As you might have guessed by the title, we did a road trip to Alabama over the weekend.
Since we are kind of used to getting up at ridiculous hours for training and racing, why not get-up at 4am on a Saturday morning for a road trip to Montgomery, Alabama. Out of bed at 4am and on the road at 4.30am. I was up for another hour to keep Terry company while driving, but then took a really good nap and completely missed Atlanta* and then some, waking up on time to announce that I am hungry and need to be fed immediately. Fortunately, this coincided with an empty gas tank and my wishes were fulfilled pretty quickly! Nice, how that sometimes works out! ;-)
*It takes an hour to get from one side of Atlanta to the other side.
Sorry, babe... I cut of your head... Most of the food that you see is actually his. I had scrambled eggs and turkey sausage (cut off at the bottom) and a HUGE muffin and yogurt with granola and fresh pineapples... That's a lot of food... Very yummie though! No calorie restriction for me on a road trip or on vacation... Forgetaboutit!
Shortly after that, we crossed the state line between Georgia and Alabama, entering the central time zone. Terry's first words: We are one hour younger!
All in all, we made the trek from Greenville to Montgomery in around five hours and that was totally worth getting up early. Most of the day, we spent in the hospital with his Dad. One of Terry's brothers also came by with his family and so I had a chance to spend some time with my niece and sister-in-law while the boys got caught up.
In the early afternoon, we checked in the hotel (thanks to my raffle win from a couple of weeks ago, the stay was for free!) and rested up a little, before we headed out for a high school reunion pre-meeting. Turns out that this was the first meeting for most of these guys since they graduated 20 years ago. So there was a lot of catching up to do for them, while I passed the time raiding the buffet... several times. This wasn't an official reunion yet, but more a meeting to get going on the planning for the official reunion that most likely going to take place sometime next summer.
When we finally got back to the hotel room, I went asleep almost the same moment my head hit the pillow. What a long day!
The next day, we got up without an alarm and then headed out for a six mile run together. I mapped out a two mile loop in a residential area close to the hotel. Once we were half way through the loop, we came across the "Blount Cultural Park" so we decided to check it out. Turns out that we were in a pretty park with a theater (Shakespeare Festival), a museum, walking trails, ponds and some structures that would remind you of an English country side. All in all, very pretty. We did several loops in the park before heading back to the hotel and ended up with 6.75 miles. the run was a little faster than I was planning on doing, but that's what mostly happens when Terry and I run together... My easy pace is a fast walk for him... almost.
Pictures of the park are taken from here. I didn't take a camera or phone, because I didn't expect there was anything to be seen... Silly me. So just imagine this with a gray sky and brown leafs! ;-)
After the run, we headed out for some breakfast and then stopped at the hospital another time before hitting the road again. We did a short stop at the Tanger Outlets in Commerce to take care of some Christmas presents and finally got home around 6PM. Another long day, which made for a short weekend.
One more note on that run and the "aftermath":
This was only my second run since my took a run break two weeks ago. My first run back was an easy 4-miler on the treadmill after which I didn't have any issues. After this run on Sunday, I felt my IT band tightening up again, once I sat a little while in the car and sure enough, I was back to hobbling. The scheduled run this morning was cancelled, but after massaging the area with the roller things feel much better today. I put it on my to do list, to roll out my IT band and quads throughout the day for the next couple of days even if I don't feel pain walking and let's see if I can't get a grip on the matter.
I am not joking... The roller is sitting on my desk right now... Funny enough, nobody has asked any questions yet! ;-)
Gotta roll!
I'm jealous of the 5 working days left! That park looks like a great place to run - glad you found it so you didnt have to do 2mi loops over and over. I desperately need to get back in the morning routine... Working on it, in the coldest week of the year of course.
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