Jeff has been training for the Yakima River Canyon Marathon for the past few months. It was Saturday April 2nd, and we made it into a little family excursion!
[I liked the sign they had on the road]
Our hotel had a POOL! The marathon started in Ellensburg, WA, wove through the Yakima River Canyon, and ended outside of Yakima,WA. Since Ellensburg is 1.5hrs from home, we stayed in a hotel on Friday night. Jay loved it!
It was so nice to swim! It has been a while. Jay was nervous at first, but it didn't take him long to LOVE the pool.
I like warm indoor hotel pools--no shivering necessary! Rose took this picture for us, since she's too young to swim...
...Just kidding! Rose reclined on a lounge chair by the pool while we swam.
We brought dinner from home and had a picnic in our hotel room! Then we went out for ice cream (Jeff and I started a pre-race ice cream tradition back in college). We discovered a heavenly ice cream place by Central Washington University called Winegars. BEST chocolate ice cream EVER!
Jay was a party animal! He was so excited about the hotel room that he didn't get to sleep until 2 1/2 hours PAST his normal bedtime!
Rose was a dream baby, as usual--she has been only waking up once each night all week, and last night she slept all night!
Tired children in the morning.
THE STARTING LINE. It was windy and chilly!!
The first few steps. We didn't bring the double stroller because there were only two places to watch the race on the whole course, and I thought I could do it from the car. Well, the start turned out to be farther from the parking lot than I thought it would be. It was SO WINDY and cold, but I was dying to see the start. I sat in the car for a full 10 minutes trying to figure out what to do...
Yes. I shoved Rose in the basket under the stroller again. Let me tell you, she's a lot bigger than she was last time I did this-- I will not be doing it again! But we saw the start of the race.
Then we re-loaded our very crowded little Honda Civic (2 car seats = very crowded) and drove down the road to the only other viewpoint--around the 5 mile marker. We had to hurry because Jeff is fast! He was in first place at this point. Then Jay, Rose, and I went back to our hotel for a little bit before driving down to Yakima for the finish.
We met up with Jay's Aunt Steph, and Jeff's parents at the finish. Jay played with Steph--he loves her! We waited and waited and waited, and NO JEFF came! Right when I was getting kind of nervous and worried, a big pickup truck pulled in and Jeff got out of it! What a relief it was to know that my husband wasn't plastered to the side of the road somewhere in the middle of the canyon! Jeff said his body ran out of energy and started those painful marathon-pains at the 17 mile marker, and he slowed down and thought about what to do. By mile 22, he decided that he was DONE with marathons. He didn't want to kill his body more just to finish, because he has already finished a marathon before in his life. So he jumped on a medi-truck and called it a day. He is glad to be over the marathon bug!
There were people on horses!
We had such a fun time being OUT and ABOUT together!
3 comments:
i LOVE that you put her in the basket again!!
Hotels! I love hotels! What fun, and ya' know... a pat on the back to Jeff cuz I would have been done after mile 3!!! What a fun trip :)... aside from the chilly wind right? ;)
About two years ago Logan signed up for a marathon in Richmond, but I convinced him to switch to the half marathon--he was so glad he did! It was Tommy's first experience in a hotel, too, and he loved it. Family outings are fun :-)
I'm impressed Jeff made it 22 miles--way to go!
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