All summer the best wind of the day has been early in the morning, so I was up early to take advantage of it Saturday morning in the Laser. After sailing for a couple hours I headed across the club to sail on Mayo’s Farr-Dickinson 37 Excitation.
Sailing went well and we had a good time against some good competition in the PHRF-A fleet. We wound up 4th in the 7 boat fleet with 4 races over 2 days.
We had a gorgeous night aboard Mike’s new to him j105 Purple Wahoos to sail Fishing Bay Yacht Club’s Moonlight Race on June 15. Mike wasn’t able to sail so Clark, Scott, Jenny and I sailed the boat along with two kids. The race was set to start at 7:30 at night and the wind was forecast to pick up overnight and so the RC picked the shorter 14 mile course for all 6 boats sailing. We were in the PHRF-A class against J109 Afterthought. Purple Wahoos is a shoal draft wheel driven J105.
The RC got the race started about 15 minutes late. That was enough time for us to sail over to what would be the finishing mark and get a ping on it allowing us to find it later in the dark. The start was downwind- we approached at the pin and set the chute just after crossing the line. The rest of the legs would end up being somewhere between upwind and reaching. I trimmed jib, navigated, did pit and drove half of a leg.
We had a great race and managed to correct to 1st in our fleet and 2nd overall.
For FBYC’s Long Distance Race Jess and I took out the snipe. After not being able to finish the Open House Regatta earlier this year, we were excited to hold everything together and have a respectable mid-fleet finish.
We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend down on the Piankatank River. Highlights included boat rides, beach walks, fireworks, picking crabs, relaxing and helping around the river house.
I got to join Jess for a trip to DC for a long weekend. She has a tradition of taking a Friday off every year and visiting a museum with Farley and this year we visited the Museum of Natural History and saw the exhibits for fossils and diamonds.
In the afternoon we visited the National Gallery of art and focused on the 17-18 century Italian, 18-19th century French tour, Dutch and Flemish galleries and 17th centuries sculptures. Jess had some pieces that she had read about so we all played scavenger hunt to find them.
We tied to go to Jazz in the garden, but a few minutes after it started a thundercloud rolled south of us and so the event was cancelled. Nevertheless we improvised and ended up having dinner on the roof at Neil’s. We followed that by an improv comedy show that Celeste was in.
Saturday was brunch, shopping in Mount Vernon, lunch and going to Neil and Sonya’s engagement party. And Sunday Jess and I went running around the tidal basin and visited a market and a bookstore before making our way home.
Saturday I ran the Jackson River Trail Half Marathon. I’ve had a half marathon on my bucket list for a while and since I had a free weekend – this was the only one going on in the state – so I went. The Jackson River Trail is a rails to trail path in Covington VA almost to West Virginia. Even this time of the summer it was cool mid-60s to start and the trail is almost entirely shaded so we never got that much sun or heat.
I started out great and got with a group to pace myself around 8:40 and not run too fast. That worked for a about 6 or 7 miles when I learned it was in fact too fast and I started to fall apart from there. I made it through, I learned a lot, and now I have a benchmark to try and beat and improve my time.
It was a hot night for a run – this year’s Anthem Corporate Run was another muggy night in Innsbrook with dozens of companies represented. I’ve been doing a lot of running the past few weeks and I used this as and opportunity to beat my 5k time. I started out a little too fast running the first mile in 7:10. I slowed up a bit as the race went on and finished in 23:29 – which was good enough for 8th fastest at my company. The party afterward was well attended and it was fun catching up with past colleagues and friends at various companies.
FBYC was doing a Race Committee training day which made it a great opportunity for Jess and me to get out in Lasers with the rest of the fleet to do some starting practice and very short course racing.
Our friends Holly and Ned got married at Fishing Bay Yacht Club in Deltaville and we had a wonderful time celebrating their marriage. From the pretty decorations to the fun party antics – we had a great time. Congrats Holly & Ned!
This week we got a new Stand Up Paddle board to use down by the river. I found a deal on one we liked by Isle that should be a good all-around beginner board. We took it to the river and Jess and I both got to try it out on a beautiful day. Lucky for us we stayed upright and didn’t fall in as the jelly fish in the creek were unreal. Looking for many more weekend mornings of paddling.
