the worst weekend ever

This email was sent to a few people the weekend after the first halfer. I thought I would post it to remember that disastrous weekend. Originally sent on November 3, 2008.

I am writing this lovely email to all of you, so I do not have to re-tell my depressing story over and over again, although some of you have already heard it. Enjoy.

Friday morning: It was the weekend of "the halfer"! Finally, it was here. I just had to make it through the day and I would be golden. I began my morning with a nice bike commute to work, a healthy breakfast, and lots and lots of water. I was hydrating myself all day and taking one too many trips (if you ask me) to the bathroom.

Friday mid-morning: I was snacking on some amazing pumpkin seeds and I felt a funny sensation in my mouth (more specifically, the top back corner). I didn't think much of it since I had been having dental issues for some time now. I carry on with my work and can literally envision myself crossing the finish line.

Friday afternoon: I have just received confirmation from Jim that I can leave work early! I settled in to read some news and enjoy my chicken and rice soup and BAM...half of my molar is no longer attached to my mouth! There was no pain (thank God!), but I was quite concerned. I actually had a small meltdown at work -- tears and all. I was so fearful that this would ruin my chance to complete the half marathon. I had been training for so long and I didn't want this tooth thing to ruin it. I called my dentist and he said to come in on Monday and he would put a cap/replacement on it. Luckily, the tooth I cracked was the one that I need to get a root canal (fun!) on and the nerves were dead already so again, no pain.

Friday evening: I got home from work, packed, changed into comfy road trip clothes, charged my camera battery, etc. Time is slowly ticking away while I wait for Jamie to arrive. In the meantime, I cook dinner, eat, clean the apartment, make a phone call. Jamie finally arrives after over two hours of sitting in traffic. She eats and we jet out pretty quickly. There is not much traffic so both Jamie and I were pretty thrilled. We realized that I have forgotten my camera battery just as we reach the Indiana border and my heart sinks as I realize I will not be able to document this amazing weekend. We saw a sign that said 65 (the main expressway we are supposed to take according to google map) is closed! Ahh!! We followed detour signs for quite sometime, but they started fading, fewer and fewer signs and then, there were no longer any signs and I am on pitch black road in the middle of Indiana. Just for the record, Indiana does a very poor job of posting signs and reassuring its' drivers. I called Ross to see if he could locate where we were in relation to 65 and we were way off -- where was this detour taking us? We pulled off the road and stopped at the first thing that would be able to give us directions. A lady at a hotel gave us directions to get us back on 65. It was country cornfield back roads for the next couple of hours. I will not bore you with the details of us being almost killed twice (people in Indiana can not drive, nor do any of the street lights actually work), not knowing where to actually turn to enter the expressway, and not fully understanding why we were driving west when we needed to be going east. We finally made it back on to 65, just in enough time for my gas light to flip on. Now if I was with Becca and we were driving to Naz like the good ole days, I may have chanced it, but who knew what else was going to get thrown at us, so we decided to get gas right away. The only good part about Indiana is the cheap gas. I filled my tank for a whopping $29 (awesome)! Getting back on the expressway was another story. There were no signs and no entrance back on. We ended up in another small town and asked a guy at the gas station how to get back on to 65, he gave me directions, but didn't seem sure, so I didn't want to chance it. We drove through a Taco Bell drive thru (there are A LOT of Taco Bell/KFCs in Indiana) to confirm directions, where the guy actually shut the window in our faces! Luckily, there was a nice, although odd looking white/blond haired teenager that gave us directions. At last, 65 was ours and we were almost there. It turns out, we still had 47 miles to go! And just about then we realized there is a time difference and we are actually an hour ahead now. We arrived at the hotel at 2am (Indiana time - ugh) and tried to check in (the computers were down), so we waited and they gave us keys finally! Keys to a bed -- hooray! We weighed our options multiple times -- should we try to run this beast on only 2½ hours of sleep? Are we nuts for trying to do this? Why did we drive all the way to Indianapolis if we aren't going to do this? In the end, our sleepiness and some would say our better judgment decided to sleep and not run.

Overall message: We didn't run "the halfer". We were pissed most of the weekend.