Vermont City Marathon and Y.A.M. Scram

Memorial Day Weekend ended up being the first (in hopefully many) Jank family long weekends. Dunno why, but we’ve been kind of remiss in taking short trips – possibly partly ’cause we live in Mystic, and possibly partly due to lack of time etc.

Anyway, the trip was amazingly great – Burlington may be the perfect town, even more so than Mystic, in that it’s big enough to have cool stuff like theater and arts, but small enough for normal people. We had a great balance of stuff for all of us to do, and the races were Amazing.

Saturday was races for the kids, the YAM Scram. Exceptionally well organized, and amazing in that the race announcers featured Bill Rodgers and Bart Yasso. I ran the half mile with Nate (the 4 year old). Highlight of that race – as we reached the first turn, in heavy traffic, Nate looks up at me and says “Daddy, I’m never going to quit.” Man, I just wanted to grab him and hold him right there forever.

Jake did the mile race, and did really well. His 8 year old legs pushed out a 10-ish minute mile. We saw him at about 1/3 mile looking like he might want to walk, but then he finished the rest of the race REALLY strong. Missy and I were exceptionally proud of the kids.

Sunday was the Marathon. Again, well organized. We dropped Missy off near the start and parked down by the lake. After picking up bagels and coffee (me) and juice (boys) for breakfast, we went and parked ourselves a block from the starting line. The start was incredible to see – I just can’t comprehend exploding out of the start like the leaders did. Turns out that the eventual winner didn’t need the jump, but he was the leading full marathon runner when the pack came past again at mile 3.

We headed off to find sunscreen, and to park ourselves at Mile 9, where we finally were able to see Missy. She looked strong, didn’t actually need anything from us, and gave us a smile and a wave. Between mile 9 and 14, we wandered around a bit, and set up the fishing poles. Missy passed mile 14 looking good, and about 10 minutes behind the guy in the banana suit.

After mile 14, the race headed out north of town. We decided to just wait at the waterfront park for the finish instead of trying to fight our way to see again in the next 12 miles. Right after Missy passed, we headed to the park, and watched the winners come in. Then, we drowned cheese for a little while – couldn’t find anyone selling a worm to save our lives – though we didn’t catch anything.

Missy finished right on schedule at 4 hours – cutting more than 8 minutes off of her time at Hartford. I was amazed, thrilled, and generally felt luckier than i usually do.

Sunday afternoon I got out for a run again, at long last. 4 miles, and it all felt good. The run was a fallback, though – I tried to bike, but came up with a flat inside the first half mile. Monday, I woke up early and went fishing. Didn’t see any trout, didn’t actually see ANY fish, but it was amazing to watch the world come alive on a river again.

So, I think I’m putting the house on the market. We’ll buy a trailer in South Burlington; I’ll take a job as a barrista while i’m working on a PhD, and life will be good.