20 miles of Martha's Vineyard

Scott, Bruce, and I trekked out to Martha's Vineyard yesterday for a 20-mile race. We drove down to Cape Cod, then took a 45-minute ferry to Vineyard Haven on the island. I thought Bruce would like the ferry ride more than he did; it came around his naptime though, so he was more interested in spazzing out. A lot of people had dogs with them too, so Bruce checked out the "wa-was." That's what he calls dogs now. He used to call them "doggies," but now calls them "wa-was." That's his way of saying "woof, woof."

The race started at the boat dock and went up the coast for 9 miles or so, then turned inland and wound along a wooded bike path for almost the rest of the way. It was really pretty, but really windy too. Wind gusts of 18-30 mph kept me from hitting any sort of consistent splits, even though I tried running behind some big guys to block the wind.

I ended up finishing first for the ladies in 2 hours, 11 minutes. I was tired from the wind, and a Gatorade cramp on mile 17 put a stick in my spokes, but I'm well on my way to a decent marathon in April.

While I was running, Scott and Bruce walked to the finish line (it was about 3-4 miles from the start; we had the stroller, thank goodness). The finish was at a school, so they played with basketballs in the gym until I finished. There was lots of post-race food: minestrone and bagels for me and Bruce, clam chowder for Scott, fruit for everyone. Yum.

(By the way, the picture of Boston is from a week ago when we went to that lab party at MIT. That was the awesome view of Beacon Hill and downtown from the top of a student housing tower.)