Bridge Run....or Bust

Bust.

I often wonder when I prepare to go out of town without the kids if it's worth it.  It takes every ounce of time for me to plan, pack, write instructions, clean the house and stock the fridge.  And I leave knowing that when I get home, I'll have to restore all of this order again.  Clean again.  Launder again. Grocery shop again.  But, usually the weekend away is worth it.  It's worth the time away to refresh and find myself again. 

Not this time.

If I knew how this weekend away would go, I would have saved myself the trouble, kept my "predictable" weekly routine and just stayed home. 

The destination was the Cooper River Bridge Run down in Charleston.  Last summer, I offered up the idea of taking our running adventures on the road to my morning group.  Everyone enthusiastically agreed.  A weekend away?  I won't say that I had to twist too many arms. 

When I had this idea, I was big and pregnant and not able to run anymore.  I envisioned lazy days at the beach, a little shopping, some good sleep and a fun, fast race.  My sister-in-law and I would have to bring our nursing babies, but they were the easy ones.  And my mom volunteered to come along and help us with the babies while we raced.

It's safe to say that my vision was wrong. 

First, on departure day, my 2-yo woke up with a nasty case of poison ivy, which led to a trip to the pediatrician's office, a trip to CVS and one very cranky and itchy child.  It was not exactly factored into my last minute preparation plans.  And I started to get very weary about leaving at all.  My dad and husband reassured me that he would be fine and pushed me (gently) out of the house and into the car to start our journey. 

Google maps assured me that the drive from my house to our lovely accommodations would only take 5 hours and 19 minutes.  7 hours and 2 very ticked-off babies later, we finally arrived at the townhouse....exhausted and hungry.  Oh yeah, this 7 hours does NOT include an adult meal stop.

My mom ordered some Chinese food minutes before the restaurant closed and I started getting the 8-mo ready for bed.  I was just about to lay him down when....BAM!  He threw up all over the both of us.  OF COURSE!  Why wouldn't the stomach bug attack us on a weekend away?  It ALL made perfect sense!  But then, no, he didn't throw up for the remainder of the night.  I think we all took a big sigh of relief when we woke up the next morning, somewhat refreshed and puke-free, thinking we had dodged a BIG bullet.  Other than the baby having a low-grade fever, we were good to go.

And then my husband called.  My 4-yo was running a fever now and staying home from school.  So, I'm out of town and 3 out of my 4 children are sick.  Awesome.  Mommy-guilt was starting to rise exponentially.  Again, my dad and husband assured me that everything was fine, he was fine and to enjoy my trip.  Begrudgingly, I took a deep breath and tried to relax.

One of my friends mentioned seeing Chick-fil-a on the way in and volunteered to go and pick up some biscuits and coffee.  We all pitched in some cash and sent her along her way.  We sat around the townhouse in our pajamas enjoying the schedule-free day that loomed ahead while we waited for her to return with breakfast.  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  An hour and a half later, she finally returned.  43,000 people in the same city for one event combined with road construction and the fact that Chick-fil-a was farther away than we thought made for a gas guzzling adventure.  Famished, we sucked down the breakfast and lathered the chubby little babies with some sunscreen and headed to the beach.  With full stomachs, a gentle breeze, the smells and sounds of the ocean, the sand between our toes....it's safe to say that this was the highlight of our trip. 

After lunch, my mom volunteered to stay home with the napping babies while we headed out to drive a preview of the race course and grab a few groceries.  The start to the course was a short 20 minute drive away and the race was only a 10k, so we figured even with traffic, we'd be back within 45 minutes.  WRONG AGAIN.  2 hours later, we pulled into the grocery store parking lot, dying of thirst and very tired of being in the car. 

We paid for our groceries, accidentally shoplifted the drinks we had grabbed upon arriving at the store to quench our immediate thirst (which we didn't realize until later) and headed back to the townhouse.

At the townhouse, another friend had arrived in from Minnesota.  We plopped the babies on the floor with some toys and chatted away with a sweet friend we hadn't seen in a long time.  All was going well until my baby started to fuss.  I glanced at the time and realized it was close to his dinner, so I scooped him up and placed him in his chair to feed him.  When he was finished, I gave him a dose of tylenol, which he proceeded to gag on and throw up his entire dinner (NEVER buy grape-flavored Little Fevers - we have tasted it and is it NOT mom-approved...gross).  This time, he got himself, me and my friend from Minnesota. We quickly put him in the tub and I ran to change my clothes.  When I came into the bathroom, he was starting to slump over and my mom was having to hold his head up.  I grabbed him out of the tub and started frantically screaming his name, to which I received no response.  The next few minutes were a blur, but by the time we had hung up with EMS, he was responsive again and crying.  An ambulance ride to the ER, some blood work and an EEG confirmed that everything was fine and he probably passed out due to a quick blood pressure drop from the combination of gagging, throwing up and being put in the tub.  One of the scariest things I have ever witnessed.

We got home from the ER around 10:30, had a big glass of wine and tried to sleep. 

No matter how excited I was to run that race, there was no way I was leaving that baby after Friday night.  The logistics of the whole thing scared me and I knew that if, God forbid, something went wrong again, I would have no way to get to him in a quick fashion.  So, while everyone else rose at 5 am to head out to the corrals, I hung out all morning with my sweet baby boy, happy to have him behaving normally again. 

Turns out, missing this race was not a bad thing.  I won't go into all the gory details, but let's just sum it up with these two notes:  1) things were so bad that the race actually issued an apology letter AND video to all participants for an extremely delayed start (that produced some hysteria among the masses in the starting corrals) and lack of critical supplies (read WATER) and 2) later that evening, the local news did a "best of the best" segment of the race....half of the shots included people being carried off the course, people crying and people looking plain awful from the heat.  Er, you may want to leave that segment on the cutting room floor a little longer next time if you're trying to sell spots in next year's race. 

Yep, I went down for a race, but did not participate in it.  However, if you look up my name on the race results page, it does say that I completed the 10k in a blistering 3 hours and 2 minutes.  My friend had my bib with her and stuck it in her pocket.  It blew out somewhere on the bridge and she assumed it went into the water.  Only my bib knows what kind of adventure if went on for 3 hours and 2 minutes.  How it even got to the finish line is a mystery I'd love to know the answer to.

My friends finally returned to the townhouse at 1 pm looking completely wiped out.  I knew that was bad sign before they even started telling me about the race.  They actually looked like they had just run a marathon - not a 10k.  They had been gone for 5 hours to run a 10k.  We all decided we'd have been better off running 26.2 miles around Isle of Palms.  It would have taken a lot less time. 

Having finally convinced myself that the baby was going to be okay after spending the morning with him, I strapped my phone to my arm and told my mom that I was heading out to run a quick run while everyone else recovered from the morning and the baby napped.  It was hot and I was still tired but I let my mind empty and listened to nothing at all but my shoes hitting the pavement for 3 miles.  By the time I ran back into the driveway, I felt sweaty but somewhat recalibrated.

Later that evening, we went out for a very early dinner.  I'm talking senior citizen early.  Wait staff was still arriving when we were eating.  My friend was supposed to meet some college friends out for drinks downtown, but she got a call during dinner with the news that someone had a car accident (injury-free, thank goodness) and could not pick everyone up.  I could lie and say that we were surprised, but it seemed like par for the course for the weekend and we took the news in stride. 

Back home with the babies tucked into bed, we all dove into our pajamas and the remaining wine and talked sleepily about the crazy weekend. 

The next morning, I headed out for another run.  I was determined to run my 10k in Charleston, even if it wasn't the official Bridge Run.  This time, I relaxed a little, turned up my music, enjoyed the scenery and ran 6.2 miles as hard as I could in the SC humidity, leaving the events of the weekend on the road. 

I returned to the townhouse to finish packing and start the journey back home, praying that the trip back would be far better than the trip there. 

And it was better.  We shaved a whole hour off the total time.  And the babies actually slept.  And when they were awake, they were happy.  Oh, and when the gas light came on right after we passed the last exit with a gas station before miles and miles of stop and go traffic?  We actually did NOT run out of gas.  And that did surprise us. 

Will I be having a girls' weekend away any time soon?  Probably not.  I think I need some time to recover from this one.  For now, I'll just be thankful to have 4 healthy boys to hang out with at home.