Sunday, April 23, 2017

Weekend Happy Fun Times

There is a lot going on this weekend! It has been really hot here in Raleigh. Like into the 90's hot already, and it is still April. This summer is going to be miserable again if this keeps up. Yesterday I swear it was 91* in the afternoon heat, and today only got up to 53* and felt amazing (but it rained all day). Here's what's going on this weekend:

1. My awesome brother Michael is playing in a HUGE festival in Charleston. The headliners are The Avett Brothers, Jump Little Children, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Dawes. There's about 15 bands, he's playing in his own band (Slow Runner) and on keys for another band.
2. The Swim Around Lido Key is going on just south of Sarasota, Florida. 7 miles in clear gulf waters. KC and some other RAM teammates did this one, it's the US Masters Open Water Championship. Looked like an amazing time.
3. Last year I chose to knock Delaware from the 50 state list by doing the Trap Pond 50k, which happened this morning. My choice for this weekend was to do the race. My last state was Alabama last February, so it's been over a year and I was ready to get back out there.

Of course, my right foot is still busted. Can't run a step. Needless to say that between choosing running of those 3 options, not being able to run, then having that heat kick it I was a bit depressed this weekend. The cooler temps today really helped, and my boat is really coming along nicely.

In fact, all I could do was volunteer this year at the Umstead 100. It's always one of my favorite days of the year and I had several friends lined up for my pacing services. I had to turn them all down at the last minute, but I did get to volunteer at aide station #2.

Umstead was hot and angry that day, like an old man trying to send back soup

Tammy Massie! My ultra bestie

Brian! Cledawg finished in 21 hours
Tammy finished her 10th Umstead 100, getting her 1000 mile buckle. It was an amazing time and I wish more than anything else that I could have been out there running trails with her after dark.

The next weekend, I got to go to The Masters golf tournament again down in Augusta Ga. I took my friend Taylor from church, and we had an incredible time. He had never been to Augusta National before. The weather was cool but I ended up getting sunburned anyway. We were just in Augusta for the day on Friday, and spent a couple of nights at my parents house too. Taylor is a real craft beer aficianado and I'm also quite beer-friendly so we had a blast.

ready for some live golf!

After a hot day watching assholes hit a ball with sticks - I got a new hat
The next weekend was Easter, and we had a major production going at church. Easter music is my favorite, and if Umstead 100 day is one of my favorite days of the year, then Easter is also one of my favorite holidays. [other favorite days are the first day of the college football season, any marathon day, and usually thanksgiving day]

Easter family portrait in front of the flowered cross

The garden! I planted tomatoes and peppers from Mom
I came home from the Masters trip with plenty of tomatoes and bell pepper plants that Mom had started from seed, and had previously prepped the soil in the raised beds for a garden this year. Now is the time to plant, so I got those in the ground after church & brunch stuff. We actually got to give the Masters tickets to Kelley's dad for Thursday of the tournament, then Taylor and I went on Friday. Taylor came back with some plants as well for his garden.

That brings us back to this weekend. Umstead 100, Masters, Easter, Trap Pond 50k, then next weekend we have something special planned to wrap up the month. What was supposed to be 3 full marathons in March and 2 50k's in April has now become just the one half marathon. What's come out of my busted foot has been a lot of fun. Maybe not as much fun as actually being able to run around all of these other activities, but fun nonetheless.

After we got that much of the garden planted, Kelley's mom wanted to put some other plants in to fill out the beds a bit so we went to the farmers market. I got a ghost pepper and a carolina reaper, the ladies all got something else that they wanted (namely cucumbers and okra) and the garden filled up. Also you'll notice the muscadine vines are fully leafed out and looking great this year behind those beds. And since I have been leaving the boat pictures and progress on my other blog, I'll wrap up with finished garden and boat-in-progress pictures.

Just the sides! It looks like a boat now

Plant haul from the farmers market - $19

Got the bottom on the boat

Happy boatbuilders

All the plants are in the ground

4 comments:

Amber said...

You have had some busy busy weekends!! So jealous of your garden. My backyard is still covered in SNOW!

Unknown said...

Ummm, it's kinda hot there!! We had snow AGAIN last week. I'm done with snow, ready for spring. Hope your foot heals up for you. What happened, I'm out of the loop!

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

Can you send some degrees to us? It's so cold here. Parts of MN and ND got snow last night! F'ing crazy. I want a real spring! So maybe our weather could meet in the middle and we could both have 60-70 degree weather.

You have defnitely been busy. Your golf weekend sounded awesome. That's awesome that your mom sent you guys home with plants. We had our community garden prep day last Saturday. I moved compost/mulch for 2 hours straight. Felt so good to get out there and play in the dirt. I'll plan the 1st or 2nd week of May so that things will be starting to pop when we get back from the honeymoon. The nice thing about the community garden is that I can ask others to water for me when I am gone!

I hope you get an answer to your foot. It's so frustrating to not be able to do what you love. I hope and pray you get an answer and some relief from the pain!

liza said...

nice post