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October 24, 2004
Coast Guard Course Preview with the Team
I woke up very tired on Saturday morning because I was up late on the phone talking to friends in CA. I was meeting the team with the van at 7:30 to drive them to New London to preview the Coast Guard Course at Harkness Park. I was actually able to follow the van with my car until Hartford so that on the way home I could drive to Middletown to visit my grandfather in the nursing home. The team picked me up in Hartford and we drove to New London together. The head coach had been driving the van. The park was really beautiful, right on the ocean, and very open. We took sometime to stretch and figure out the course map. There are no obvious trails in the area so the landmarks on the map became very important to use for reference points. We managed to scramble through the course one time making changes along the way. This first run of the course was very slow. We decided to have the team run their long run in this area so we could make the most out of our road trip. After the first time through the course we ran the course again and really studied the course. We told the athletes not to talk and to really focus on the course and any important details they might want to remember for race day. I realized I had a hard time running in a pack of runners and not talking. It was tough. After the second loop of the course we added on another 20 minutes or so to make the total mileage somewhere between 8 and 9 for the day. The air temperature was nice and cool since we were by the water but once we got into the van I was happy to have the heater on.
I met up with my Mother in the afternoon and we decided it might be better for me to visit my Grandfather on Sunday. In this way, I'd be free to help my Mother shop for holiday gifts. We had a fun time shopping together and got some dinner together at a sandwich shop. We did not get home until almost 10 p.m. and I reminded my Mother I had to figure out how to work with my digital camera on line. My Mother and I spent the next few hours putting the gifts in the appropriate gift piles, which we had purchased and finally at midnight I got to work on my camera. I was able to successfully download the pictures to my computer at home. I was also able to print. Additionally I registered for an online website where I can post my pictures. The one thing I could not figure out how to do was transfer my pictures from the computer to the website. I spent too much time working on all of the above to get to that so that is my plan for the next week. My housemate just put her photos on line so I will hopefully be able to get some help from her. It was pretty late by the time I finished all that but I still had to write my thank you cards for all of my running friends who donated to my 100k-race experience. I had printed out a picture of me and my teammates to include in the card and already had the addresses written out. The next step was to write the individual thank you cards. I did this and the next thing I knew it was almost morning (4 a.m.) Fortunately, I was finished and jumped right into bed. I was planning to do a 3 hour run on Sunday but due to this late night of work I decided to make it a 2 hour run so I could get at least 6.5 hours of sleep. I set the alarm for 10:30 a.m.
Posted by mary at October 24, 2004 9:33 PM