marathoner452 | Entries tagged with sailing

92*/heat index of 98* right now
98*/heat index of 109* tomorrow
98*/heat index of 112* Wednesday
95*/heat index of 105* Thursday

Our water heater is broken, which means we have to take cold showers until it gets fixed. Given how hot and humid it's going to be this week, I'm not thinking that's going to be a problem. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

I spent this weekend down at St. Mary's at the annual Special Olympics sailing regatta. Alice and I ended up with a bronze medal, and never mind that meant we placed 3rd out of 4 teams in the lowest division, she was very happy about it. She's happy about most things most of the time. She was happy because she thought it was funny when the wind died in the middle of our last race and I was standing up in the middle of the boat blowing on the sail because that was about all the wind we were going to get. Paul, the Special Olympics athlete my dad used to sail with, was happy because he found lots of shells for his girlfriend down at Church Point. I was happy because I spent the better part of Saturday night with

ctlavery and her husband Tom, and we got to eat Vietnamese food at The Hot Noodle and catch up on life.

It was a happy weekend. Anytime spent down at St. Mary's, especially when it involves sailing, usually is.

Next up: delivering renter's insurance brochures, ignoring all the summer safety advice I've given out to elementary school kids and going for a run in this heat, reading about sled dog racing in Alaska/-35* weather, and working on the Bachman Valley 1/2 Marathon. And plotting my next trip to New Orleans.

~Bethany

I've been promoted. At Special Olympics sailing last night I found out that I'm going to sail with Alice on a regular basis and at the regatta at the end of July.

Two years ago the big moment was when they trusted me enough on the water to take an athlete out by myself. Last year the big moment was when I got to sail with an athlete at the regatta down at St. Mary's. As of this year, I'm officially a regular and a semi-decent sailor because I'm no longer the wild card they put with whoever needs someone to sail with. Not that I mind being the wild card, but now I can really get to know the athlete I sail with and we can learn to work as a team.

I started sailing with Special Olympics 4 years ago because I wanted an excuse to get out on the water, plus the regatta at the end of the season is held at St. Mary's. Now I'm doing it because I love it, long drive down to Essex from Frederick notwithstanding.

If I choose not to move down to New Orleans it's not because I'm scared to make a move like that or because I don't love the city and want to help however I can. It's because I don't want to leave the little niche I've carved for myself in Maryland.

Current Mood: pleased

I did a google search on my name and pulled up an article in the Baltimore Sun on my dad's 43-foot sailboat.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-boat0801,1,1159880.story

Cue the Jimmy Buffett song "Boats to Build"...I'm gonna build me a boat, with these two hands...

~Bethany

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Boats to Build...going through my head

I got to spend last night on my dad's boat, the one he built from stratch and just put in the water June 20th. I honestly cannot think of a better way to spend an evening than kicked back with Hemingway and my Jimmy Buffett books on the deck of a boat, enjoying the breeze on a hot summer's night and an ice cold beer. B-) That was the life. Then the next morning we woke up early and motored out into Middle River. We even caught enough of a breeze to let out the jib sheet, and I got to take the helm for awhile. Ahhhh, I think just stepping foot on the boat is as relaxing as any vacation.

I think that's what I'll miss most about St. Mary's this fall. Sure, I'll miss my friends and my professors and being able to sleep in most mornings, but what I'll miss most is being down by the water. And even if I didn't get out on the water as much as I wanted to, it was always there, and just being able to watch the St. Mary's River at sunset after a chilly fall run was worth more than I gave it credit for.

~Bethany

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: Boats to Build-Jimmy Buffett

If I want people to actually read this, perhaps I should update it every so often.

So far, so good. I've run 38 miles so far this week and if I get my butt out the door soon enough I'll have 45. Tomorrow I'm leaving for St. Mary's (yay!), where I'll be volunteering/sailing with the Special Olympics sailing regatta, eating dinner with Coleen and company, and exploring my old running routes. I just hope I can sleep in the car 'cause we're leaving at 5:30 and that it's not too windy 'cause I'll be sailing with someone I've probably never met. Should be very interesting. Hopefully I can get a good night's sleep on Saturday. Hopefully we're on the top floor so no one keeps me up too late.

Blah. I have less than no energy right now. I think I'll head out for my 7 mile run with strides then head to bed for way too little time. And yes, I realize how crazy it sounds to *just* be running 7 miles. :p

~Bethany

Current Mood: tired

You wouldn't think that a perfect day could start with getting up at 5 am, but that's where we runners are different. I was out of bed by a few minutes after 5 Saturday morning, wide awake. After a quick breakfast over Marathon & Beyond, I was out the door by 5:50. I made it down to Sparks (mile 3.8)on the NCR Trail by quarter after 6, was the first one to pull into the parking lot, and was up and running by 6:25. I ran south to Ashland, mile 0 (just like Key West) to start, turned around just after a huge crowd of NCR Trail Snails started. I ran back to Sparks, then up to Monkton at mile 7.2, hooking up with 3 of those same Trail Snails en route-they're responsible for making my run a heck of a lot easier. After 14.4 miles I made it back to the car just after 9, and made it back home in time to grab a quick shower and some brownie-cookies before I was on the road again.

My brother's band camp concert at McDaniel College was at 10:15. Thank goodness he made it into the Gold Band; the Green Band concert was at 8:30, and that would have made any kind of a run quite a trick. The concert kicked off with some jazz, always appreciated. I was in jazz band in high school and went to that same band camp for at least two years, so I can appreciate what goes into it.

In the evening we headed down to my dad's boat to watch some fireworks. Now my mom was less impressed 'cause she couldn't hear the booms, but I thought fireworks over the water were about the coolest way to celebrate the 4th. (Even if it was on the 2nd.) You can see the reflection of the sparkles off the water, you can watch all the illegal fireworks people set off while they're waiting, and you don't even have to fight the crowds on the way out.

My other perfect day would be running the NCR Trail Marathon in under 4 hours, then coming home to my sister's homemade veggie chili with cashews and raisins and warm whole-wheat bread, but that'll have to wait until after Pfitz has his way with my marathon training. :-)

~Bethany

38.4 miles last week

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: WOW 2004

Here are some of my favorite Michelle memories...
-From my sophomore year-she'd sprained her ankle (or something like that) and I'd just run 20ish miles (a lot of miles, anyhow). We were heading back to PG from brunch and she stole my ID and ran away with it and I chased after her, except with both of us limping, it must have looked pretty pathetic. :-)
-Last fall, when she threatened to throw me in the pond for the umpteenth time and actually had me all the way to the front door of QA before girls started coming back from the rugby "rookie night" party. One of them collapsed from alcohol poisoning, and she had the presence of mind to help while the rest of us just stood around scared.
-Her graduation party last summer, with lots of kareoke and good food.
-Earlier this semster, when she came down for the day to visit and we went out to lunch with Jamie and Christine and went sailing afterwards. Let me tell you, sailing with a hyper dog on a windy day is quite the interesting experience.
-NYC just a few weeks ago. I love how spontaneous she can be. How many people would head to NYC on a days' notice, even if there was a free ticket to a The Phantom in the mix? And she didn't even throw me in the pond in Central Park, not even after I spent most of the morning counting marathon runners and obsessing over all things running. (The NYC Marathon was the next day, after all.)

Michelle quote: "I'm going to have a pre-meditated psychotic episode."

Michelle is awesome because she is...spontaneous, insightful, intelligent, level-headed, fun-loving...I think you get the point. :-) :-)

~Bethany

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: Jimmy Buffett-We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About

I housed two prospective students for the night Tuesday, got absolutely no reading done but got to take them out sailing and tell them all about how cool St. Mary's is. And I don't want to hear about what I should have told them, Michelle. :-) How many students this school chooses to admit is not my problem.
There seems to be no end to the mountians of reading that I have to do, but at least I'm not TOO behind anymore, what with holing myself up in my room this beautiful weekend and reading about 300 pages worth of slavery, globalization and cultural genocide. Let me tell you, these are some uplifting classes I am taking this semester. The things I do to be able to include Key West in my SMP. B-)
But hey, I ran 1.53 miles in 12 minutes on Tuesday (I'm paying for that now.) And I had a most excellent 12 mile long run Saturday and the Baltimore 1/2 Marathon is in 9 days. I'm already having nightmares about not making it to the race on time, about not picking up my race number before the race, etc. Gotta love tapering. I'm going to try for a 7:00 mile on the treadmill in just a minute, so long as my warm-up works the kinks out of my legs.
I wish my life was more exciting for your sake. No wait, I really don't. A single room, long hours spent reading followed by long hours at dinner, and plenty of room to run is all I need.

~Bethany

Current Mood: content

My friend Christine and I went out sailing after my 1:20 today and we were having this religious discussion-confirmation, retreats, stuff like that-when, lo and behold, we thought we saw two guys out on the St. Mary's River walking on water! Turns out they were just walking in really shallow water, on a sandbar or something, but from a distance it sure looked like a miracle or something was happening...it was pretty cool.
That's what I love about this campus-you can just go out sailing for free after class. Christine and I are going to make this a regular thing-every Friday afternoon. Even when I go home on the weekends-my mom's never down here until 3:30 or 4 anyway.
And my theories and uses of history class is going really well. It makes me feel smart, like a professional historian. Makes me want to go to grad. school at some point. And besides, the prof. just told us today that those of us doing SMPs don't have to write our final paper...on the textbook. We'll write about the historiography (the history of the history) of our project, how we arrived at the idea for our project, etc. Basically, we get to write the first 5-10 pages of our SMP for another class. Well, the paper actually has to be 25-30 pages long, but seeing as I spend most of my time reading for my SMP, that shouldn't be so bad.
Signing off-my mom should be here any minute. She'd better be, anyway, 'cause as it is we're going to get home after 10 and I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow.

~Bethany

Current Mood: mellow

Okay, so I was going to go kayaking this afternoon, seeing as my 1:20 class was cancelled. But all the single kayaks were out on the water and these two girls had jsut gotten back from sailing, so I decided, what the heck? I learned that sailing is a lot more difficult by yourself, esp. when the people who used the boat before you filled it up with water (forgot to put the plugs in). But I had an awesome time nonetheless, esp. once I got out a ways and the wind picked up. The only trick was getting the boat back on the dock-those sailboats are awfully heavy for just one person.
In short, I'm ready for you to come down and go sailing Tuesday, Michelle!
Oh yeah, and classes. I just had my philosophy class today at 8 am-more lovely talk about torture and about how and why interogation is used to get information. Enlightening but not exactly uplifting. That, combined with reading in every spare moment this week, was why I needed a get-out-on-the-water break. Ahhhhh...I feel sorry for anyone who's never been sailing. You're really missing out.
Up tomorrow-a 15 mile long run on the trails at Historic to get ready for the Baltimore Marathon, reading for all of my classes, and maybe some time on the water if I feel like it. Ah, it's good to be back.

~Bethany

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: my lovely fan