I managed to get in a four miler yesterday at the community center before I picked up the kiddos. It was a terrific run, with the third mile at an 8:34 pace, which is fast for me. I'm sort of tempted to try out a 5K somewhere in the near future, just to see what I can do. When I started running, breaking 30 minutes for a 5K (3.1 miles) seemed laughable; that would mean running under 10:00 miles, which is daunting when your average pace is between 12:00 and 13:00 minute miles. But now, sub 30 minutes is virtually guaranteed. I'm not sure exactly how fast I could run one, but breaking 27 minutes would be fantastic.
Anyway. It was good to shake out the legs, and the Shuffle cranked out some stellar tunes. Rage Against the Machine, The Veronicas, Silversun Pickups, and other assorted crazy loud music with a fast beat - awesome.
I've got just a bit more to write about North Carolina, before I leave it alone. I managed to get the kiddos to go on a hike Saturday afternoon - we did a three mile walk with our friend Chris and the four of us. I use the word "hike" loosely, because it really was just a mildly hilly walk on a well groomed dirt path. The kiddos did a lot more strenuous hiking when we climbed Pinnacle, but it was still fun to get them out there. Alyssa gathered flowers along the walk, we stopped and threw rocks into the lake we were walking around. We looked at spiderwebs, leaves, kayaks, boats, and other assorted things nature throws at you. All in all, a nice quiet afternoon, followed by some outstanding barbecue - yummy!
Other than hiking and playing on the deck, there wasn't necessarily a ton of stuff to do. The kiddos were all too young for rafting or anything like that, but when they get a bit older, I think they'll enjoy the hell out of something like that. We did a lot of eating, a lot of drinking, and a decent amount of sitting around talking. The weather was really nice, the kiddos all behaved, and it was actually pretty relaxing. The 10+ hour drive back on Sunday was uneventful and fairly easy, with no hiccups or bumps or anything.
OH! I almost forgot. On our drive out to the mountains, I let google maps choose our route. The one it chose looked a bit mountainous on my small blackberry map, but I didn't really look too hard at it, thinking that all of the routes were gonna be hilly and curvy. Yeah. Should have looked a little harder, maybe.
We turned off I-40 somewhere south of Knoxville, and started what looked to be a 2 hour trek through mostly two lane roads that had lots of curves. About an hour into it, we started seeing shop and gas station signs that had the word "dragon" in them.
Dragon. Hmm. J starts wondering whether this is a section of road that is notorious among motorcyclists for an ungodly number of twists and turns (I had never heard of it). As we went further along, we figured out that we were, indeed, on the "Tail of the Dragon" drive - 318 curves over 11 miles. Fucking insane.
J eventually said he felt like one of those drivers in the old movies who just moves the steering wheel back and forth but couldn't possibly be really steering - except he was. The switchbacks and curves and hills were incredibly beautiful and amazingly NONSTOP. We kept telling the kiddos to look out the front window - so the only one who seemed to get even mildly nauseous was me, and I think that was because I'd looked at the map so damn much. But holy hell it was a crazy ass drive.
Needless to say, we took a very different route on the way home. I'm not sure it was any faster, and it was definitely longer in miles, but the puke factor was drastically reduced. This is always a good thing, but especially so when you have someone who might or might not have woken up that morning with a slightly upset stomach. Can't imagine how that happened...
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