Enough procrastination! Time to publish my Cherry Blossom 10 Miler race report!
The Cherry Blossom 10 Miler has been a "Right of Spring" in Washington DC for 40 years now. This was the second Cherry Blossom 10 Miler for me with the first one back in 1987. We had planned a return visit to DC for many reasons the primary being simply to sight-see and enjoy a relaxing weekend. Then there was the run of course too.
Once upon a time long before the internet, we had stumbled upon a very interesting bed and breakfast inn in Leesburg VA. It was relatively small but featured a working fireplace in nearly every room. I remembered the one in the small parlor and looked forward to returning to sip my "evening" beverage by the fire. Now with the internet it was very easy to not only find The Norris House Inn but to preview and book our reservations. It was also going to be much easier to find once we did arrive in Leesburg as we now have one of those fancy gadgets called a Garmin Nuvi too!
The arrival at The Norris House Inn was wonderful. We were quite surprised by the improvements over the years including the new innkeepers! The innkeeper was especially gracious and very informative as he brought us up to speed on the past 25+ years at The Norris House Inn as well as the Norris family history too. Our personal residence is almost as old as the Norris House so we literally felt quite at home.
We took the innkeepers advice and decided to splurge our dinner budget and dined at the Wine Kitchen in beautiful downtown Leesburg. This is a small, not too fancy, but extremely fine cooking at a very fair price. It was certainly worth the 12 hour drive from Michigan!
To continue the wine theme for the evening, when we returned to the Inn we rescued a bottle of wine from our luggage and sat in the comfy chairs by the fireplace (w/o fire due to insurance issues) and relaxed. This was the moment I had been waiting to return to for over 25 years. Does it really get any better? Well yes in fact it did! Shortly after we had settled into the chairs another traveller had checked in for the evening. It was after hours for the innkeeper and since we were sitting so close to the front hall of the inn we gladly welcomed the new visitor. We gave her the same directions for parking etc. that the innkeeper provided us. We she returned a few moments later we invited her to help us finish off our bottle of wine.
As it turns out, she had also just driven a long way to arrive at the Norris House Inn, all the way from Manhattan! She is a very energetic interior designer, based in Stowe Vermont but also has a studio in Manhattan where she services her impressive listing of clients. She was in Leesburg to shop for antique items for one of her Manhattan projects. She reminded me a lot of myself at the height of my business, over ten years ago, only I don't think I was ever that energetic. What she did do was remind me that once an entrepreneur always an entrepreneur!
I have enjoyed my still recent position being gainfully employed by a separate business, but I have no doubt that once my working, or more accurately, employment days are over, I will once again return to the business world and find something that I thoroughly enjoy doing and perhaps even make a buck or two in the process! I have several options that continue to lurk in my mind and I am happy to keep them there for at least several more years ahead too. Stay tuned :)
The exchange of ideas ended with the wine and it soon was time to call it a day and return to our room. The next day I would find my way to the old railroad path and run a few miles to loosen my legs for the 10 Miler on Sunday morning.
Thanks for reading and Run Happy!
Lee
