Long bus ride to Key West

Soooooooo, We did make it to Key West!!  We arrived on the big tour bus at 3:15am.  What a day. 
After the flight was cancelled, they arranged for a bus to come and take us to Key West. 17 of the 34 passengers elected to take the bus.  I think it was just shy of 11pm when the bus finally pulled up and we loaded up for the drive.

On the bus

Shortly after we left, I called the hotel to let them know that we were, indeed, on our way there.  The lady I talked to said that she'd have our paperwork all ready with a note for the overnight person.  She assured us that our room would be waiting for us.  Our bikes had been delivered and she had the keys for the locks in an envelope with our check in paperwork.
Even though we didn't get to our room until 3:30 am, we woke up around 9 am and even though we were still tired, we got up because we didn't want to waste any more of our time in Key West.  We went and got a few things from the hotel's breakfast bar and ate by the pool.  After showering, we were off on our neat-o rental bikes!  I did this last year and still remember my way around but Erika was really nervous about riding around with the traffic.  She hasn't ridden a bike in a long time.  She loved it!  We rode to where the race expo was being held; it wasn't open yet but I wanted to show her how close it is and how easy it will be to get there in the morning before the race.  We had lunch and visited some shops.  Erika LOVES jewelry and was going crazy over all of the handmade jewelry offered in the shops around Key West!  We made our way to the expo and got our race bibs and shirts.  I love the shirt this year! (this pic is from the race website)

Cool shirts! (from KWHM website)

Erika had some injuries in the late summer and hasn't been running very much even though her injuries have healed.  She had a lot of work traveling in the fall and then was sick right after the holidays.  She thought it would be better for her to switch to the 5K.  Our bibs had our names on them and they were just so cool:

coolest race bibs ever

For her to switch to the 5K, she'd have to give this bib back and her new one wouldn't have her name on it.  She decided to keep the bib and remove the timing tag from the back and just run the 5K and then she would meet me near the end and run me in so we could cross the finish line together and have a finish line picture together.  I know it's probably not the best thing to do and most people would probably have a fit but it's what we decided to do!  We rode around more and came back to the hotel.  It was getting chilly so we changed before we went to the pasta dinner.  After dinner, we rode over to Duval Street which is the main touristy party street in Key West.  We went into a bar and listened to the singer for a while and then headed back to the hotel so we could get some sleep before we have to get up early for our big races.  We are both really tired.
It's so hard to believe that tomorrow morning I'm running the Key West Half Marathon again! 

Runner Nerd
tired on half marathon eve