First Watch Sarasota Weekend – Part 1

Let me start this out saying I am so so so exhausted. Like I can’t see straight exhausted. So, if I say something wack – just go with it and if I have major grammatical errors please email me.

I left O-town around 2:30 on Saturday — after my AWESOME friend Tracy came over to watch the kids while the hubby was at work. I was headed to Bradenton to stay with Tiffany and her hubby Matt. It took about 2 hours and traffic went from clear to insane in about 2 seconds (this was on and off the entire time – almost 2 hours). I almost got into a horrific car accident because some jackass decided to drive across the median (of a toll road) and just keep going. Hellllo! Way to look to see if there was anyone there. Thankfully, we avoided collision, but I’m pretty sure I honked my horn for about 5 minutes. SCARY.

I got to Tiff’s (which, by the way is ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL – she lives on a canal — so jealous), where Paula was waiting for me. I put on clothes (well, new clothes – I don’t drive naked) and makeup (and attempted to do something with my hair) and we were off. We decided to drive down Sarasota, drive the course, and then eat at a restaurant at St. Armands Circle.

I’m SO glad we drove the course, because it gave me A LOT of insight on how to approach the race.

As you can see from this map — miles 2-6 involve running over the John Ringling Causeway and Parkway. Let me tell ya — no small feat. I’d say this causeway and stretch of highway rivaled the Causeways in Melbourne. I will have to geek out later this week and do a comparison with my Garmin stats to see. What you also can’t see from this map is that N. Tamiami trail has a bunch of rolling hills.  The hills are probably still below sea level (ha), but they were hills. I felt really good about the course when we headed to dinner last night. I think I annoyingly zen about the whole race.

For dinner we ate at Venezia. It was happenin’. While we were waiting, some bitches stole our table. I almost went a little crazy on them, but pulled it together. Kinda. Thankfully, we only had to wait another 10 minutes — but the waiting didn’t stop there. The restaurant was SLAMMED so everything took forever.  As a server in a previous life (aka college) I completely understood — the kitchen (you could visably see them) were busting ass and the servers were zipping around the restaurant. I was just HUNGRY. Matt ordered a bruschetta appetizer — which was pretty good, although I thought the serving size was really small (could have been skewed by my hunger). For dinner Paula and I split a salad with chicken (veggies and protein – check!) and linguine primavera (carbs, fats, and more veggies – check check!).   The server originally bought out the wrong pasta dish — so more waiting — but quickly corrected it. We scarfed that thing down so fast we didn’t even take pictures. It was good — a little heavy on the oil, but my tummy was definitely happy!

After dinner we quickly headed home. The ride home was pretty hilarious as we were drunk on water. Paula discovered the check in feature on FB and she checked into various nearby places including Cheetahs (a strip club), a Gun Range, Wet Seal, and Jehovah’s Witness Church. All in a night’s work.

When we got home we ate some cookies, and jumped into bed. Paula and I slept together in a Queen size Sleep Number bed. It was — interesting. The snuggling, I mean 🙂

Up next — our 4am wakeup call (which was really 3am – thanks daylight savings), freezing, sitting in the car until about 5 minutes before the race, and my sub 2:00 half-marathon. Yep — sub 2!