my weekend at vermont city marathon with the cabot fit team

Here is the recap of my weekend at the Vermont City Marathon with the Cabot Fit Team and how my leg of the relay went. The weekend was all about fun, fitness and cheese!

DAY ONE

On Friday afternoon, after leaving my girls at ballet with a sitter, I drove into town and met the rest of the team in the lobby of our hotel. As you know I live in Vermont, so my commute to the event was only 20 minutes. Some of the other teammates had traveled from far and wide, so I felt pretty lucky to have such easy travel.

Our group shown above from left to right:

Joanne | Eats Well with Others

Carolyn | All Day I Dream About Food

Marlow | Gluten Hates Me

Mary | she doesn’t have a blog (yet!) but she is a former editor at Cooking Light

Carrisa | Fit 2 Flex

That’s Craig and Regan all the way at the end of the table, they’re both from Cabot

Kristina | Love and Zest

Deanna | Teaspoon of Spice

Kelly | Kelly the Culinarian

Amber | Fit Foodie Runs

That’s me!

Without much delay we loaded up into vans and drove over to Lake Champlain Chocolates to the cool new South End Kitchen. It was only a minute down the road. There we were met by Craig, master cheese grader for Cabot Creamery Cooperative. His job is to travel around to Cabot’s cheese making facilities all over New York and New England to eat cheese. Well, actually it is a bit more complicated than just eating the cheese. But doesn’t that sound cool?

He gave us a little demonstration on how the cheese is sampled through its aging process. He had Carolyn (shown above left) and Kelly (above right) pull cheese plugs for sampling. He said when they make cheese at the Co-op, they don’t make Seriously Sharp one day and Extra Sharp the next. They just make cheddar, and then decide which it will be depending on the way it tastes. Craig said that factors such as how much time the cows are spending in the fields versus eating silage will effect the flavors of the cheese. As the cheese ages, he and the other two graders determine which variety of cheddar that batch is destined to be. I find that so interesting to know that as it ages, it changes and gets better and better. Then we got to sample the three cheeses from the Cabot Legacy collection and a few other favorites of mine including the Old School and the Cloth Bound Cheddar.

Next we enjoyed some cooking demos (and more cheese) in the interactive kitchen at the South End Kitchen, and then had a yummy light meal from the cafe there. Shocker, I had a salad. #saladmonth 🙂 I had a great time talking with all of my teammates. I have to say we mostly talked about balancing being moms and working and blogging. There was a good deal of talk about fitness too I may add.

DAY TWO
The next morning we all met in our hotel lobby (above ~ pretty swanky right? It’s the Marriott at the corner of Cherry and Battery in Burlington if you’re interested) and then we all piled into the plaid Cabot van and hit the road. We drove right by my town on our way up to Stowe. It was so lush and beautiful. I have to say it was so lovely riding with these ladies. I got to chat with Kelly about making home-made Kombucha. Totally doing that asap. And for once while driving through the beautiful Green Mountains I was looking out the window, as opposed to focusing on memorizing BodyPump choreography like I always do. This state is so gorgeous at this time of year.

Before long we arrived at the Percy Farm, and we all piled out for our tour. Nick from Cabot met us their with his 1 1/2 year old son (above left.) We toured the milking parlor and got to see the ladies lining up for milking. We all took a million pictures and asked a ton of questions.

We toured the barns. The cows were very happy to meet us. I got slimed by a one who nosed up to me. ^^

Then we got to see their food which was in a big bunker. It was filled with silage and there was also a pile of grain from Magic Hat Brewing Company who delivers to the farm once a week. The farmers mix the grain right in with the silage. I wonder what Craig would have to say about that? Seriously Sharp!

Then we headed over to the Trapp Family Lodge for a little vista viewing. The weather didn’t cooperate. So we posed for a picture and I bought a tee-shirt. I’m telling you, this being a tourist in your own backyard thing is pretty great! After that a stop at Cold Hollow for lunch and Church Street for shopping.

DAY THREE

Ok, this is the part I am really excited to tell you all about. This was race day. As I mentioned a little while ago I have a little hamstring injury thing going on right now, so I was a little nervous about running. My main worry was that I would get out there, and get competitive with myself, my own PR, and ignore my injury. I was worried that I would blow it out and end up with a long term issue. My leg of the race was only 5.8 miles. Which is nothing compared to those that ran the whole thing! (Congrats to Kristina and Kelly! They are my heros!)

I met Carolyn, Kristina, her husband Eric and Sara from Cabot for breakfast at 6am. I ate eggs and fruit. And like 60 cups of coffee. Then I had to pee like 60 times. Did I mention I was nervous?

My leg was the second one. I was so nervous waiting for Marlow to pass off to me. I couldn’t see if she was coming, because so many people were blocking my view. And well the 60 cups of coffee may have added a little edge to it. Before I knew it, she came into the exchange area and when I got the bracelet at the hand-off I really took off. To make matters worse I heard someone from the crowd shout out, “Go Katie Girl!” And that made me go even faster! I have no idea who said that, but anyway, I really was running way too fast.

Then I was like, ok, stich in the side, you’re passing everyone in site, be cool Webster! So I slowed way down.

Okay now I am going to get all heart-rate monitor dork on you for a minute. If this doesn’t interest you scroll down a bit. I promise I am not offended. But if you’re into it, check out my heart-rate and pace above. The white line is my heart-rate. The orange is my pace. I started my watch as soon as my hands were free from the handoff and slipping the bracelet on. I was already sprinting, so It starts at with my heart as basically resting and I was already running a 6.3 minute mile! Oops! Then you can see that I slowed way down to a ten minute mile for a second, and then I was pretty good from there.

Below you can see another chart of just my heart rate. Its a little easier to see.

So you’re probably wondering why it is up and down like that. The reason is that I was having way too much fun. I slowed down and chatted with people I knew along the way, including Kristina and then her husband Eric. I even told some random dude that I loved his outfit. He told me about his calf injury. I seriously had the best time. Any time that I felt myself worrying about going too slow, hearing that inner competitive thing going on, I calmed myself down. Believe me I am all about pushing outside of my comfort zone to reach new heights. But this wasn’t the time for that. My friend Aimee says it best, “When I go into a race my only expectation is to have a good time.” So that is what I did.

Here is the final run-down of the whole race below. My average heart-rate was 146. And I averaged 8 1/2 minute miles. So I am really psyched. I know I could have definitely run faster, but honestly my hammie is a little sore still so I am so glad I didn’t.

Probably my favorite part was when I came booking around the corner at the end and I could see Carolyn waiting for me to pass the bracelet off to her. I was like there’s my girl!!! Regan got some great pictures of the hand-off. I look happy, No? Lol.

She took off and had a great leg too. In fact then I was so psyched to watch the rest of the team on different parts of the course. I saw Kristina and Joanne attack the killer hill on Battery Street. And I even got to snap a picture of Kelly on her last .2 miles of the entire marathon. It was so amazing. I broke out in tears like five times. I honestly love this kind of stuff so much. It just moves me.

In that weepy spirit, here are some of this big corny things I have been thinking about since I left on Sunday afternoon

I feel so honored to be a part of this team and to have had such a wonderful experience.

I am so grateful for my health and the strength of my body.

I am really proud of myself for listening to myself during the training and bailing out of the half.

I am also proud to have not run faster. (ie  I listened to the voice that said “Be cool Webster!”)

I am in awe of Kelly and Kristina for running the whole darned thing!

And every single other member of the team for giving it their all.

I feel so happy to live in such a beautiful state. This weekend made me feel more determined than ever to protect our working landscape. It is the farms that make Vermont so beautiful, and eating locally has never seemed more important to me.

I am so thankful to the farmer owners from Cabot who sponsored this amazing weekend. Without them none of this would be possible.

Questions for you?

Have you ever seen a cow getting milked?

Have you ever had an injury that you had to baby along?

Have you run a whole marathon? Would you ever?

What inspires you to get all weepy?

DISCLOSURE: My hotel fees, meals, weekend activities and race entry were paid for by Cabot Creamery Cooperative. Thank you to Regan and Sara of Cabot for taking such good care of us all weekend. I was not paid to write this post. All opinions expressed here are my own.