You exercise too much and need to eat

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT....I turned 59 in January. Yep...this is what 59 looks like. Strong...vital...alive...and ready for adventure.

I would like to argue with a famous hobbit who said: It is a dangerous business going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to. At 59 I want to step
outside my door and see where the road goes. And I am going to 
drag a few friends along. 

When last you saw that wedding dress Cindy had led me on a teaching adventure to Grand Rapids MI. I returned the favor by taking her on a half-marathon in San Diego. Warm...sunny...and only 13 ish miles. Oh...unless you count the unexpected one mile-ish walk to the start and the quarter mile back to the car.

Of course we did not really have time to prepare for this, or plan our morning. No...we did not carb pack the night before, or even that morning. We started with coffee and a banana each and headed out to the start line. The mermaid series sponsors all women athletic events...and gives out...or sells...mermaid swag. Clearly I had to go. 

As did the dress. So we set off from the start at 7:00 and ran a quarter mile so that we could say we ran and walked the race. This is in honor of our self definition as quarter horses...good for the slow steady long haul...and not thoroughbreds who are tall and thin and run forever. We then set a pace guaranteed to bring us in before the last person...but not in any way win our age class. There was a 67 year old woman who ran the race in 1.5 hours. Wow. 

So on we went with only water and gatorade to fuel us until mile 10 where we found the last few packets of Gu energy gel...think gatorade turned into thick jello. We sucked it down and it actually tasted...sort of good...which is a really bad sign.

 By mile 12...which was actually more than 13 miles of walking...we both wanted lattes and carbs. We are tired of the cheering squads and wanted to sneak by them. But we managed to cross the finish line get our cool necklaces, grab tangerines...and then walk a quarter mile back to the car and soy lattes. 

And of course, because we had so much more to pack into the day, it was 2:00 before we ended up at Cindy's new house (did I mention that she had moved the weekend prior?) and were actually able to sit down...and discover we were STARVING. 

Jewish lesson? Eat...really...eat before you set out on a loooooong walk.