Surprise!

No race this weekend!

Instead, I am heading north to Chestertown (on the Schroon River) to be with my tennis friends.

This is the second of 3 weekends planned there.

part of the Tuesday tennis group in July

I went to a concert on Saturday of the July weekend and arrived on Sunday just as they were finished playing tennis.

a pic from last year’s August group

This weekend is for the traveling tennis group & some who could make it in July. Actually I think there are 15 who will be there on Saturday.

I plan to play tennis and hang out with good friends – Many of them I don’t see very often anymore.

I will probably stay overnight on my boat (which is only 10 minutes away) and then return on Sunday.

My plan is to run instead of playing tennis on Sunday morning. 6 miles??

love running here!

Then I will hang out with everyone (only 8 are planning to stay for Sunday) as long as possible and then maybe stop for dinner at the marina.

Happy Running! What do you have planned for the weekend?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had a busy weekend planned visiting a friend in Connecticut.

Positives:

• played tennis better than ever
• it didn’t rain except at night
• hiked and walked a lot
• had lots of fun with my friends

Negatives:

• didn’t run for 3 days
• ate a lot (and not healthy)
• did not run my 5K race
• my car is dead & will cost a lot to fix

So let’s start with the good stuff.

My friend Linda & I left for our 2 hour drive to Torrington, CT early Friday am.  It was raining when we left but cleared up quickly. The place where our friend, Fonda, lives (Lakeridge) is amazing:

• 18 outdoor tennis courts
• 3 indoor courts
• outdoor pool
• indoor pool & hot tub
• gym
• small lake with beach
• large lake with trails
• horseback riding
• skiing
• gardens
• and more…

front of her condo

As soon as we arrived, we went to play tennis. Fonda’s friend was our 4th for doubles and it was so much fun.

me, Linda & Fonda

After tennis, we all went to the pool and then Linda & decided to do the 3 mile hiking trail that went around Burr Lake. It wasn’t a difficult trail just lots of rocks and branches so you had to go slow.

just starting

The view were really nice and it wasn’t too hot (just buggy).

taking a break

We were warned to pay attention to the blue markingson the trees  or we would leave the trail and end up on the blue/white trail.

And yes, that’s what happened.  We continued on the wrong trail for a while hoping it would lead us back toward the lake but it didn’t so we had to retrace our steps until we found the spot where we had gone wrong.

Eventually we made our way back to the pool where we had started – 2 hour hike!!

refreshing after a long sweaty hike

Soon it was time to head out to dinner (and it had started to rain.)  We ate in a nice Italian restaurant and spent the rest of the evening playing Scrabble.

In the morning, the rain had stopped so we went out for a walk.  Lakeridge is ALL hills.  I could have run but it wouldn’t have been pleasant.

it is steeper than it looks

We decided to walk to the gardens and the stables.

the poor horses were all indoors because of the rain.

We walked around until we got a call that the rest of our group had arrived.

After a quick lunch, we headed to the courts to play more tennis.

Tennis was my life for about 10 years.  All I did was play, think and talk about tennis.  Then I discovered running.  And running has replaced tennis as my “love.”  As a result, I don’t play tennis much and when you don’t play much, you don’t play as well.  Well, this is the first time in a long time that I played 2 days in a row.  And I played GREAT!

our happy group minus the 4 couldn’t couldn’t come

Afterwards, we went to the pool and the hot tub before heading out to an Italian restaurant again for dinner.

After dinner, Linda & I headed home when the rest went to a play and would stay overnight.

Sounds good so far…

Now for the bad part:

Thursday night, on the way to the store, my car just died!! So I called AAA and had it towed to the dealer. It sat at the dealer all day Friday because they were too busy to look at it.  On Saturday, I found out that it needed a new fuel pump which they may be able to get on Monday…

Plan A  –  get up early on Sunday morning, drive up North to my 5K race and then head to the marina (which was nearby) to join my hubby and friends to go boating on Lake George.

point-to-point race in Chestertown that I was excited to run

Plan B – clean up the house, do laundry, run 6 miles locally, weed, relax, read & watch TV

Plan A sounds like so much more fun… but since I was carless, I had to choose Plan B.   I was bummed but there will be other races and at least I didn’t DNS because of injury.

Happy Running! Ever DNS a race?