- Running is not that bad if you go slow. I think that I was always trying to push myself to go faster and I was never able to find a nice pace to run at. When I stopped focusing on my time and focused more on finishing, I saw a huge improvement in my running.
- Books on tape are great to run to. About 4 weeks into my training I started listening to books on tape. It was a miracle! Instead of wanting to die every time I went on a run, I only wanted to mildly inflict pain on myself.
- Long runs are crucial. Whatever you do, you HAVE to run the long runs every week.
- I have really week hip muscles. About three weeks into training, I started to get sharp pains in my foot and leg. I waited a while for it to go away, but once it did not I went to the Physical Therapist’s office. There I learned from Albert that I have weak hip muscles so the other muscles in my leg are over-compensating, which is causing the pain. He gave me a strict home routine and orders to come back twice a week. I’m still working on following his instructions 🙂
I know. I will give you a second to recover from the shock. When is it rainy and cloudy for five days straight in November? Luckily for you I can answer that question since I experienced this lovely weather firsthand. That would be November 13-17, 2015.
Although the weather was a bummer, Andy and I didn’t let it ruin our trip. We still went out Friday night and partied a little bit too hard. We still slept in and enjoyed our days of no work. And we still made once in a lifetime memories.
On Saturday, the first full day that Andy was there, we took an uber to Davie, Florida to pick up our race packet. Somewhere along the way I managed to convince Andy to run the 5k while I ran the half marathon. This was great news for me because it meant I didn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn all by myself 🙂 After grabbing our items for race day, we did a little shopping. This would not be memorable in itself if Andy and I didn’t encounter the MOST sketchy store.
The store was easily overlooked in-between more well known names like Ulta and TJ MAXX. As soon as you walked inside you were greeted by two women at an open table in the corner asking for your purse, bags and any other containers. Once you handed over your life you got a tiny piece of paper with a number. This did little to ease me that my items would be there when I returned. As Andy and I walked through the store I was impressed with how many of their clothes I liked. Great work dresses, great going out clothes, great lounging clothes. Even better: the clothes were DIRT cheap.
I pointed at a couple things high up on the wall and I asked Andy to grab them for me.
“Sure. What size?”
“I don’t know…a medium or a small?”
He pulls down a couple of items and looks at me in surprise: apparently none of the clothes had sizes. I didn’t believe him, so I went to check myself.
He was right.
WHAT KIND OF STORE IS ONE SIZE ONLY?!?! There are no words.
After choosing some items, Andy and I went to find the dressing room. We walked around a couple of times, but we couldn’t seem to find them. We stopped an employee and asked where they are.
“Oh. We don’t have dressing rooms. But we do have a 30 day return policy.”
Wait … whaaaaat!?! A one-size clothing store doesn’t have dressing rooms? Please help me find the logic in that because I am thoroughly confused. Of course, this did not deter Andy and I as we will stop at nothing for a good deal. We found the one mirror in the entire store and while I took off as many layers as I could to try the clothes, Andy acted as my hanger. You will be happy to know that I ended up purchasing two dresses, both under $12.99.
After returning from our exhausting shopping trip, we ate some pasta and rested before the race the next morning.
The weather on race day was wonderful: warm, but overcast, so there was no beating sun. The only downfall was the whole wind issue. And by minor I mean the “it-was-basically-a-tornado-I-am-gonna-get-blown-away.” Apparently, some higher being really want to test how well I actually trained by having me run in 37 MPH winds. Yes, that actually happened.
Overall, the race went super well. I kept a pretty solid pace throughout and I only stopped twice: once for bathroom/water and once for just water. We ran from the Las Olas Riverfront to the beach front. There were only a couple of minor hills and I mostly survived them. The worst part were the 2.5 miles along the beachfront where we were running directly into the wind. I think at that point I basically stopped moving. It was a rough moment in my life.
However, I somehow persevered and made it all in one piece to the end. Andy was tracking me using “Find My Friends” so he was waiting for me at the finish line. It was awesome to have him there cheering me on.
I really liked this race and I thought it was extremely well organized. Getting there was easy and so was the route. There were plenty of water stations and bathrooms. The food afterwards was phenomenal. The pictures were free to download. My only complaint is that we had to drive all the way out to Davie, Florida to pick up the race packet, which is just silly since the race was in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
We spent the rest of Sunday relaxing, but by Monday I was ready for action again. It was still overcast/chance of rain so we decided to do some tourist activities. We bought tickets on Ft. Lauderdale’s famous water taxi…basically a boat ride that stops at specific stops and you can ride all day. The neat part about the water taxi is that the drivers of the boat act as tour guides during the ride. They would point out where famous people lived or tell interesting stories about the city. My favorite was this house with the bathtub just chilling in the top floor bay window.
We rode the water taxi all the way to the last stop on the route, or where our destination was: the Museum of Science and Discovery.
It. Was. So. Cool.
Andy and I had waaaay too much running around with the little children.
We went on a “water plane” through the Everglades. We played astronaut trivia games. We created our own safari adventure. We flew planes. We balanced on surfboards. We tried to save our house from a hurricane. We testing our drunk driving abilities. WE WERE IN BIG KID HEAVEN.
The crazy part was how informative the museum actually was. I really felt as if I was truly learning in an interactive fashion. For example, do you know how long you would have to pedal on a bike to burn off the calories from eating one scoop of ice cream?
(Helpful Hint: You really don’t want to know. It’s not encouraging.)
We also played an interesting game where we tried to recycle items in the correct bins as quickly as possible. (1) It was much harder than it looks and (2) I feel super guilty about the lack of recycling I do/environmental concern I have
After spending numerous hours at the museum, Andy and I decided to get back on the water taxi and ride the boat to the last stop in the complete opposite direction – about a 1.5 hour ride – to get dinner/happy hour. It had rained while we are in the museum, but at this point the rain had stopped and it was awesome just cruising around on the water.
When we arrived at the last stop, we went straight to the bar. Our poor bartender…he had no idea what we was getting into when he introduced himself to us. Let’s just say that we had the MOST fun on a Monday night. We had appetizers, tried all the speciality cocktails, drank numerous amounts of draft beers/ciders, took a shot with our new friend sitting next to us and participated in 50 cent wing night. We played two people drinking games (don’t ask) and spent some time sitting on the edge of the dock overlooking the water.
The best part though? Without a doubt, our water taxi home.
Let me try and set the scene here: Its 9PM at night and we caught the second to last water taxi back home. The water taxi that pulls up is a double decker with a bathroom and a bar. We get on the boat and there is NO ONE else there. Literally there is the two of us and the three crew members on this huge double decker. And that’s it.
Of course Andy and I start walking all over the boat trying to explore. We get to the next step on the route and the water taxi took a 5 minute stop while we waited to see if anyone was going to get on. While we were stopped Andy and I had a two part plan (keep in mind our slight intoxication): he would work with one of the crew to make us a drink and I would work on the captain to let us play music. Somehow we got both.
The crew member said he would hook us up for $14. Let me tell you, for $14 we got two of the STRONGEST long island ice teas that I have ever drank. I’m not sure they were even long island ice teas. From my college experience long island ice teas are the color of coke. These long island ice teas were pink. Yes, pink. Kind of questionable, but we still rolled with it. All I know is they were so strong I made Andy take them back to the bar and add some additional mixer. (In my defense, if we could taste the alcohol after we had already been drinking that much, it couldn’t have been just me haha).
Around this time it started to rain. I reached for my rain jacket. Andy reached to take his shirt off.
The two of us were dancing all over the boat to 90s throwbacks with our Long Island ice teas , partially shirtless as we sped through the waters of Fort Lauderdale on our personal safe ride home.
Yep, we had it made.
We woke up that night at 3AM and were amazed that not only did we make it home safely, we had all of our belongings too…even the 50 cent wings that Andy had ordered to go!
The day, as well as our trip, will be forever remembered as one of our best adventures. Cheers to the Water Taxi – please tip them appropriately 🙂
Taking Little Steps 