Kingston Classic 10k

Location: Catskill, NY (High 52, Low 41)

Yesterday was the day! The first race that we have been training for over the past few months. It was supposed to be a pretty pleasant day, mostly sunny with highs in the low 60s, but unfortunately the weatherman overestimated the niceness of the day!

Harry took this picture of me when I was getting ready for the race. However, when I stepped outside for a couple minutes, I reconsidered my outfit and changed into a couple layers with a long-sleeved shirt.

The race was at 1 pm, which allowed us to have a really leisurely morning with a nice big breakfast of eggs, potatoes, bacon and toast. Yum. Definitely enough nourishment to get me through the six miles.

 

The winner of the Boston Marathon, Meb, was at the race and said a few words before our start.

 

 

 

After waiting in the dreary day and the cold wind for almost an hour, Denise and I were very happy to have race time arrive.

 

 

The course was a rolling course, with lots of ups and downs, but both of us were very excited that we were able to maintain a pretty solid high 11 min mile, which is our current running pace.

 

Harry was nice enough to come to the race and get pictures of us coming down the home stretch!

 

 

 

 

Another race in the books! 6.2 miles in 1 hour, 12 minutes and 46 seconds!

 

 

 

And then it was time for a celebratory pizza!

 

 

A very good and exciting day.

Slowly Spring…

Location: Catskill, NY (High 64, Low 31)

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a whole week since I last posted. The temps have been mainly in the high 50s and low 60s, and very slowly we are starting to see signs of spring. I noticed today that there are finally some trees with leaves appearing…

 

 

…although there are still quite a few bare trees around as well.

 

 

 

It’s been a pretty busy and fast week. I spent a couple days over at my sister’s law office, helping out with filing and catching up on chats with my sister.

 

We’ve also continued with our training runs in preparation for our next race, which is tomorrow! Today we went over to Kingston to pick up our race packets.

 

 

We had a little family get-together at my sister’s this week when our mother and stepfather came for a couple days’ visit.

 

 

We all enjoyed a little recital after dinner when our niece showed off what she’s learned this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the weather continues to improve, we are looking forward to enjoying the beauty of upstate NY in spring.

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow Denise and I will run the Kiwanis Kingston Classic!

Rabbit Ramble 2014

Location: Catskill, NY (High 58, Low 33)

I’ve mentioned a few times that Harry and I have been running since early January, training for a few races that we have signed up for this summer. Yesterday was the first one – the 4 mile Rabbit Ramble race in Guilderland, NY.

We got up early yesterday morning to have a cup of coffee and take in some sustenance before heading over to my sister’s to meet up around 8 am. We had our picture taken before hitting the road.

 

 

It was a beautiful day, although a little cool and breezy. I took a few pictures as my sister drove us on all the back roads following the directions of the gps.

 

 

We got there a little over an hour before the race was scheduled to begin, so we were able to walk right up to the table and get our packets. We had good timing too because it didn’t take long for a pretty long line to form.

 

We took the obligatory pre-race photos…

Harry and Denise…

 

 

 

 

Denise and me…

 

 

 

I was really pleased with my run in this first race of the season. I was able to run the whole thing without having to walk once.

I took this selfie somewhere in mile #3 – while I was running!

 

 

 

Denise and I finished the 4 miles in 49:47. Harry finished in 39:07. A good first run for the season!

 

 

Next up…a 10k in Kingston, NY one week from today!

Enjoying Being Settled

Location: Catskill, NY (High 40, Low 28)

 

After two nice warm days, the reality of April in NY has sunk back in after a cold day of rain yesterday and then waking up to this sight this morning…

 

I have to admit, I really don’t mind though. I am very happy to be home and having time to catch up with my sister in person. I’ve spent some time this week at her business helping her with some organizational tasks, and of course, chatting!

 

For the first time in quite a while, I have been able to unpack my pictures and knick-knacks and set them up in our living area. Our place is looking very homey. We haven’t gotten the grill and our other outside stuff yet though – with that big rain/wind event coming through yesterday, we thought it would make more sense to wait until that had passed.

 

On Monday night we enjoyed another homecoming tradition – our second annual “time to enjoy some NY pizza and wings” event. Yum.

 

 

Harry and I have already been able to go for a couple runs with my sister, and this Saturday we are looking forward to our first running event of the year – a 4 mile run in Albany. I am really looking forward to seeing how this race goes compared to the half marathon I did last August.

It’s been a great first week at our summer home base.

We Have Landed!

Catskill, NY (High 75, Low 58)

Yesterday we got up bright and early to make one last push for our final destination. We knew we had a long day ahead of us by our standards so we were on the road right on time at 8 am. It was cloudy as we got underway but happily there was little to no wind.

 

It was really nice yesterday with highs in the 70s, but the effects of the cold weather are still visible, as the grass has not started to green up yet. The only white stuff visible was on the rocks by the side of the road.

 

After being away for seven months, I was enjoying the upstate NY views with fresh eyes.

 

 

 

 

By mid-afternoon we were headed into the Catskill region.

 

 

Our winter travels have now officially come to an end! I put a map showing where we’ve been since we left in early Sept. ‘13 on the sidebar.

 

 

I checked out some of our travel statistics this morning. We traveled a total of 8,765 miles since leaving Catskill last year. Of that, 4,750 miles were towing miles, leaving 3,985 in just driving miles. We spent $2,736.97 on diesel fuel.

 

It was a great winter, but now I am looking forward to a few months of familiar sights, and spending time with friends and family.

West Memphis–Bowling Green–North Bend–Marengo

Location: Marengo, OH (High 61, Low 43)

We have been moving right along over the past few days. On Wednesday, the 9th, we left Tom Sawyer’s Mississippi River Campground and headed down the road to Bowling Green, KY. I was able to get a nice shot of Memphis as we passed over the Mississippi River.

 

It was a beautiful day for the trip, and on top of the weather, we enjoyed clear roads, even through the urban areas.

 

 

As we moved toward Kentucky, we realized that we had come full circle since leaving Campbellsville, KY in December after our stint at Amazon.

 

 

We had a great pull through site at the Bowling Green KOA, and the atmosphere was really spring-like, with new leaves on the trees and robins all around.

 

Thursday we moved on into Ohio (just barely). The campground was actually on the corner of the state, not too far from Cincinnati. The last few miles of our trip were funny, as we went out of Kentucky, through two miles of Indiana and then a mile into Ohio to get to the campground.

 

Indian Springs Campground in North Bend, OH looked like a pretty simple set-up. But it served our purposes with another great pull through site for the evening.

 

 

It rained overnight, but we were happy to wake up to cloudy skies but no rain coming down. And we never got any rain as we moved down the road to today’s destination.

 

Our trip today took us through Columbus, OH, but again we were happy that traffic really wasn’t too bad. Even in the center of the city we never had to slow down under our normal traveling speed.

 

Our destination today was Cardinal Center Campground, and the most confusing part of the whole trip came when we turned off the road and saw…nothing!

 

 

 

Let’s just say that the driveway to the campground is quite…..LONG.

 

 

We did finally come to the office though and we have another great site! And we are almost boondocking, or at least the closest that we will come to it, as they haven’t turned the water on yet. We had called a few days ago, so we knew the water situation and brought enough to take us through tonight, and maybe tomorrow night, in case we have the same at our next stop.

 

After seven months of traveling, tomorrow we will be heading back into New York State and staying at a repeat campground for us – Westfield KOA on Lake Erie.

On the Road…Elm Mott–Texarkana–West Memphis

Location: West Memphis, AR (High 57, Low 42)

On Friday, after staying in New Braunfels to wait out the storm passing through, we had a beautiful day to start our three day travel run. Our destination this first day was I-35 RV Park in Elm Mott, TX, a little north of Waco.

 

I wasn’t sure whether we were going to hit a lot of traffic as our route was taking us through Austin. But other than a few miles of slower traveling, we were able to move right along.

 

Actually the most challenging part of the whole trip was at the end as the whole area around the campground is under construction. We got off our exit and went to make a left turn only to discover that the turn was no longer there. (I took this picture the next day just to illustrate what we faced.) It was a hairy few minutes but between Gretel the GPS, calling the campground, and a helpful state trooper, we managed to keep moving and find our way through the miles of construction back to the campground.

We were happy that the campground was nice and open and not a dud after everything we went through to get to it. And they offered a free hot breakfast to overnight campers.

 

 

On Saturday we moved on to our last stop in Texas – Shady Pines RV Park in Texarkana. We had cloudy skies for our travel today, but no rain.

 

 

Although we were traveling past Dallas, we were happy to see that the weekend traffic was minimal and we had an uneventful trip to our next stop.

 

 

Shady Pines is a pretty small rv park, but has a great layout and it was super easy to get in and out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went out to enjoy some great Mexican food at Amigo Juan’s for our last night in Texas.

 

On Sunday there were storms in the forecast for the area so we got up and going earlier than we usually do, pulling out around 8:50 am. Our decision paid off when we heard a severe storm warning on the radio for Texarkana about an hour after we hit the road. Phew!

 

Although we drove through light rain showers off and on throughout the day, there was nothing major as we drove through our last new state of this travel season.

 

 

We are settled into our riverside spot at Tom Sawyer’s Mississippi River Campground in West Memphis, AR.

 

This is the view from our front step.  

We can see the river from almost every window. We’re enjoying watching the barges go by. Unfortunately today and tomorrow look to be cloudy and cool, but we do have one nice day coming up before we pull out of here on Thursday.

We are ready for a few days of sitting still.