Pain, pumpkins and cupcakes

The day after the Baltimore Marathon was so much different than how I felt after my first marathon back in March. After my first marathon, I literally scooted down the stairs because it hurt so much. This time, I'm even carrying the baby up and down the stairs. I'm not saying it doesn't hurt, but it's not as bad as the first time.

One thing that is painful is my freak chafing. I have never chafed in this area before in my life and it only happened on one side. This hurts way more than it looks:

Should have used Body Glide instead of deodorant

After we got home from church, I geared up to go for a run. Now, most marathon training literature recommends taking rest days after a marathon, but remember, I'm training for a 50 mile race and pain is part of training. I took the dog with me in a vain attempt to have her enthusiastic attitude rub off on me. It was a beautiful fall day, but I was really more focused on the pain of running (do you know what it feels like to have sweat drip onto a chafed area?). I know at least one other person who ran Baltimore on Saturday and then ran 18 miles on Sunday, so I thought of her as I finished up my pansy 4 miles. That person is going to kick my ass at JFK 50. :)

After lunch, we headed out to do something I've been looking forward to for a while. My husband and I were excited to leave, but Faith was pretty neutral about it:

Faith wants normal parents

A short drive later, we ended up at a local farm that featured a pumpkin patch and bunch of other fall-related activities! I think I enjoyed it way more than the baby, but in all fairness, I had to pay for entry and she was free. :)

Being the largest in southern MD is quite the accomplishment

Mommy, I'm just humoring you

They had this big pit of dried corn for the kids to play in and at first, Faith wasn't a fan:

Mommy, this is unacceptable

After she saw the other kids playing, she figured out that dried corn is awesome:

Put "dried corn" on my Christmas list please

Next, we visited the petting farm area. Faith was enthralled with the sheep and pretty blase about the chickens:

This is the coolest dog I've EVER SEEN!

So...what do they do? Just stand there?

After all of this fun, we tried to get a pumpkin. A note for next year: don't wait until mid-October to go to a pumpkin patch.

This is the saddest day of my life

All of the remaining pumpkins were rotting or had holes. We didn't walk through the whole area, but it didn't look promising enough to do a clean sweep:

The Great Pumpkin is going to come out of...this?

We made up for lack of pumpkin picking fun by taking the tractor ride around the farm. Faith was a little tired by this point:

Keeping my Mommy entertained is exhausting

Before we left, we bought a couple of cupcakes from the little bakery they had on the farm. This was a "blue velvet" cupcake and it was one of the best cupcakes I've ever had:

That blue crab was white chocolate

My husband is secretly a healthy food blogger because he picked the pumpkin spice cupcake. I can't think of any other reason why someone would pick a pumpkin flavored anything (yuck).

Guess who ate hers on the car ride home?

I wrapped up week 12 of JFK training with 62 miles, which is my highest ever. This will probably be the peak mileage for the training cycle, but MCM week will be another high mileage week. After that, the taper starts! My legs feel pretty destroyed right now and my quads feel like they've been through a meat grinder, but hopefully that soreness will work itself out as the week goes on!

This almost looks like a middle finger

If you missed it, I ran the Baltimore marathon on Saturday and with Alyssa's help, I pretty much blew away my expectations for the race. I didn't remember my camera at all on race day, but Alyssa took these pictures:

Before

After

Have you ever gone to a pumpkin patch?


Did you race this weekend?