Sandy Runs

After two marathon weekends in a row, it was nice to have two 10 miler weekends. My first two Sundays in April were spent running the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run and the George Washington Parkway Classic 10 Miler . On April 6 th , both Scot and I ran the Cherry Blossom. It was Scot’s first time running one of his new hometown’s iconic races. I had run it several times in past years and always enjoyed it (here's my race report from 2012 ). To get to the race, we parked at the Courthouse Metro in Arlington and rode the train to Smithsonian station, which was super crowded, as that’s the station most people used to get to the starting line near the Washington Monument. We bumped into fellow Marathon Maniac Charli and her husband Coco and got a few pre-race pics. We didn’t see anyone else we knew before the start. Charli, Coco, Me and Scot before the Cherry Blossom The Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin It was a chilly morning, but that was OK. Better slightly...

Another marathon down. Another new state earned. And this time it was my birthday present. I registered for the Knoxville Marathon months ago when I found out that it was not only a new state for me, but also scheduled for my birthday, March 30 th . Scot and I woke up early Saturday morning and started our long drive to Knoxville. With no stopping, it would be a 7 hour drive, but we’d need to stop for lunch and gas at least once. There was some rain along the route, but better to have that on the travel day than on race day. We drove straight downtown to the race expo and then to dinner at the Downtown Grill & Brewery , the restaurant associated with Woodruff Brewing Co. Our friend Sarah, a Knoxville local, organized the dinner and several of our Marathon Maniac friends attended. I ordered a sampler of the 7 brews, which were pretty good.   After dinner, several of us were off to Sarah’s house for a Maniac slumber party. Sarah and her husband Will were wonderful ...