check into her Airbnb and had plenty of time to kill. Luckily for me, my clients were willing to reschedule their appointments to earlier in the week and without too much effort I was able to clear my schedule.

I picked Kim up at Reagan National Airport about an hour after she landed. Even with Waze, it took me three tries to make it to where she was patiently waiting for me. I don’t know what it is about National Airport, but I make a wrong turn at least once every time I pick someone up. It only took us two laps to exit – yes, I somehow missed my exit to the George Washington Parkway and had to loop around the airport for my fourth time. 🤣

From the airport, I drove Kim past one of my favorite sections of the Marine Corps Marathon course – a long downhill wooded section on Spout Run where slower wheel chair participants make up for lost time after the early hills in Arlington. As runners start to glide down the long downhill section, calls from the back of “wheelchair coming through” pushes runners to either side of the road to make room for the wheelchair competitor flying down the hill. Cheers erupt as he or she passes.

Just up the hill from that section of the course, we stopped at a Starbucks that’s located at around the 2.5-mile mark where we talked non-stop for a couple of hours while enjoying coffee/hot chocolate. Kim and I had met once before at Deborah‘s house when Kim was in town in April for the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler, but that’s been six months so we had a lot of catching up to do. We were so busy gabbing that I forgot to take a picture for this Friday’s Ultimate Coffee Linkup.

After coffee we drove to my son’s townhouse where Kim got to meet Pablo and I had a free place to park.

Photo credit: Daniel

From Daniel and Jess’ place we walked about a half mile to Sweetgreen for lunch. My mouth is still watering over the delicious guacamole greens salad I ordered.

Photo credit: Kim

 

After lunch and one more visit with my son and Pablo, Kim hoped in an Uber to go into DC to check into her Airbnb and I headed home, still smiling from such a fun day!

 

Good Luck to all the Marine Corp Marathon Runners

As I wrap up this week’s RunDown, the rain has moved out of the area and the sun is shining brightly. Earlier this morning while watching the Marine Corps Marathon coverage on TV, the rain was coming down heavily at my house, but it wasn’t raining on Hains Point where the reporter and cameraman were stationed covering the runners going through the Blue Mile. I pulled up doppler radar on my phone and saw that the Arlington/DC area were still in the clear.

 

Later, though, heavy rain moved into the path of the runners, but as I told my MRTT friends in a text last night, “Don’t let the rain scare you. I ran my marathon PR in pouring rain from start to finish. You’ve got this!” I hope everyone running today’s MCM loved the race as much as I did each and every time I ran it!

 

The Marine Corps Marathon Was One of My Favorites Experiences

I’ve run the Marine Corps Marathon ten times (recapped here) and it still holds the honor of being one of my favorite races. Several years ago I wrote My Ten Favorite Marine Corps Marathon Memories where I reminisced about those wonderful experiences.

 

Can Teddy Replace Pablo as a Good Luck Charm?

Last week I mentioned that because I get up so early, I had to go to bed every night before the Nationals’ playoff game was over. Our routine was that Pablo and I would go to bed during the sixth or seventh inning and in the middle of the night if I had to get up to go to the bathroom, I’d check my ESPN app to see how we’d done – we won every game.

 

Being superstitious when it comes to sports, I told Daniel and Jess that Pablo needed to come back on Tuesday so we could go to bed during the sixth or seventh inning of the first World Series game so we could continue to bring good luck to the Nationals. When Pablo couldn’t return for a visit, I resorted to the next best thing and dug this teddy bear out of the closet in one of my sons’ rooms. He worked splendidly well for the first two games, but not so much for the third and fourth games. Currently, we’re tied two games to two with the Astros in the best of seven series. Work harder, teddy, work harder!

 

And Now on to a RunDown of this Past Week’s Workouts…

 

Running

I kept my runs short again this week since I’m not quite feeling back to normal. On Monday I actually did a little walking during the last mile, but felt good enough to run the whole time on Wednesday.

 

Biking

I missed another Wednesday 5 AM ride with Bill and the Herndon crew, but didn’t feel so badly because I’d ridden my spin bike (affiliate link) on Sunday while chatting on the phone with my mom.

On Saturday morning, Bill and I drove to Brunswick, Maryland for The Bike Lane Fall C&O Canal Trail Ride and joined about forty other cyclists who showed up for this very casual ride. We rode along the C&O Canal towpath at our own paces to Shepherdstown, West Virginia where we stopped for lunch.

Photo credit: Edgar

Just before crossing the Potomac River to go into West Virginia, Bill and I paused for a selfie. I’ll post a brief recap chocked full of pictures later this week.

 

Strength Training

I’m always analyzing my exercises when I lift wondering if anything might be causing my SI joint issues. For the next week or so I plan to stop doing step-ups and see if that helps. I added them into my routine back in February when my physical therapist said that my hips were weak – my SI joint pain started a month or two after that. It’s probably nothing, but I’d rather not take two steps backward trying to take a step forward…

 

Yoga

I brought some yoga back into my workouts this week after skimping last week. Go me! LOL

 

It’s on the Blog

In case you skipped checking in on my blog this past week, here’s what you missed…

 

Coming up this week, I’ll have the recap from our bike ride on Saturday and one more recap from our family trip out west in June. On Friday, I’ll also be joining Deborah at Confessions Of A Mother Runner and Coco at Running With Perseverance for the Ultimate Coffee Date linkup.

 

In addition to the workouts I mentioned above, here’s a complete rundown of my workouts from this past week (completed either outside or in our home gym)…

 

  • Questions:
  • • Have you run the Marine Corps Marathon?
  • • What sports related, if any, superstitions do you hold? 
  • • Did you race this weekend? 

 

And that’s my rundown… Have a great week!

 

Disclaimer:  This post may contain affiliate links which means if you click on the blue product link and then make a purchase, I will receive a small commission for referring you. You will pay no more or less for the product; however, Amazon will show their gratitude for my referral by paying me.

 

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I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!