I completely understand now why parents do crazy things for their kids.

For the first time, a child was joining me on a half marathon adventure. Jenna (age 3) was ecstatic. Not only were we having a Mommy-Daughter trip but she was getting to go on an AIRPLANE (emphasis by Jenna 😂). We got her a suitcase (pink with unicorns and rainbows obviously) that she enthusiastically helped pack. The night before the trip we told her that we were going to pick her up early from daycare to go on the airplane.

And then…life happened. Or more aptly, the weather god laughed in our face.

You see, New Hampshire got a foot of snow. In March. The DAY before our race.

And suddenly I had another first: one of my half marathons got cancelled (I guess it was bound to happen). The good news (I think?) is that they cancelled it as we were packing the car to go the airport. The bad news is that we still had to tell Jenna there would be no airplane.

This is one of those times where it is great to have a husband with practically no emotions.

[Side note: I was telling Jenna the other day how beautiful and kind her heart is. She proceeded to tell me, “Mommy, Daddy doesn’t have a heart.” A little surprised, I responded, “He doesn’t?” Jenna informed me, “No Mommy, Daddy only has three emotions – sad, mad and happy – and that’s why he has no heart.” “Jenna, who told you that?” “Daddy did!” 😂😂😂😂]

I begged him to be the one to get Jenna at daycare and tell her since I was definitely going to be crying with her. And because Andy is a great human, he did it. Andy arrived to daycare to get Jenna and as soon as they opened the door she was jumping up and down in excitement while screaming, “Daddy! It’s time to go on the airplane with Mommy! I’m going on an airplane!”

On the way home from daycare, with a sad, crying child in the back, Andy called me and told me he didn’t know his heart could break like that. And then we turned into those crazy parents…

“Maybe we should just buy a plane ticket and take her somewhere, anywhere.”

“That’s a great idea!”

Thankfully, we came to our senses before we actually did that but I am now acutely aware why parents fix problems for their kids and don’t allow them to experience disappointment. (Parents: Go read The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey)

Needless to say, we decided that a re-do was required for the New Hampshire trip (at a minimum to give Jenna her airplane experience!). I was very impressed with the race organizers who allowed us to either switch to the new race date or defer our registration to any Nor’easter Run Series. And thus, our Margarita Half Marathon adventure began.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

While our first New Hampshire race was scheduled to be a whole party, we lost half our group during take two (Elyana to pregnancy and Ludo to Italy). In the end, it was myself, Jenna and Fran (see Half Marathons #9, #14). Fran is doing her PhD program at the University of Rhode Island so she was already up north. Meanwhile, Jenna and I took a flight to Boston at the crack of dawn.

Traveling with a young kid is…an adventure (please read between the lines… aka pretty damn miserable 😂). We were lucky that Grandpa Dave was willing to transport us to the airport at 4:45 AM because I’m not sure I could have handled the stress of getting a car seat into an uber at that hour. But unfortunately Grandpa Dave couldn’t exactly help us with the luggage once we got to the airport and I’m going to be honest with you: I looked ABSURD.

Picture this: I had a stroller. Jenna in the stroller. Jenna’s backpack at the bottom of the stroller. Jenna’s car seat tied to the handle of the stroller. My backpack on my back. One arm pushing the stroller and the other pulling my suitcase.

Yep, yep. We were fan favorites at TSA.

On the bright side, once we made it through security and to our gate, Jenna was OBSESSED. She wouldn’t stop staring out the window at all the planes.

And her utter awe and enjoyment didn’t end. She loved every second of the plane ride and I have to say I really enjoyed that she was old enough to entertain herself as opposed to the last time we took her on a plane (age 16 months) and she threw crayons at our seatmate. (Shocker but the crayon victim was really not amused with our weapon wielding child…)

Fran picked us up at the airport upon our arrival and I am so proud to share that I actually got the car seat properly installed in the car!!! It may have only taken weekly lessons from Andy (cough intense military-like trainings) but I did it! 🥳🥳🥳 And then of course Jenna passed out and it was the beginning of the end.

Since we couldn’t check into our AirBnb until later in the day we decided to head to Portsmouth for some exploring and food. We found a cute lake with a playground nearby and thought it would be good for Jenna to get some energy out after sitting for so long. We put the address into GPS and we’re off on our way.

Well, remember that nap Jenna decided to take in the car? Have I ever mentioned how TERRIBLE Jenna is with nap hangovers? It’s so bad that sometimes at home we play rock paper scissors for who has to wake her up from her nap.

You probably already see where this is going but let me spell it out for you. HOLY SMOKES SHE WAS THE HOTTEST OF HOT MESSES WHEN SHE AWOKE. I’m talking full on screaming (I may have lost an ear drum), crying, waving arms and legs around and zero ability to calm down. She didn’t want to be in the stroller and she didn’t want to walk and she was just miserable.

My sister always says that hanging out with our family is a very effective form of birth control and I think after this experience Fran may agree 😂

After some bench sitting, Daddy FaceTiming and bribes of pancakes, we were able to get into a calm enough state for the stroller. However, we never did make it on that nice walk around the lake to the playground haha

We did get a chance to explore the streets of Portsmouth and it was such a cute town! If we hadn’t had a toddler on the verge of a meltdown we absolutely would have taken more time to go window shopping and inside the stores. I would definitely recommend spending time here if you’re ever in New Hampshire.

Another recommendation: The Friendly Toast for brunch. There was a wait on the weekends but it was well worthwhile. The food was yummy, the service was top quality and the decorations were a colorful joy.

After eating we went to the Seacoast Science Center which was outside of Portsmouth. It was perfect for kids! The museum was interactive and educational. We learned how to band the claws of lobsters, how to make waves, played in gravel/sand, went “fishing”, and basically learned that climate change is killing everything. Did you know that they found 35,140 cigarette butts during the beach cleanups in the New Hampshire community in 2022? Over 35 thousand?!?! I honestly didn’t even know we had that many smokers? (I also just googled how many cigarettes were sold in the US in 2022 and I think I vomited a bit in my mouth…just a casual 173.5 BILLION)

Besides the whole pollution and global warming killing us all, we got to see some animals native to the area. The highlight was Raspberry, the turtle that Jenna was able to pet and really wanted to take home haha

Oh! And we also found a hanging diagram on the species (creature? animal?) that Fran is studying for her PhD: PHYTOPLANKTON.

Not going to lie, Fran tried to explain to me what these things(?) are and it 100% went over my head. But I did get that they are very very small and the diagram is not sized for real life (see Fran! I totally learned something!)

After dragging Jenna away from Raspberry, we headed to the AirBnb which was in Madbury. The two story apartment was adorable and the hosts, Carolyn and Bob, were amazing. Not only did they have a pack and play, toddler plates and a high chair but they had a whole box of toys. Nothing is more entertaining for a three year old than toys that are not their own 🙂

That night for dinner we had pasta of course (because there is literally no other possible pre-race food). Jenna “helped” me cook the pasta carbonara and then devoured it. Safe to say that I clearly did a wonderful job cooking (Thanks Ludo for all the instruction!!).

The next morning was race day and nobody is surprised to hear that the weather was TERRIBLE. Cold, windy and rainy: the perfect trifecta to motivate you to run 13.1 miles.

I had contemplated pushing Jenna in the stroller since we didn’t have anyone to watch her. However, Fran suggested that we ask her brother James and his boyfriend David to drive up from Boston to watch Jenna. I was very stressed about the whole situation because Jenna is…a lot (that’s saying it nicely – please just scroll upwards to the whole experience by the lake if you need a refresher on Jenna). But I am SO thankful that James and David were willing to help us out because I can only imagine how terrible that half marathon would have been if we had to not only run in that weather but also push a miserable Jenna 😬😬😬

James and David dropped us off and headed out to have fun adventures while Fran and I marinated in our own misery.

Have I mentioned how much I hate running in the cold rain? Just thinking about it now is making me shiver. And the worst part is that I didn’t train for this race at all!!

Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking – “Julia get your act together! You promised me after the last half-marathon that you were going to start training!” And the thing is, that I totally did! I really trained for Take 1 of New Hampshire but then the race got cancelled and we all got the stomach bug and then I miscarried and then literally everything that could go wrong in a two month period did go wrong and yeah, long story short but I only did a few short runs before Take 2.

Thankfully, Fran (per usual) knows to expect this from me and is very non-judgmental about my inability to run even though I’m the one who keeps dragging her on these adventures (sorrrryyyy 🤷🏻‍♀️).

Actually during the race we had the perfect example of motivational Fran.

Me: (Around mile 9.5) “Fran, I think we’re going to need to get an Uber home”

Fran: “Come on, we can do this! There is less than four miles left! If we need to walk, lets walk but we can make it without calling an Uber to get us the rest of the way!”

…Of course I was actually talking about getting an Uber home *after* the race but who am I to turn down a motivational speech? 🤣🤣🤣

The race was basically an out and back which are not my favorites. Actually, this was a bit worse than an out and back because there were different start and finish lines which is always frustrating from a logistics standpoint. Alright, to be honest as I am thinking about this further – there really isn’t much that I enjoyed with this route. There were constant rolling hills which killed the legs and very few bathrooms. There also weren’t a lot of people running the race in general so it was a really lonely race (apparently all the smart people decided to switch from the half to the 5k given the weather).

I think the route could have been aesthetically pleasing if it wasn’t such terrible weather?

It also probably didn’t help that James and David were sending us all the photos of their fun times. Chocolate chip pancakes and a children’s museum? Oh my gosh SIGN ME UP! Basically anything to get the heck out of this weather…

On the positive side, the race shirt was nice and I really liked the medal we got at the end. They also had super friendly volunteers (seriously cheers to the volunteers for sticking it out in that weather) and LOTS of race communication/signs which I loved. Oh, and they had FREE RACE PHOTOS! Y’all know I’m the biggest sucker for those!

Unfortunately we were so miserable and wet by the time we finished that we didn’t even get our margarita. 😢

Don’t fret though – we got something even better than a margarita: DUNKIN COFFEE! We chilled at Dunkin while we waited for our Uber to pick us up and take us back to the AirBnb.

Overall, the weather definitely put a huge damper on this race but I would still recommend for anyone looking to do one in New Hampshire. The race organizers did a great job, especially given all the weather impacts.

And my favorite part of the race? I got to meet in person one of my colleagues!! Well kind of my colleague. Peter retired at the beginning of the year but he was running the 5k and we were able to meet up briefly before the race.

Nothing like a half marathon to bring people together 🙂

After the race, we returned back to the AirBnb and spent some time catching up with David and James. James and David did GREAT with Jenna and they even got hugs before heading back to Boston which is a BIG deal for Jenna.

Jenna took a nap while Fran and I recuperated from our semi-drowning. Unfortunately, it rained all day so outdoor activities were a no-go for the afternoon. Luckily, the public library in Dover was open on a Sunday so we headed into Dover after naptime.

Let me just tell you that the Dover Public Library gets a ten out of ten! Not only were they open on a Sunday (why can’t our libraries do that?!) but they had so many things for kids.

What a great way to get kids into the library at a young age and encourage a positive relationship with books. (And also, yes, I admit that I’m a total nerd that my traveling ideas include going to the library. But I’m in good company – the fun fact of the day is that Fran and I used to have “reading playdates” when we were younger. Yep, go ahead and start laughing now #booknerds)

On our way home from the library we stopped at the grocery store to get food for dinner. As Jenna is prone to do, she bolted off while we were inside the store. Fran ran after her and found Jenna in the next aisle over. Jenna ran up and hugged a woman who was shopping.

Fran: “Uh Jenna, that’s not your mom. Let’s go back and find the right Mommy.”

Jenna looks up and realizes the woman she’s hugging is an actual stranger. (Apparently, the woman played it off well. Thank you friendly New Hampshire woman!).

Jenna nonchalantly releases the woman’s legs and turns to Fran, “Yeah that’s not the right Mommy, that’s the left Mommy.”

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

So maybe we need to do some work on what left and right are but at least she knows they’re opposites? hahaha

The following morning, Fran drove us back to Boston so we could catch our flight home. Before we went to the airport we made a quick pit stop at I AM BOOKS, an Italian bookstore. It is incredibly difficult to find and obtain Italian books in America and this bookstore is one of the few places I have had success. This is the first time I had been in person and oh my gosh it’s a good thing our suitcase was already full because I was this close to buying the whole store.

I settled with only buying six books…just don’t tell Andy 🙂

We arrived to the airport a bit early so Jenna and I had lots of time to hang out in the terminal before boarding. I have zero shame when it comes to keeping my child entertained so we did lots of dancing, singing, jumping and running. And as a perfect cap to our trip, we made friends with the very friendly JetBlue employee. When it came time to board he came over the loudspeaker and said, “This is pre-boarding announcement for the flight to Washington. We are now inviting U.S. Military members with an active military ID and passengers with the name Jenna to begin boarding at this time.”

Jenna perked right up when she heard her name and legitimately RAN to get on the plane. Of course, I was still packing up our stuff and the gate agent had to go back on the speaker to announce that Jenna had to wait for her Mom. 🤣

But let the record show that there was that one time that I actually boarded a flight before anyone else!

Final thoughts on New Hampshire?

PROS: There were Dunkins on literally every single corner. I was in heaven. New Hampshire is so close to the water and there was a ton of nature as well as green space. The people were beyond friendly and talkative – we seemed to make friends everywhere we went.

CONS: Uhhh New Hampshire is TINY. Like tiny, tiny, tiny. You would drive five minutes and be in a new town. There really was no city life and it had a very small town feel to it. Although, the weather definitely impacted my thoughts I can’t actually imagine myself living there.

Thanks New Hampshire for hosting us and only raining (and not snowing) during Take 2!