Two years ago Ally and I ran the 2009 Kentucky Derby Festival Mini-Marathon. While slowly and painfully trotting across the finish line I’m pretty sure I remember saying to myself, “Ugh, I’m never doing this again.” Welp, as it turns out, I’m going to do it again.
You see, now that I have a big kid job I’m not walking 10 miles a day like I was when I was working in mowing and landscaping. And apparently it’s starting to show, despite the guys in my section at work implementing a new policy: 10 push-ups on the hour every hour! It’s actually great for getting the blood flowing and keeping me alert at my desk. But alas, Ally is the fit one of the family and runs several days a week. She’s been trying to get me to start running again for a while and, with the realization that I wasn’t going to get in shape unless I had a goal to work toward, I committed to the challenge of another mini-marathon.
Ally has run the Kentucky Derby Festival Mini-Marathon 3 times now and has grown a bit bored of the Louisville city streets. We decided if we were going to run another mini we should at least enjoy the view. After a thorough search of all the internet had to offer in the way of race information we found the (are you ready for it?) Virginia Wine Country 1/2 Marathon! SIDEBAR: Ever since Ally turned 21 last year we’ve been making a concentrated effort to become more “sophisticated” (which ironically is a very sophisticated word) by acquiring a taste for wine. The acquiring isn’t going so well but we do like everything else associated with wine: the barns, the vineyards, and the hills and valleys of wine country. With that info down you can see how we are much more excited about this mini than we were about the Louisville one!
We thought it would be fun to make a little weekend adventure out of this race, but after looking closer we realized we may need to make it a little more. Leesburg, VA is about an 8 hour drive from Lexington. In fact, it’s pretty much not even part of Virginia! It’s a suburb of Washington D.C.! I booked our hotel room last week (the first time I’ve made reservations for a hotel room!) and I’m pretty excited! We also got new running shoes last week and we’re ready to go! Now all that’s left is that whole running thing.
-Eric
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[…] from UK, we thought, “Hey! Let’s be tourists!” In my last post, “I Can’t Believe I’m Doing This Again (but actually I can),” I mentioned our lack of success at becoming sophisticated and acquiring a taste for wine. […]