The Morning (and Day) After [Entered 5/9/06]

After the long night of post-race feeding and drinking, we got up at a reasonable 8:00 am for our post-race recovery run on Sunday. Frank had an early flight, so he didn't join us, but Alex came with Richard, Jeff and me for the short drive up to Butler University and our access point to the towpath trail along a canal. This course is really flat, and soft surfaces underfoot, so it was ideal for our recovery journey. The weather was, duh, great, and after the initial half mile or so of balky legs, it was a lot of fun. The towpath is surrounded by trees, and it was really serene running along there. It was hard to believe that we were still inside a bustling city. We just went out and back, and ended up with 4.7 miles at about 9:30/mile average pace. It was exactly what we needed. Alex chose to do a leisurely walk instead of the run, and I think all of us got what we were looking for out of the run. This was almost certainly the last run with long sleeves for the foreseeable future.

We followed that up with another enormous breakfast at the hotel, of course. After checking out of the hotel, we dropped Alex off at the Speedway so he could watch all the Indy practice racing and all that fun stuff, and the rest of us went down to a nice park and conservatory for a nature hike, of sorts. We walked maybe 3 miles, total, and then made our way back up north for a final Indy meal. They all had pizza again, but I went with a sandwich instead. I was still pretty full from the breakfast feast, after all. :-)

We hooked back up with Alex, and then headed to the airport. The Austin flight was later than the Charlotte flight, so we had a leisurely journey to get checked in. Security wasn't too bad for Richard and me, but Alex was in a different lane, and they had a special little "sniffing" machine that you had to go through, which checked for residue of bad-guy materials I suppose. Alex passed the inspection.

After hanging out for a while, scavenging the Indianapolis newspapers left lying around by other passengers, we sort of noticed that the scheduled boarding time had come and gone for our flight, and there was no plane at the gate. Hmmmm... We joined the long line of passengers to find out what was happening with our flight. All we heard from the terrible PA system at the gate was that our plane had to be replaced with another aircraft, and it would arrive in time for a 7:15 departure from Indy to St. Louis. That would be significantly later than our previously scheduled 5:55 pm flight. The good news was that our St. Louis to Austin flight also was slightly delayed, with a 7:30 pm departure from St. Louis. With the time change between Indy and St. Louis (EST to CST), we had a fighting chance of a very fast run in the St. Louis terminal to make our connecting flight. Maybe it would even be delayed a bit more to help us out?

We made fast friends with the passengers around us in line as we stood there for a while. Alex told us that this made 2 out of 2 trips from Indy where he would have air travel issues getting home. I sort of took a casual approach to the whole thing, figuring we'd get somewhere at some time, and then we'd figure out the rest. Richard had the same approach, I think. We decided that if we could get as far as either Houston or Dallas from St. Louis, we could rent a car for the rest of the journey, and we could get our luggage later. When we finally reached the gate agent, she confirmed that we had a short but manageable layover in St. Louis for our Austin flight, so we were pretty happy about that. Richard asked what the gate situation would be, so we could gauge our terminal sprinting options. To our happy surprise, it appeared that we'd arrive and depart from the same gate B14 in St. Louis! She double checked, and then we found out the best part: Our plane from Indy was also the same aircraft and crew for the St. Louis-Austin flight, so we were golden! We were pretty stoked after that bit of luck, and repaired to the terminal bar for a quick celebratory beer. Thanks, Richard, for that! The plane arrived, and, giggling, we boarded for our now leisurely trip home.

The stewardess let me put my travel guitar in the coat closet on board, and she said that she wanted a song on the Austin flight. Okay. The first flight was short and uneventful, except that we physically changed planes for the next leg of the journey. Same crew, different airframe. After a very quick 15 minute turnover in St. Louis, we were off for the longer final flight to Austin. Sadly (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it from her point of view), the gate people in St. Louis made me leave the guitar at gate check, so I couldn't sing for my supper, so to speak, on that final flight. Oh, well. :-) Instead, I finished off a book I was reading and knocked out a Sudoku puzzle or two, and we found ourselves back in Austin. An hour later than scheduled, but really not too bad.

We said our goodbyes, and from there it was just a matter of reaclimating to the nighttime heat of Austin as we walked to our cars. I was glad to see that the weekend hail and rainstorms had not damaged the mighty Tahoe in the open parking lot!

All in all, a fun end to a fun weekend running vacation. Monday is a full day off, which will be great!