Though I would have preferred to run my half marathon and go on vacation after, that’s not how it worked out. So, of course, the race was on my mind all week. But I did have an enjoyable yet relaxing time.

I arrived in Fort Myers, Fl. on Tuesday and after a tour of the Cape Haze resort where my friends Pat and John now live, we went out to a nice dinner.

On Wednesday, Pat and I went for a walk in a nearby park and then went to a beach in Boca Grande. It wasn’t real warm and was quite windy. But I certainly couldn’t complain. The weather was still winter-like where I live. So after a while, we had lunch at a restaurant on the beach and then drove around the area. The wind died down a bit so we sat by the pool where Pat lives. We went out to dinner, of course. I did a lot of eating on this trip. Who cared… I was gonna run a half marathon soon!

On Thursday, I thought that I better run a little. So I headed to a pretty neighborhood along the canals for a leisurely 3 miles. Again it was cool and windy so instead of the beach, we went to Venice, walked in and out of the shops and had lunch. We finished the day at the pool again before going out to dinner.

On Friday, it had warmed up a little so we went to Englewood beach. We couldn’t stay too long because I needed to drive up to Sarasota. But we did have a great lunch out before I left.

Then I drove about an hour to my friend Robin and husband Tom’s rented condo in Sarasota. (My friend Pat was nice enough to loan me her car for the weekend.) The first thing we did was go the pick up my race packet. Always so exciting!  Pick up was held at Fit2Run, a running superstore (luckily I did not bring any money!!!)

Then we took a walk around The Meadows where they live before getting ready to go to the theater. It was opening night at the Asolo and afterwards there was huge buffet. (The buffet is the reason it is crowded on opening night.)

The next day, Saturday, while Robin went to play tennis (I was tempted to play but thought better of it because of the race.) I took a very long walk around the Meadows.

When she got back, we packed a lunch (yay, no restaurant) and headed to Lido Key beach to meet Susan and her husband Stanley.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and going to a craft fair before of course, going out to dinner. They asked where I wanted to go and I replied “with a water view” so we found a small restaurant on the gulf. The downside was that there was no pasta on the menu. So no carb loading for me for this race.

After dinner, I took my suitcase to its third location, Susan and Stanley’s condo. It was quite different than the other two. It was in a high rise and seemed more like a hotel. The best thing about it was that it was across the street from the start/end of the race. So we walked there. There were lots of porta-potties set up but not much else. We hung around watching the pelicans driving for food and got to see an awesome sunset over the gulf before turning in early for my 5 am wake up.

Race report in my next post.

Happy Running! Hoping we get spring weather at some point.  Are you getting a snowstorm today?