Lausanne Half-Marathan by Nancy

This is Nancy writing. So we got back from our great week in Amsterdam on Friday night close to 1am. At 9am on Saturday, my friend Nina called and said she was going to do the Montreux to Lausanne half marathon the next day. "You're kidding," said I. Then at 2pm Nina called back and said, "I just signed you up for the half marathon." So on Sunday, Nina and Sally and their two cute little boys, and Heather and Dave (Sean's sister/brother in law, who are visiting) and Molly and Noah drove up to near Montreux (Rachel had to stay home to do homework:(). It was a bit chilly and drizzling (perfect running weather) and, after leaving the gang in an Italian restaurant for lunch, Nina and I started the race (at the bizarre race time of 2pm). The key was to pace ourselves, particularly because I had not run more than 6 miles in at least six months, probably longer. The run was beautiful, it went along Lake Geneva for much of the time, wound through a few old villages with cobblestone streets. There was a different live band every 2 km. There was one particularly entertaining band, dressed in turquoise and lime green outfits and looking significantly like Dr. Seuss characters. I loved that many of the spectators had set up their little tables with glasses of wine to watch people run by. So French. It also was funny that one of the ways I amused myself along the run was to do the math to figure out how many kilometers a half marathon was. I computed correctly, but there were enough differently numbered race distance signs along the road for people doing the half, the marathon, or the 10K, that I actually was quite unsure of how far we had gone (didn't want to get my hopes up) and we were not sure until about 1/4 mile from the end that we were actually approaching the finish line. Anyway, we finished, and we were ecstatic. We indeed ran the whole time, we did it in 2 hours and 13 minutes (basically a 10 minute mile) and then started to look for our family. Nina, whose French is a bit better than mine, was the one to approach strangers to ask to borrow their cell phone. We couldn't find Sally or Heather and also couldn't reach them on these borrowed cell phones. After about an hour, we started to get cold (grateful for the plastic garbage bags they gave us to wear), but fortunately I had put 135 francs (more than $100!) in my shoe pocket (Nina had said we might need it for a cab if we couldn't run). We bought capuccinos and crepes at roadside places and, like mac and cheese when you're backpacking, nothing had ever tasted so good. We finally connected with our family, who had been gloriously sightseeing at the 1000 year old Chillon Castle, and they made their way to us 1.5 hours after the race ended. All around a spectacular day!