Back to the Tower

2010: Pregaming with greasy egg sandwiches

I woke up this morning looking like I had just invented the flux capacitor.  I’m not sure about this going blonde thing.  Besides my Christopher Lloyd hair, I decided today was a great day to bring headbands back despite the fact that I knew the race I was running would be covered by film and camera crews.  There’s just no fighting a fashion sense like mine. 

Last year D.O.M. and Me at the Finish

A friend of mine had come across the “Run to the Tower” race last year so we stuffed five of us into a Cadillac and headed to Tuscany to run what we thought was an 8k.  The race seemed really really long.   Every time I thought there couldn’t possibly be any more course – there was!  Turns out the race is 12k not 8k.  Ooops.  Someone had dotted our half note and forgot to tell us. 

Gnom Gnom Gnommy!

After we finished, we got some fab gelato right at the base of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  It was the best ever gelato!  I almost felt guilty for eating it.  Not because of the calories…because I am not so good with dairy and I was riding back with four dudes in one vehicle for two hours.  Well, not all of them showered so I figure it all evened out in the end. 

This year: Mr., Me, D.O.M. looking damn excited to run

 -- notice the fab head band/bed head combo

This year came with the advantage of knowing the course and that the race is indeed 7.2 miles.  I also hit all the water stops this year!  Many of my closest friends don’t know that I struggle with being a complete klutz.  Husband knows.  He knows that I stop walking (WALKING!) to take a drink…and now so do you.  It seems that if my feet are moving, I no longer know where my mouth is.  I come off looking like a teething child who has drooled all over myself when I try to combine movement and drinking.  Both drink stations I managed to grab a Dixie cup and at least some of the water went into my mouth. Success!  Some of it of course went on my shirt and a wee bit into my headphones, but some went into my mouth!  That’s what we’re going to focus on here people.

Here we are at the not-so-leaning Tower of Pisa

Two weeks ago I really wanted to hear a song I used to listen to endlessly.  It had been a few years but I found what I was looking for.  The album was like going to a reunion!  Every song that came on was familiar and delicious.  The pace was fantastic for me.  The fact that the song I was looking for wasn’t on that album or even by that group didn’t bring me down a bit.  So I loaded Union Underground and took off for the tower.  My goal was to finish under an hour.  I didn’t, but I did take three and a half minutes off my time and don’t forget the drinking while running thing.  Not bad!  If I shave another three minutes next year, I will meet my goal. 

Again we took goofy finish line photos and ate gelato.  It was more or less Back to the Future 2.