ZOOMA Great Lakes Weekend Getaway

Words can't even begin to describe the experience that was this past weekend in Fontana, Wisconsin with over a dozen of my closest running/blogger friends:


Front: Erin
Second row (L to R): Kim and Kelsey
Third row (L to R): Amy, Kelly, Jackie, Marcia, Jenny
Back row (L to R): Maggie, Bobbi, Kelly, Sierra, me, Katie, Kayla

Instead of trying to describe the festivities in words, I'll just share pictures and themes (reminiscent of a project from one of my high school English classes where we had to visually depict a story).

THEME 1: FOOD

There was food.  A LOT of food. 

 

Yummy yummy!

 

"How far can a runner run into the woods?"
"Halfway.  Beyond halfway, a runner would be running out of the woods."

 

We all own stock in bagel-manufacturing companies.

 

No explanation needed.

 

Yummy yummy!

 

Disclaimer: Between all of us runners, I estimate that we ran a collective total of about 3.1415 MILLION miles at the ZOOMA race on Saturday morning!

 

Oh wait, everyone ran except the lone race volunteer (that would be me).  But I gallantly proclaim that race volunteering and cheering takes a lot of energy!  (More about my volunteer experience coming soon.)

 

In short, we all EARNED the mass quantities of food that we had on hand.  No questions asked.

 

THEME #2: FUN AND GAMES

 

These ladies are all awesome and were a huge blast to hang out with. 

 

Believe it or not, we did not spend the whole time talking about running, either.  Although there were certainly plenty of references to things that only those close to running would understand, such as simply "Mile 22."

 

Post-race lunch

Playing "Loaded Questions"
It looks a lot more tame than it really was.

Playing Taboo.
Concentrate, concentrate!!!

I just Tweeted!!!

 

THEME #3: PICTURES

 

We were in a safe environment, so we could let our guard down in front of our castle fortress.  Literally and figuratively.

 

Before

 

After

Ever after
(It took us about 10 tries to get this picture to work.)

Disclaimer: Surely I jest.  The castle in the above pictures was actually just an entrance to the neighborhood that we stayed in.  I'm not sure of the castle's historical significance, if any, but it made for some fun pictures. 

And never mind that we had to move out of the street every few minutes to allow passing cars to go through the castle entrance.  I'm sure everyone thought we were wreaking mischievous havoc.  (It's a good thing that we were only there for the weekend.)

In front of the house.
The big character in the middle in all brown was a great photo model - not a single muscle movement or even a blink while we were taking this picture!

 

The famous picture of the Beatles shows them walking across Abbey Road. 
The weekend group did the ZOOMA Race at the Abbey Resort.
Here, we're just walking.  (Some with more swagger than others.)

BONUS THEME: The indescribable

Obligatory pillow fights

Kim deflating an air mattress

 

To be honest, I'm not even sure what this was myself since I wasn't there when it happened.
But anytime you get a blurry action photo you know something good was going on.

In summary, what a great weekend!  It would have been fun for me to actually run the race with everyone else, but for the sake of my injuries it turned out to be a good thing I didn't run.  I so wish that I had not been battling sleep deprivation, work commitments, and a cold while I was there, too.  But all in all, it was so much fun to hang out with amazing friends and to meet so many incredible new friends.  I can't wait for our next running/blogger getaway!

Coming soon to my blog near you: A recap of my experience volunteering at the ZOOMA Great Lakes race.