Celebration

We did it.  We crossed the finish line of the ½ marathon.  As much as we didn’t really go into the race with much expectation we were a little disappointed in the way we finished due to a mental beat down with the rain.  But we did it.  

After we received our medals we met our Run Buddy in the Ottawa Town Hall as she finished ahead of us and got kicked out of the recovery chute.  We were all soaked and cold so we headed to a nearby Starbucks to warm up with some tea/coffee.  We grabbed a warm drink and sat down for a few minutes to digest that we had just run a ½ marathon.  We didn’t sit too long as Twin 2 was starting to get a little cranky and just wanted to go back to the hotel and dry off.  We made plans to meet up later that afternoon.

When we got back to the hotel our room wasn’t cleaned so therefore no dry towels.  After we got a hold of housekeeping and they finally brought towels we both showered and felt much better.  We just relaxed for an hour or two then decided to meet our Run Buddy around 5:30 p.m. for supper.  We all decided we were going to wear our ½ marathon Army Run shirts and medals to supper.  The moment we stopped running our race the rained seemed to have stopped.  So we got ready and headed out with blue sky over head.  Not for long.  As we’re walking to supper a huge rain cloud came over and the torrential downpour started.  We had no coat/hood to cover ourselves (why did we need it as it was blue sky when we left the hotel?) so we both tried to hide under one purse.  Luckily we saw the Fairmount Chateau Laurier in the distance and we ran to that.  We found cover inside and were drenched.  We walked around as if we belonged there and finally found the lobby washroom.  We tried to dry ourselves under the hand dryers and with paper towel.  It didn’t really work.  At that time we figured between our 2 showers each that day and the 3 hours during the race and about 15 minutes in the torrential downpour on the way to supper we spent more time under water that day than dry.

After the rain finally ended we continued onto supper and met our Run Buddy.  Neither one of us knew what we wanted to eat we just knew we were starving and needed food immediately.  After walking around the Byward Market we finally decided on eating at the Cornerstone Bar and Grill.  After some good food and good conversation and drying off a bit we paid the bill and we were all thinking about just going home to bed.  

 As we were leaving the Cornerstone our Run Buddy said a coffee would be good so we tried to decide on where to get a coffee.  Then we stumbled on a dessert place (cannot remember the name but oh so good).  So we had some ice cream and coffee and chatted some more.  Then we said our goodbyes and finally made it to bed after the longest/wettest day in history.