Kathleen's Adventures

I'm about two months late writing this report and hope I remember enough of the highlights to still capture the race. Pre Race Thursday and Friday before the race were full of the normal pre-race activities.  The ones that require far more time on your feet and stress than they should.  But they also included lunches and dinners with good friends and an overall good time.  Mrs. Clark (aka my mom #2) came in Thursday afternoon and Kelly flew in Friday afternoon.  We enjoyed a nice dinner at Carrabba's where I ate entirely too much.  My sister's crew got in from San Antonio around 10:30 Friday night.  I knew I wasn't going to go to bed until they got there, so I'm thankful it wasn't any later.  They had had a pretty bad week and I was thankful they made it at all.  Elizabeth, Sean, Molly, Kate, and Bennett all piled into our suite.  It was a 2/2 and actually worked out great.  We made our plans for the morning and I headed to bed arou...

A month late, and quite a random assortment, but here are a few fun pics from the weekend: Dinner Saturday Night Race morning in transition with Bridget B One highly motivated-looking crew getting ready to race (...or waiting over an hour for our waves to start) Photo by John Chung Don't put you knee through a bike wheel...the wheel won't bend but your knee will Awesome sunburn Cure for a bum knee Post Race stretching - a definite must! A few days later  The official race photos are here .

I found it hard to believe it was already time to race, and to race long when this race approached.  I had only been in the water for 3-4 weeks by that time and that just felt weird.  I had to take 10 days off swimming after my Lasik surgery in early March, but the truth is I hadn't been in the pool more than a handful of times before that.  I did do a 2.4 mile open water swim race the weekend before Lonestar, which helped the half not seem so long. I packed up my car Saturday morning and headed to Galveston.  It was smooth sailing until I hit I-45.  Surprise, surprise.  Once I exited on the island traffic was awful too.  All I wanted to do was get there and sit by the pool with Kim.  I got checked in and registered and finally made it to the pool, by which time the clouds had come out.  Oh well.  We went to dinner with several of my Austin friends and had a good time.  Kim and I were at the Moody Gardens hotel and Alisa, Mel...

So, this is about a month late, but oh well.  My marathon race report in song was a fairly comprehensive report in itself, and fun to write.  I may do more that way. At my last track practice the Tuesday before the marathon, Shawn told me he thought I had the physical ability and fitness to run well in the marathon. He said I just had to get right in my head about it; that he was worried all the crap that had gone on in the few weeks before that could leave my head in another place and less than confident. I walked away thinking (overreacting of course) "ugh! he thinks I'm too much of a head case to run well this weekend?!" But then I also realized that may have been the best thing he could have said. It almost seemed like a challenge - I felt like I had to prove that my head would be in the right place and that I would make it happen. I had to prove it to myself more than him, but it was certainly good food for thought. It was really weird driving to Houston and sta...