So I left off yesterday's entry with me getting back to the hotel in the wee hours of Sunday morning after an evening of sanctioned debauchery gone bad at the meet's host hotel. After a brief phone chat with my best bud Sean out in San Diego, I got to bed somewhere around 1, woke up to a clattering of beer bottles in the fridge just after 2 and quickly fell back asleep before a thundering knock on the door at the ungodly hour of 4:45 forced me to actually get my ass out of bed. Maloney, the intended recipient of all the commotion, was not getting up. Luckily for him, however, the little lass with the loud knock entered with a vengeance, gave the poor bastard a good tug and after some persuasive prodding, all was again silent. I quickly fell back asleep, only to wake back up again two hours later wondering what in the hell had just happened.
After a quick scan of the room revealed Maloney left behind his Reach the Beach jacket and the clanging I heard some 4 or so hours earlier was my 6 bottles of Sam Winter apparently sneaking themselves out of the refrigerator, I needed to remove myself from the premises. So what does one do first thing in the morning after 4-1/2 hours of choppy sleep? Go running, of course. Luckily for me, Shauneen, who probably slept a lot more soundly than I did and awoke without the stress of worrying about a half dozen wounded soldiers, was down for an easy 30 minutes.
OK, so the easy out-n-back on the deserted roads of Mason actually took 31 minutes, but the good company and good conversation made it well worth the extra 60 seconds. Afterwards, I showered quickly, saw my remaining teammates off to the airport, got confirmation that my six missing soldiers did indeed end up in good hands, packed my bags, met up with Driscoll and K.Gwyth, checked out of the hotel and made the short walk over to Bob Evans for an epic 2-hour-and-45 minute breakfast while waiting for our ride up to Ann Arbor. The atmosphere at Bob's restaurant was comfortably quaint, the food was actually pretty good and the coffee went down smoothly, perhaps too smoothly as evidenced by the half or dozen or so refills the waitress filled my cup with.
Around noon time the three of us hopped in a car with Anna Willard and her boy toy/third-place finisher from the men's race the day before, Jon Pierce of ZAP Fitness, for the 3+ hour drive up to the land of the Big Blue. Despite riding bitch the whole way in a cramped backseat, an increasingly sore ass and pulsating hamstrings the last 45 minutes, the ride north passed by pretty quickly.
In the interest of not further boring those of you still reading this, rather going into sickening detail about the rest of my brief, but very kickass stay in Ann Arbor with Driscoll and K. Gwyth, I'll conveniently provide the Cliff Note's outline version instead. Here goes.
1. Dropped off bags.
2. Stopped by Tortoise & Hare. Purchased souvenir t-shirt.
3. Went out to dinner with Driscoll, K. Gwyth and a 5-foot-4-inch African named Boaz.
4. Sat down to aforementioned dinner in a wet pair of pants. Learned that Boaz is "crazy man, just crazy." He also doesn't like pasta, bagels or french fries, in case you were wondering.
5. Hit up the State Theatre with Driscoll for an 8:45 showing of No Country for Old Men.
6. Crashed hard. Real hard.
7. Up and at 'em by 7:45 on Monday morning, drove out to a dirt road, slid down the hill in Driscoll's truck, realized our original plan of running on soft ground wasn't going to work and elected to run 5 miles in downtown AA instead. Followed an icy little jaunt up with a greasy breakfast at the Fleetwood Diner, which is no Town Common, but more than did the trick.
8. Showered back at the apartment, sat around on the couch and shot the shit for a couple hours, grabbed some coffee with Driscoll, tooled around downtown Ann Arbor for a bit, picked the brain of a fellow running store manager at Running Fit before finally meeting back up with Katie for lunch and gelato at Zingerman's Deli, which gets my vote for the best lunch spot anywhere, ever.
9. Took a couple pictures, dished out some hugs and headed to the airport with Marky Mark, who never fails in keeping me entertained.
10. Checked in for my flight(s), grabbed more coffee, hopped a plane to Baltimore and eventually ended up in Providence where I was picked up my padre at 9:45 PM, thus ending one of the best extended weekends of my life. Definitely a top-3 candidate, right up there with Vermont City Marathon weekend this past summer and Cape Week '04.
And with that, I'll end my second straight day of rambling and get my ass to bed. I hereby excuse myself from any extended entries of any sort for the rest of the week. Goodnight.
After a quick scan of the room revealed Maloney left behind his Reach the Beach jacket and the clanging I heard some 4 or so hours earlier was my 6 bottles of Sam Winter apparently sneaking themselves out of the refrigerator, I needed to remove myself from the premises. So what does one do first thing in the morning after 4-1/2 hours of choppy sleep? Go running, of course. Luckily for me, Shauneen, who probably slept a lot more soundly than I did and awoke without the stress of worrying about a half dozen wounded soldiers, was down for an easy 30 minutes.
OK, so the easy out-n-back on the deserted roads of Mason actually took 31 minutes, but the good company and good conversation made it well worth the extra 60 seconds. Afterwards, I showered quickly, saw my remaining teammates off to the airport, got confirmation that my six missing soldiers did indeed end up in good hands, packed my bags, met up with Driscoll and K.Gwyth, checked out of the hotel and made the short walk over to Bob Evans for an epic 2-hour-and-45 minute breakfast while waiting for our ride up to Ann Arbor. The atmosphere at Bob's restaurant was comfortably quaint, the food was actually pretty good and the coffee went down smoothly, perhaps too smoothly as evidenced by the half or dozen or so refills the waitress filled my cup with.
Around noon time the three of us hopped in a car with Anna Willard and her boy toy/third-place finisher from the men's race the day before, Jon Pierce of ZAP Fitness, for the 3+ hour drive up to the land of the Big Blue. Despite riding bitch the whole way in a cramped backseat, an increasingly sore ass and pulsating hamstrings the last 45 minutes, the ride north passed by pretty quickly.
In the interest of not further boring those of you still reading this, rather going into sickening detail about the rest of my brief, but very kickass stay in Ann Arbor with Driscoll and K. Gwyth, I'll conveniently provide the Cliff Note's outline version instead. Here goes.
1. Dropped off bags.
2. Stopped by Tortoise & Hare. Purchased souvenir t-shirt.
3. Went out to dinner with Driscoll, K. Gwyth and a 5-foot-4-inch African named Boaz.
4. Sat down to aforementioned dinner in a wet pair of pants. Learned that Boaz is "crazy man, just crazy." He also doesn't like pasta, bagels or french fries, in case you were wondering.
5. Hit up the State Theatre with Driscoll for an 8:45 showing of No Country for Old Men.
6. Crashed hard. Real hard.
7. Up and at 'em by 7:45 on Monday morning, drove out to a dirt road, slid down the hill in Driscoll's truck, realized our original plan of running on soft ground wasn't going to work and elected to run 5 miles in downtown AA instead. Followed an icy little jaunt up with a greasy breakfast at the Fleetwood Diner, which is no Town Common, but more than did the trick.
8. Showered back at the apartment, sat around on the couch and shot the shit for a couple hours, grabbed some coffee with Driscoll, tooled around downtown Ann Arbor for a bit, picked the brain of a fellow running store manager at Running Fit before finally meeting back up with Katie for lunch and gelato at Zingerman's Deli, which gets my vote for the best lunch spot anywhere, ever.
9. Took a couple pictures, dished out some hugs and headed to the airport with Marky Mark, who never fails in keeping me entertained.
10. Checked in for my flight(s), grabbed more coffee, hopped a plane to Baltimore and eventually ended up in Providence where I was picked up my padre at 9:45 PM, thus ending one of the best extended weekends of my life. Definitely a top-3 candidate, right up there with Vermont City Marathon weekend this past summer and Cape Week '04.
And with that, I'll end my second straight day of rambling and get my ass to bed. I hereby excuse myself from any extended entries of any sort for the rest of the week. Goodnight.
Quote of the Day
"You're all nuts."
- K. Gwyth, speaking the fortunate - that's right, no "un" necessary here - truth.
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