Race Notes: Rock N Roll Mardi Gras Half Marathon

I knew this was going to be an awesome race as soon as hit play on my Ipod.  When I crossed the starting line on Tchoupitoulas Street, the first song on the shuffle was perfect for the day.  Out of thousands of songs in my running mix, the Ipod picked, Dr. John's Back to New Orleans.  That had to be a good omen.

I loved this race.  Probably the most consistently beautiful course I've ever run.  It's everything good you hear about New Orleans - the Mississippi, the Garden District, creepy Lafayette Cemetary,  the French Quarter and the glorious homes up Esplanade Avenue.  Every street was lovely and the people were wonderful.  (It was the first time I had someone smoking a cigarette hand me a cup of water at an aid station.)

I ran slowly, but comfortably for the entire race.  I was a bit worried since my training has really suffered since January.  Between my swollen ankle and moving houses, I lost a lot of training time.  The weight loss more than made up for the reduced training time.  It's a lot easier to run if you drop 15% of your tonnage.

One more thing I have to cheer - the pre-race potty situation.  If you've ever raced you know the worst thing is that there are never enough port-o-lets at the starting line.  A marathon start is 20,000 over-hydrated people showing up at one time; there are always huge lines to get to a port-o-lets.  I've stood in bladder-busting lines that were 20-30 people deep. This race had the best bathroom innovation ever.  Each starting corral had 5 port-o-lets inside the corral itself.  No need to leave your corral to stand in long bathroom lines and hope you can make it back in time to cross the start line.  Brilliant.

Things We Loved About New Orleans

• The residential architecture. As much as I love Southern California’s craftsman cottages and casitas, my eye craves older homes of the East Coast. I love New Orleans homes – the shotgun houses, Creole houses, grand double gallery mansions. I could spend hours on the streetcar or walking in the Garden District just looking at the houses.
• All the beads that decorated fences and trees. Since it was so soon after Mardi Gras there was beads clinging all along the parade routes. Laissez les bon temps rouler.
• Our really sweet B&B iin the garden district, the McKendrick-Breaux House.  If you ever do this race, then you should stay with Brett and Rachel at the McKendrick-Breaux. They're wonderful people and they share their grand old home with visitors.  Bonus - the inn was 4 blocks from the start  (The photo is of their two ambassador-kitties resting on the chairs in the inn's courtyard.)

• Dinner at the Upperline Restaurant. Steve and I agreed that we’d try to eat healthy this trip, but we’d have one luxurious dinner. I had the 7 course menu and it was fantastic - turtle soup, duck etouffée, fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade . In truth, for most of this trip we struggled a bit finding restaurants. We’d decide we were hungry and suddenly every restaurant in the city would evaporate and we couldn’t find a spot to eat. A city full of fantastic restaurants and we were starving. That would be amusing except I’m ornery when I’m hungry. The only person who meaner than I am when I’m hungry is Steve when he’s hungry. This is why I always have a nutrition bar in my purse. Eventually, I’m going to be forced to stuff it into his mouth or mine.  
• Sleeping late. We’ve been overly stressed for weeks and it was awesome to go to bed and not set the alarm. It was a thrill to wake up and look at the clock to see it was already 9 AM. Sure, we picked up 2 hours on the time zones and it was really 7am, but it was still a luxury to sleep late.

Watch Out for the Gator Baby

A funny little nugget from the New Orleans trip.

On Friday, Steve and I were at the art museum and stopped at the museum cafe for lunch.  Since it was a Lent Friday, we were looking for seafood options. It was a very small menu and Alligator Sausage & Seafood Gumbo looked good.  Hey, is gator seafood or meat?

Steve posted the question on his facebook page and sparked some debate.  Gator is cold blooded, not a mammal, but it has lungs. Also, it seems that sausage is meaty. Can Alligator be on the allowable list?  Since my niece was in the middle of her heart surgery, I wasn't in the mood for Flexi-Lent.  Finally, we got it confirmed that gator is okay.

And delicious.