The Cincinnati trip was planned about 6 months ago as a great excuse to see my friend Alex and to commemorate the event that set my running interest in motion exactly two years ago... The Cincinnati Run Like Hell!
We arrived at Cincinnati almost on time, everything went surprisingly smoothly. Got into town, managed not to get lost on the way to our stay-place for the weekend, met up with Alex, got dinner at a super cute cafe called What's for Dinner? and managed to hit the race packet pick up. J & I dropped Alex off to take care of his rental property that he owns in Cincinnati and while he was busy, J & I occupied ourselves with the Cincinnati Art Museum, which was fantastic. The Damascus Room was quite possibly our favorite part, but I always like that sort of thing. J, on the other hand, really liked the intricate victorian "tourist" table. We went back to our stay-place and got ready for the race, with Alex joining us at the last minute.
Off to the Run Like Hell. The traffic stunk, but once we got parked and situated, the atmosphere was very festive and excited. I wore my costume that I specifically designed to be pretty, runable, and going along with the theme of running "barefoot" - I was an autumn fairy, complete with fully boned 18th century stays and gorgeous (IMHO) wings. The wind that night caused a small problem with my wings since the support system was not very robust, so they caught the wind & got blown every which way including into other people and over my head. Anyway, we joined thr group of runners lining up, with me trying to minimize the incidence of my wings hitting other crowd-members, and at about 7:30 PM, we were off. The course was fun, and it started off downhill. During this stretch, I saw a crazy group of 3 guys, two of whom were screaming and running wildy from a third dressed as Jason (who I later found out was truly named Jason). The next stretch was uphill.... a looooong uphill. I mapped it and I think there was a 180ft elevation gain over the course of a mile, so it was long. Please be aware that all the races I've done (all in DC) have had a max elevation change of 40 ft. and most have been completely flat. I was NOT prepared. I made a honorable go of it though since I made it the whole way up the hill, and only walked a little bit once I got back down to the bottom. Half of the hill was into and through a graveyard and that was totally awesome. Did I forget to mention it was a nighttime run partly through a graveyard??? : ) Anyway, the graveyard bit was pretty fun. Nice atmosphere. Well, as I was going back down the hill, I started getting a stitch in my side - result of breathing rhythm thrown off by constricted breathing and trying to figure out how to deal with a hill in progress. I went on, ignoring it until it refused to be ignored any longer. Egads! It let me know it's displeasure with a vengeance and there was nothing to do but walk/run for about 0.25-0.5 mile or so. Grrr. Very frustrating. Anyway, I made it to the end, making good time for the last 0.2 mi. and had a grand time at the post party. It was fun, as always, to mingle and discuss each other's costumes and Alex & I got a lot of questions (as usual) about our Vibran FiveFingers. There was music and free food & drinks, so J & I got to try a Cincinnati delicacy called Goetta which Alex described as "the parts of the pig you wouldn't normally eat, ground up with oats and made into a patty." Absolutely winning description, but as with Haggis, I ended up being pleasantly surprised - it was good! Also, it tasted disturbingly like a Gardenburger Original Patty - a substitution mistake you do NOT want to make when feeding vegetarians! : ) Anyway, a good time seemed to be had by all and then we stumbled home & passed out. Thankfully it didn't rain on us for more than 5 minutes and it was a balmy 64 degrees.
The best part of the weekend, of course, was getting to hang out with Alex and meeting Emily & Tom and their two dogs. It's always the most fun to see a new place with a deignated tour guide, especially if that person has lived there. It's like getting a rosey colored glimpse into their "everyday" lives - seeing their favorite places and local haunts.
Saturday morning, Alex took us for breakfast at Findlay Market - Cincinnati's old farmer's market - and we got AMAZING waffles and crepes from Taste of Belgium. I have to admit that I think Belgian accents are even more fun to listen to than french ones.... *swoons * Next, we dropped him off for an appointment and were going to make our way to the observatory, but got sidetracked at a Blockbuster Going out of Business Sale and at Walgreens. By the time Alex called to get picked up from his appointment, I had acquired several Miziyaki Films, Some Like it Hot, and a 8 in. diameter, orange squishy ball with an interior LED flasher - the latter provided much entertainment throughout the day. : ) After retrieving Alex, we did make our way to the Observatory and found: that they had not removed Pluto from their display of the distance between planets, that the human-powered sun dial really does work (when the sun's out) and came across a deer grazing in the meadow. Next we went up to Ault Park and took in the view. Lastly, we headed up to the Fox & Hound in Mason, OH to watch the PSU game. During half-time, Alex & I ducked out, with squishy ball in tow, to check out the surrounding sights. We hit up the local Walmart, checked out the current movie listings at the Regal, hit Borders to look for the Marge Simpson issue of Playboy and came out sans magazine, but with the addition of half-priced, flashing, fuzzy bat deeley-boppers (and I had thought we made that term up.... nope, it's legit according to wikipedia). Life is good. Unfortunately, all the activity from the weeks leading up to this resulted in me being tired & worn out & really not in the mood to don my costume and mingle with hundreds of people that I didn't know. Weird! Huh?
The trip finished off with a morning Brunch at another neighborhood waffle shop (which I can't remember the name of) with Alex's friend Amanda and a peak at a very unique house right across the street. Finally, we were off to the airport and on our way home.
Samhain Resolutions (my goals for this year):
- eat 1 new vegetable every week or every other week
- run a 10K comfortably
- be able to do a pull-up
- drastically reduce my soda intake (I only drink diet, so it's more a matter of weaning off caffiene & chemicals)
- become a certified Exuberant Animal trainer
- Continue to maintain my current weight-loss.
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