Trip to Dallas

Ramblings from my weekend trip to Big D.....

The weekend was great, but it didn't start off too well. I left work early on Friday to miss rush hour traffic. Forgot about all the darn Christmas shoppers though. I wasted 45 trying to drop off my HOA dues check because of crazy shoppers since the office is pretty close to Lakeline Mall. Anyway, I finally made it back to IH-35 and I was on my way. Didn't think I was ever going to get there...seemed to take forever! Luckily, I found a friend to chat with along the way to pass the time. Probably not a good idea to text message folks while driving, but hey, I was bored. IH-35 isn't the prettiest drive. I mean, no yard art anywhere. And hey, I only swerved onto the shoulder once!

Finally, I saw the downtown Dallas skyline and was jazzed again. Met up with my friends for dinner [Emily, Royce, Erin] and chatted the night away. I also got to finally meet Emily and Royce's 4 month old baby boy Bode. What a cutie!

Saturday was a funny adventure. My friends needed an inexpensive futon that would be used over the holidays. So we decided to see what IKEA had. Pretty much just ate our way through that store...Sweedish meatballs, french fries, cinnamon rolls, milk chocolate...no futon. But on the way out, came across a huge, badass mirror that Royce just couldn't pass up. So how do you get something so large home when you have 2 little Hondas? Tie it to the ski rack...but make sure you use enough twine! Apparently, geophysicists from the Colorado School of Mines aren't too skilled at tying down items to their cars. After about 2 turns out of the parking lot, the mirror started to slide backwards off the roof. You'd think Royce would have turned back into the IKEA parking lot to grab more twine. NO! He caught the boxed mirror with his hand and thought everything was cool. We told him to pull over so I could go ride in his car...held onto the box the entire ride home through the sun roof...20 minutes! Damn my fingers were numb. But hey, we got it home in one piece and it's beautiful. One would look great in my bedroom too. :)

Saturday night Teresa and her family got into town. We had our pre-race dinner of homemade spaghetti and meatballs...and of course several beers and queso with breakfast sausage. Dee-lish! Then Emily's friend Ayeh stopped by so that we knew who to look for at the relay exchange.

Sunday morning came around much too early. I didn't want to get up because I was all warm and cozy under the blankets. I was riding down early with the 2nd relay person, Ayeh, so I had to get crackin'. Got dressed and downed half an IKEA cinnamon roll [those things rock, BTW] and a diet coke and we were off to the 1st relay exchange. [I ran in the Dallas White Rock Marathon Relay, in case you didn't know. Someday I'll be able to run the whole thing!] First of all, none of us trained for this at all. Well, I hash on Sundays, if you count that.... We wanted to change our team name to NO FAST CHICKS. But it was too late. There's always next year!

Teresa ran the 1st leg because she needed to get back to Houston for her daughter's Christmas show that afternoon. She had to deal with the mobs of people at the beginning of the race. Glad it wasn't me. She came in to the 1st relay exchange with a time of 1 hour and 20 minutes for 6 miles. Ayeh was up next. She had the 4 miles downhill portion and came in with a time of 50 minutes. I was up next with the nice 5 miles around White Rock Lake. Took me 1 hour and 1 minute. I know it's slow, but at least I beat my Turkey Trot time of 1 hour and 15 minutes for the same distance! During my run I ended up sticking with a nice guy most of the way. He was doing the entire marathon and was running at my pace. I never got his name, but we chatted along the way. Really helped me...until he started falling back. The last mile and a half I was on my own. Oh yeah, on my portion of the race they had set out some funny signs on mile 13. Wish I had my camera so I'd remember them all. I only recall these:

1. "Running won't kill you. You'll pass out first."
2. "A marathon sounded like a good idea.....6 months ago!"

Crap....I know I'll remember more of them later.

Sooooo, next up was Emily's sister Erin. She had 5 miles to run as well and came in with a time of 50 minutes, I believe. She got the shaft because her last mile had crazy hills that we didn't remember seeing on the elevation map. Our last leg was run by my buddy Emily. She had the remaining 6 miles to run and her time was 1 hour 10 minutes. We missed the 5 hour mark, but who cares? We all enjoyed the day and even got pumped to do the Austin Freescale Half Marathon in February.

We were all now quite hungry and headed over to Snuffer's. We chowed on chips & salsa & queso, bacon cheese fries [they rock, BTW] and burgers. I was also in dire need of some beer. Erin and Royce saw the only beer stop during their leg and they didn't even stop to drink any. Wussies! I was hoping to meet some of the Dallas hashers, but no such luck.

It was now time to head back to Emily & Royce's house to shower, pack and hit the road. I stopped by the Austin H3 On On On once I got back into town. Had some tasty adult beverages and then wanted to get home. Wasn't hungry until 9:45pm due to all I ate at Snuffer's! Good thing one of my friends forgot we were gonna grab a bite to eat once I returned.

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Good times. Good times.