August 5th and 6th, 2005 -- North Creek:
This weekend had so much in it that we had to start half a day early to get it all done --

Dave says:
I took half a day off from work and we all drove up the Northway, singing "The Keeper Would A-Hunting Go" (with Calvin joining in with his private version of the Alphabet Song: "A, B, C, B, A, B, C") -- so as to get to North Creek for a good night's sleep before Racing The Train on Saturday morning.

Grandpa didn't seem too put out to see us all... but he had long since declined to provide any babysitting for the big event, so we'd arranged for Sara-without-an-H to show up just before race time. In the morning we hiked over to the railroad station in plenty of time for the starting whistle. (Well, actually, at that point we just caught the train south to Riparius; the starting whistle was down there, and we had to get back to North Creek under our own power.) Tried to do some warm-up stretching on the train, but our hearts weren't really in it; if we made it back those 8.5 miles in any kind of pseudo-jogging-like speed, we were going to be happy.

And so we did. Sarah jogged along at her patented slow-and-steady pace, which I utterly failed to match: had to either run faster, or walk slower -- so I alternated, and thus avoided having to run on any of the uphills. The run started at 9am, so the trees along River Road shaded us for most of the trip -- perfect weather for train-racing.

Passed Grandpa's house just a little beyond Mile 7, and Calvin was mighty glad to see me arrive but didn't want to watch me go -- so he got carried in to town the last mile and a half. 135.5 minutes... slower than my last train race by a fair bit, I think, but we had plenty of good excuses -- and neither Sarah or I arrived at the finish line feeling particularly tired this year. There's hope yet.

At 11:00 Isabel ran her first one-mile race -- in flip-flops, because her running shoes had mysteriously disappeared somewhere between Camp JCC and the North Country. Switched universes, no doubt. Isabel was a very good sport about it all, so we're betting she'll do much better next year, when she doesn't have to keep running back to retrieve flip-flops that fell off her feet. (We'll be sure to bring three pairs of shoes next time.)