April 11-13
In mid April of 2014, we had some great weekends. April 11th, 12th, 13th weekend my parents came to town. Abby made a meat sauce for pasta because we were carbo-loading for our big race the next morning. Abby, Dad, and I were signed up for the Carmel Half Marathon while Megan and Mom were signed up for the 8K. Zach was refusing to run and signed up for nothing but let me tell you, he was really into the carbo-loading part of the weekend. His plate of spaghetti was massive and then amazingly he said he felt terrible after he ate the whole thing.
Saturday morning we piled into Obo's Car and made our way to Carmel for the race. The weather was a tad chilly but considering the winter we had, it felt great. It was going to be a great day for running. The half-marathon started first so Abby, Dad, and I found our way to the start line as Mom and Megan took our clothes back to the car. We all ran well and finished better than our "goal" times. I beat my goal time by a whopping 1 second, 1:39:59!
After the race, we received giant medals and some of us decided to donate them back to the race to be used for something else. Who really knows. They also were giving away pizza slices for runners, that was a first and I enjoyed chowing down on a slice of cold pizza. Mom and Megan were giving me a hard time for eating the pizza off of the ground. Ground Pizza is delicious.
We left Carmel and drove back to the Village (Broad Ripple Village) to hopefully meet Zach after his bike ride for breakfast. We went to Cafe Patachou and all devoured our breakfasts or lunches as some people are crazy and love lunch food for breakfast. Now that we had worked out and were full, it was nap time. I took Sophie to the park to tire her out and then found my way to the basement for a beautiful midday nap.
After nap time, it was errand time. The gentlemen went to the hardware store to acquire supplies for the floating dock we were going to make later in the week. The women folk went to multiple stores to find food supplies for that evenings event, tailgating at the inaugural Indy Eleven soccer game.
We drove downtown and met up with Kylee, Aaron, Kevin, and Gaylena for the tailgate. They had commandeered a wonderful spot and we quickly unloaded the grill, coolers, chips, and other goodies. We had two solid hours of tailgating before the game and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. It was warm and the sun was shining. We had all sorts of visitors to our tailgate, Laurie & Jeff, Kyle & Katie, Dave & Mandy, and we made friends with our neighbor tailgaters as well.
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| The Indy Eleven Crew |
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| During the Game |
The game was a blast as we were situated in the Brickyard Battalion behind one of the goals. It ended in a 1-1 draw but the crowd was into it and alive. Everyone seemed to agree that we should do it again.
The next morning, we woke up and decided to have breakfast at Three Sisters Cafe in the Village. Megan and I rode our bikes to meet the rest of the family there. I've heard good things but had never been. We split the corn pancakes as a table and I enjoyed the breakfast burrito. It was also a great day to sit on their patio and enjoy the morning.
April 17-20
The following week, Zach and I got together on Thursday night to construct a floating dock to be used in the pond at the Farm. Zach was the architect and main contractor as well.
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| Framing the Dock |
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| Giving the Dock Support |
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| Framed and Supported |
The following day we loaded this behemoth of a dock onto a trailer borrowed from Jeff. It took some serious finagling to get it to fit but in the end we were able to load all of our camping gear on the trailer as well. We drove to Columbus and made it to Paul and Bev's house just before 10 p.m. They had some burgers and beers waiting for us which was amazing and my parents arrived within 5 minutes of our arrival.
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| The Trailer Filled Up |
The next morning we left Paul and Bev's early and made our way towards Lancaster, Ohio and the Farm. We stopped at Starbucks for some coffee and Home Depot to get deck screws and some other last minute things. We made it to the farm by about 9 a.m. and unloaded the cars and started to set up camp. We didn't get far as we were anxious to finish our work on the dock and other small tasks. We drove the dock down to the pond and found that the wood we had been told was there wasn't going to suffice.
Zach and Dad then drove back to town to get deck planks as we started to clear out the spillway of any debris. When they returned with the wood it was quick work laying the planks and screwing them in. Within no time we had a floating dock worthy of any pond.
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| Finished Floating Dock |
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| And it floats!! |
After we got the dock in the water, the real fun started. We had a few little projects to finish up like restacking the brick firepit and removing some brush from the overflow spillway around the dam. We got those knocked out straight away and were focusing on food, drink, and enjoying the beautiful spring day.
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| Zach did a little fishing. |
For lunch we were all about hot dogs, tomato soup, and pizza hobo pies. Hobo pies are probably not the politically correct name for them but they are essentially camping panini sandwich makers. And they are about 75 years old so all that extra flavorings are grilled into the cast iron molds. We have experimented with sandwiches, desserts, and now pizzas. Pizzas are pretty amazing. We use crescent rolls for the dough, some pizza sauce, some shredded cheese, and some pepperonis.
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| Creating the Hobo Pies |
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| Dusk at the Farm |
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| Roaring Fire, Toasting Smores |
We all slept pretty well and only Sophie was really frightened by the dog/coyote/werewolf that we heard howling in the middle of the night. The temperature got down to the mid-40s which was essentially perfect sleeping weather when you have nice sleeping bags which we do. We woke up on Sunday morning and made some coffee and hot chocolate and took a little walk down to the pond before cleaning up camp and leaving to find some breakfast at Bob Evan's.
April 23 - 27
The following week, I had an interview day at Hendrick's County Fairgrounds in which I interviewed with Carmel, Lawrence Township, Washington Township, Greenwood, and Westfield. I was feeling very excited and hopeful that one of these would turn into a full time position. Then on Thursday morning at 0-dark-hundred I had to be at the airport because I was headed to BWI to run from Gettysburg to Washington DC. My flight was easy and I got lots of application work and reading done on my flight. At BWI, I again had a lengthy wait for the rest of the team to arrive and again, BWI has wonderful free wifi which I utilized to complete some applications for teaching positions. I also was reading the incredibly heart-breaking book,
Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
The rest of the team arrived a few hours later and we were on our way to renting 15 passenger vans and finding the route to Gettysburg. Our team was called The Killer Angels which is a group of soldiers from the Civil War. Our team was comprised mostly of my dad's running group and a few others. We made it to Gettysburg in time for a Subway sandwich before our tour of the battlefield. The tour guide, John, got in the van with us and talked and talked and talked. He talked for 3 hours as we drove around the town of Gettysburg and toured the battlefields.
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| Touring the Battlefields |
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| The High Ground of Little Round Top |
After the tour, we quickly checked into the hotel, changed clothes, and headed out for dinner. After dinner, our team captain had to attend a meeting, and we all went to Wal-mart to stock up on supplies. Our van had experienced relay runners and we only got a small amount of supplies because you realize that in 24 hours you don't eat all that much especially when you still have time to eat dinner and some of the exchange areas have food.
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| Stocking Up on Essentials |
The next morning, we started the race at 11:15 with about 130 of the 140 teams starting before us. This is how I like it! There are lots of "kills" available out on the course which I love doing, passing slower people. Because we had one of our runners back out at the last minute, our van had to split up one of the legs. I ran 2 miles of fairly flat terrain but then had to run my normal leg right after. So my first official run started about 3 p.m. and it was 4.5 miles. I felt pretty strong and about half way through it started pouring. I love a good adversity like bad weather and was chasing someone down that was a good distance in front of me. I ran 6.59 pace for 4.5 miles which I thought was pretty stellar. Unfortunately, soaking wet I started to feel like crap. I pounded some Emergen-C, an orange, and some tylenol in hopes that I would feel better. I also took a little nap which did help a little. We found dinner in a little town called Smithsburg, Maryland and we picked up our last runner here. He had taken a $225 cab ride from DC to the middle of nowhere. It was great to see Dillon, who I ran cross country and track with at SFHS.
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| The Killer Angels at the Start |
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| Covered Bridge at an Exchange Zone |
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| Some Hills in Southern Pennsylvania |
My next run was at 11:15 p.m. and I ran my 4 mile route in 7:27 pace. It was an out and back that also included runners from 3 different legs, which meant there were a ton of runners on the course at the same time. I got to kill 12 people which was awesome to continually be running down someone in front of you. Immediately after my run, I had a hot dog from the high school concession and fell asleep. I needed the nap because I still wasn't feeling great. I slept for almost 4 hours which is an eternity during a relay. When I woke back up we were leaving to start our third and final runs. We started out onto the course and quickly realized we had left one of our runners in the bathroom.
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| Sunrise on the Potomac |
The last runs are always the hardest because your legs are sore and tired but you know that when you finish, it's all over. Most of the time, you struggle through the last run and just keep your feet shuffling forward. This time was no different for me. Unfortunately, I had an 8 miler to finish up with. I started a few minutes after sunrise and I was running along the Potomac. I used the first couple miles to warm up my legs and started churning out what felt like some good miles in the middle. When I turned off of the river trail I thought I had 1 mile left. My route got a little hilly with just some rolling stuff. I only saw 3 people for the first 7 miles on the trail but then on the road there were hoards of people. I passed 8 more on the rolling hills but the last mile felt like 3. I struggled to the exchange zone but was very relieved to be done and I was able to do 8 mile in 8.14 pace. The rest of the day was showers at Dillon's place in DC, food at the finish line, a quick walk over to the Mall, and sitting in the sun drinking free beer along the waterfront in DC.
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| My New Hat |
After our team finished, we checked into the hotel in DuPont Circle. We then showered and napped before drinks in the hotel and then dinner at an Italian place near DuPont Circle. We all quickly fell asleep after dinner and all we did in the morning was head back to the airport.
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| The Killer Angels at the Finish Line |
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