The weekend started out innocently enough, with yoga at DFW Airport. Between that and the light workload I had planned for Friday, I thought I’d finally get a chance to catch up on sleep. Not so – my flight arrived at 12:30am, at which point I still had to pick up a rental car and drive to my hotel in Pittsburgh before finally crashing into bed for a few hours of shut eye before a last-minute 8am meeting. Total sleep = 5.5 hours.
While Friday did end up being fairly relaxed, that evening saw me driving the 3 hours from Pittsburgh, PA, up to Chautauqua, NY. (Whiny Laura complaining about the long drive to her lakefront cottage getaway… but it was tiring, especially for such a short trip of less than 36 hours). When we arrived, we quickly dropped off our stuff and immediately headed out for a late dinner, with the kind waitress allowing us to order despite missing the 9pm closing time by a few minutes. Greek-style turkey burger and basket of crispy curly fries? Not exactly the healthiest meal, but it was pretty darn delicious. (Question: do french fries count as carb loading if they’re more fat than carb?) After dinner, we probably should have gone right to sleep, but instead we stayed up watching stand-up comedy on TV. Alcohol-free August has definitely gotten me into the comedy scene, and just because we were in a tiny town that didn’t have live comedy shows didn’t mean we should give up our new weekend tradition!
Despite not getting to bed until around midnight (though I was unsuccessfully trying to avoid dozing off on the couch much earlier than that), I figured that we’d sleep super late on Saturday morning, especially since Friday night (two nights before) was the crucial time to get a good night’s sleep before the marathon. Unfortunately for those plans, my darn body clock ruined that by waking me up at 8am. Come on, body, cut me a break here! However, I did get to spend the day relaxing – sipping coffee and playing Scrabble in the morning, going kayaking and mini golfing followed by gorging myself on some incredible ice cream at Boxcar Barney’s in the afternoon, and cozying up with a fire, some pasta, and the Hunger Games on demand at night. While it was all really fun stuff that was incredibly relaxing (and so nice to get away from the world for a bit!), it definitely was a pretty busy/active day. I was especially surprised what a workout kayaking was for me – it’s clear that I need to get back to the weight room ASAP and get working on some upper body strength! (Duly noted for Monday morning.)
While I had an amazing time in Chautauqua, even I have to admit it was not exactly the best way to prep for a marathon. Instead of carb loading, I ate fried fish and ice cream; instead of resting up, I worked up a sweat kayaking on the lake; instead of getting a good night’s sleep, I stayed up late and got less than 6 hours both Friday and Saturday nights (we had a 4:30am wakeup call in order to close the house and get to the race on time). This marathon was going to be the first time I had run longer than 16 miles since June, and I knew from actually looking at the elevation profile before the race (Advanced preparation on my part? Shocking, I know) that there were going to be some crazy hills.
What had I gotten myself into???
Thoughts on Chautauqua??? I’ve heard amazing things!
REALLY fun and nice and small town-y! We didn’t go to the institute but mostly stayed around Mayville, and it was just very cute and quiet, since it was a bit chilly (temps in the 60s) and most people seemed to have stayed away that weekend.