We are back from vacation–and though I had big dreams of squeezing in 2-3 runs, I only managed one. Here is a quick vacation recap…
Boston…I’m in love. We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon, and our hotel was half a block from the Boston Marathon finish line. As we walked down Boylston St., I was amazed at the number of late afternoon solo runners and running groups that we passed. Wow did it make me smile! Boston is a running city, big time.
We were very touched by the memorial to the Boston Marathon bombing. Here are a few pics…
Our days were busy with sightseeing, walking the Freedom Trail and eating our hearts out, but I did manage to squeeze in a great run on Friday morning. I ran down Boylston and through the Boston Public Garden and Boston Common. Gorgeous run!
If this next pic doesn’t inspire your run, you are dead inside…
If I could just shave 45 minutes off my marathon time, I’ll be close!
I think the highlight for the boys was the tour of Fenway…
I think the highlight for me was the food. Here I am preparing to dive into God knows what…I sure look excited, don’t I? Woof.
We had a gutbusting dinner in the North End one night and decided to walk back to our hotel. Great night pic from my iPhone!
I ♥ Boston!
The only bad experience was climbing the 294 steps to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument. I didn’t think it would be any big deal, since we climbed 500+ steps to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral a couple of years ago and survived, but that climb and descent tightened up my quads and calves so bad! I had to walk backwards down the steps in front of the monument as we were leaving. Extremely embarrassing.
We packed up on Sunday and drove down to Cape Cod. It was gorgeous! I formulated a new plan for retirement which includes winning the lottery or making millions by writing the next great American novel, running the Boston Marathon and moving to Bunker Hill with a summer home on Cape Cod.
Yeah, I see that happening.
Anyhoo, the beach was beautiful…(see the boys?)
The family time was wonderful…
The Dramamine that we doped Max up with for the drive down was powerful…
The fish pier was equal parts entertainment and horror…
and I loved it all.
On our last full day, we chartered a boat and went fishing for a few hours. Max was nervous at first. This picture cracks me up…
The boys caught a few smaller fish, but HH caught the big ones with the captain’s lucky rainbow squid lure.
That fish belt is hot, honey!
All in all, it was an amazing vacation. For our last morning, I planned on heading out for a long run, and I was so excited. There was so much to see, and you always see things differently on a run than you do in a car. I rummaged through my suitcase the night before to set out my running gear and COULDN’T FIND MY RUNNING SHOES!
I had left them in our hotel days earlier. Mon dieu! My custom orthotics were in there, and those things would take weeks to replace! I flopped a sweat and started cursing.
Thank you, Lenox Hotel and housekeeper for Room 821, who had found the shoes and turned them in. HH deposited us at the airport and took the subway back over to retrieve them for me. I owe him!
What kind of an idiot leaves their running shoes? This kind!
Finally, after lots of history, sun, croquet, etc., it was time to say goodbye and return to the heat. I went out for a run Thursday morning at about 9:30 and almost died.
Sweat burning my eyes, mild heatstroke setting in about one mile in…yikes! My planned four-mile slow run quickly turned into what I like to call the Get It The Hell Over With Run (the GITHOW run.)
It’s remarkable how much faster I can move when I just want to get back to a/c and the dual ceiling fans in my family room. Thank you, heat and humidity, for inspiring motivating encouraging forcing me to do a tempo run. It was awesome!
Maybe Marathoner 