Little Rock Marathon or Pringles and Pancakes

So.. we just got back from Little Rock.  What a neat town!  Lindsey did the Full Marathon,  I did the 1/2... Yes I love the t-shirts that say.. I'm only half crazy...

Riding home from these events we always take time to reflect and figure out what we loved and hated about each one.   Little Rock , you should be proud.. we really couldn't find much didn't like~!

The drive down was a bit iffy,  as we hit snow squalls off and on . but Lindsey drove down so I got to be a passenger and enjoy the views.   Or what I could see of them.  We headed down Friday and drove to Bowling Green KY,  and then got up Saturday and arrived in Little Rock to head over to the Expo.

The Expo was very nice.. good vendors,  and I picked up a new T-Shirt that I"m in love with . The company is called. Fellow Flowers  I loved the message.. because I'm really good at finding excuses for things..

This has to be one of the friendliest.. low pressure... achievable venues for anyone who wants to run a marathon.  In order to be walker friendly.. they allow an early start time of 6 am..  Which over 100 walker/runners took advantage of..  This is so nice for anyone who does a 6+ marathon race.  Rather than coming in at the end of the pack... with little crowd support and normally no food left.. They were coming in with the 4 hour marathoners.  WHAT A NICE IDEA!  Lindsey took advantage of this for 2 reasons.. one.. no pressure.. If you normally do a 6 hour marathon.. and the cut off is 6 1/2.. and you have a bad day.. it can be stressful to say the least....  Also since I didn't start until 8.. this meant that I only had to wait about an hour for her to be done.. and we could get in the car and head back home a couple of hours to make the next day's drive easier...  (You can't sit in a car longer than 2 hours after running this much without having to get out and move...)  Oh and when you do get out .. you look like you are 100 years old for the first 10-15 steps...

So I drove over and dropped her off at 5:30 (Yawn)  and got a great parking place, close to the finish.  I stayed in the car with the heater running and listened to a book on tape and chilled until 7.  Then walked over to join the porta john line (short.. there were TONS of them)  and then over to River Market.. a downtown indoor market that kindly opened its doors so we could stand inside.. out of the cold and wait for the start.  And here is where the title of this post comes from.   I grabbed a stand up table to hang out at and was soon joined by a few others who just wanted a place to put down their things and hang out.  No problem.. Great time to chat with others.   The topic of race nutrition came up because one of the women was  using safety pins to apply four zip lock packages of Pringles to her clothes as race food... ???  I have never seen this done before and got a good laugh from it..  she said wait.. I'm not as bad as him.. pointing to her friend.. who reached in his pocket and pulled out a package of pancakes!   Hey whatever works .. right?

The day turned out to be sunny and temperatures eventually got to the mid 40's.. pretty much perfect .  Yes a couple of the streets that were shady and windy got a bit chilly.. but we both got sunburned!  Wonderful crowd support... great music on course...  water stops were wonderful..  plenty of appropriately spaced porta-potties...  good post race food (we didn't stay for the post race party)   and probably the best race medals you could EVER wish for  (unless you run Ultra's..  belt buckles are pretty dang cool)... And Yes Lindsey's medal is bigger than her FACE!

Way to go Little Rock.   Great way to start of 2013 and you have set the bar pretty high for all the runs we are planning for the rest of the year. 

I NEED to vent....

It has been a while since we have posted on this blog...  Why?  for me an injury had sidelined me.. and all I did was bitch about how frustrated I was and who wants to hear that?   You might not want to read this either,  but I need to get this out.. and writing sometimes helps.

Some of you may know that we foster animals with the SPCA.  We have had several pregnant cats and their subsequent kittens.  We have lost a few babies..illness,  the runts.. I get that.  It comes with the territory of dealing with street cats that often come in pregnant and SKINNY!

But 11 days ago we brought home Momma and her 5- 1 week old babies..Mom was a gorgeous calico who  within 24 hours showed signs of an upper respiratory infection.  2 babies also started sneezing.. 3 days later.. mom was really sick  and the 2 babies were also not doing well.   We upped the dosage of antibiotics in the hopes that the babies would get some through the milk.  Mom stopped eating.  She had full blown pneumonia.
Between force feeding this poor thing ,  trying to supplement the babies with KMR,  giving steam baths to try and open up her breathing... we spent quite a bit of time with these poor cats.. Last Sunday I would have told you Mom wouldn't last the night... but somehow she managed to pull through and by Monday afternoon started to eat a little and groom herself..  the first time in almost 7 days..

 Kittens..it became  a losing battle. So far 3 kittens have succumbed. ,  and I'm returning Mom and the 2 babies to the shelter today.. I'm pretty sure they will humanely euthanize the remaining 2..  Momma hasn't given any milk for several days..  The babies are so congested they can barely breath.. and choke when trying to give them any supplemental feeding.  They are so tiny..    So they will do what the can to finish up Mom on antibiotics... Spay and put her up for adoption.   She is a sweetheart and someone would get a wonderful pet...

I'm not sure if I can do this again...and yet.. they always have another one that I could take.. and I know in my heart that we saved this one cat.. she would have died.. along with her babies...

If you have a pet.. PLEASE Spay and Neuter... My garden is no place for another kitten burial...