My Omaha Virtual Half Marathon

This morning my husband was still undecided on whether he would join me for my "virtual" half marathon. The clouds were hovering this morning, and it was clear we wouldn't get into the 70's today. I think when he saw me getting on my gear and realized that the day was going to be nice, he may've figured that he'd rather spend it outside with me, than in the hotel room without me :)
I prepared him for the fact that this could take us more than 4 hours, which is why we were starting no later than 9am. That way, when we finished we could go straight to Upstream and get their Sunday brunch buffet as a celebration of our hard work. (Actually, maybe the promise of the buffet is what got him to join me? Regardless, I was so glad he was there!)

I packet my new purse- which is more like a messenger bag- with 3 Gatorades, a couple waters, a couple cliff bars and some jerky. I started off carrying it, but was thankful when my husband was willing to shoulder it. I don't think I realized how tired my shoulders get with something slung over them for long periods of time!


So we took off, into the ConAgra Corp park, the Heartland of America park, across the bridge to the Seaside port and across the pedestrian bridge into Iowa. At this point, we had gone a couple miles and both of us had to pee. We tried to use the bathrooms at the "Playland Park" just on the other side of the bridge, but they were still locked. It was only a little after 9am. So we decided to go to the left and head to the HARRAH's casino.
When we got there- we both realized we didn't have our IDs with us! I asked the guard at the door if he needed to see our IDs and he said "How old are you?" I said, 34 and my husband said "42" and the guy just laughed and waved us in. A little part of me felt old, but it was soon overcome by the part of me that had to go pee...badly! Total culture shock walking into a casino from outside. This casino was set up like a real riverboat on the Missouri River. The smell of cigarette smoke immediately overtook me as we found our way to the bathrooms.


Luckily we did our business and got out of the ringing slot machines and smoke and back into the open flat land. We started walking the other direction on the path- the direction I had never gone before. We found ourselves side by side with the freeway. Seeing exits for G Street, F Street and other parts of Crater Lake and Council Bluffs, Iowa.



The Missouri river was on our left and the freeway was on our right. We had almost reached 7 miles when I suggested we start back. It was actually kind of cold! My nose was a little red and my body was trying to adjust to the heat from yesterday and the chill from today.

We made it down the path to an old Railroad bridge before we turned around. My husband decided to go down and explore it a little. It was one of those old bridges that rotates and connects into one long track or rotates and separates to let ships go by. It hadn't been used in years and was all rusty on the big wheel they must have used to connect the sides of the bridge back in the day.


As we started back, the sun began to break through the clouds. We made our 13.1 mile goal as we approached the hotel and ended up going a total of 13.3 before we got to the room. I had to shower before even contemplating going to Upstream for breakfast. I think both of us underestimated how much strain 13.1 miles would be on our feet. My husband thought he had broken his foot again! But after a few hours of ice and some Advil, he was doing much better.




We got food at Upstream and then laid around the rest of the afternoon watching movies and watching the thunderstorm roll through Downtown O. Its gonna be hard to say goodbye tomorrow. This has been such a great weekend. I am so lucky to have his support.

Exploring the O

My husband flew into town to see me in Omaha on Thurs morning and today was our first full day together to go exploring! I don't think he expected to go for a long walk- but I strapped on my running shoes just in case. We walked all around the Old Market area, checked out some lofts on Jackson- in a building that was built in 1891, we went to a record store (Drastic Plastic), we had a slice of pizza at Zios, we had some coffee at Aroma, checked out some 2nd hand stores and some of the other cool stuff around.

Then we started walking up 10th st. I admit, I had looked at a map the night before and saw that the zoo, the botanical gardens and the baseball stadium (where they do the college world series) were all off of 10st. Just a couple of miles up. It was beautiful weather today (close to 75! Is this really Omaha?) and so we climbed up the stairs alongside the 10th st bridge (just down from Aroma) and then started going south down 10th street. We passed by the old Union Pacific Central Station- which is now the Durham Western Heritage Museum and Lucky's Lounge - which I hear is owned by Kevin Costner's ex-wife?


We kept walking and passed by a lot of old Victorian houses and some not so nice houses. I guess we ended up in a neighborhood a little more akin to our neck of the woods here in LA. There was a Family Dollar store, lots of churches and a lot of Hispanic speakers. Felt like home.

As we walked- I saw a sign for the Botanical gardens and tried to encourage my husband to go a little further- but he was starting to poop out, literally (2nd note to self about the espresso before walking!)- and also didn't have on the shoes I did. He was wearing Converse and starting to get a blister. So we walked down to 13th st and started walking back. 13th had less cool houses and was way more urban- but it was such a gorgeous day, none of that really mattered.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we decided to take a nap. According to my Nike+ we had actually gone 3.33 miles in the hour we were out!

Tomorrow 3/22/09, is when the Pasadena Marathon is happening. I had signed up to do the Half- Marathon there with Hirono before I knew about the Omaha trip. I decided if I couldn't be there- that I could still do it virtually from here
in Omaha. He doesn't know it yet- but I am going to try to recruit my husband to join me for the 13.1 miles tomorrow. I know it will probably take me 3-4 hrs and it would be so cool if he came with! Let's see what he says...