The race was in Khaoyai, which is northeast of Bangkok and has a beautiful national park. We arrived Friday night, just as it was getting dark. The maid of the house where we were staying offered to take us on a scooter to pick up dinner. Here commences the adventure (henceforth pronounced "ADVENTURE!"). Although all four of us on the trip are capable scooter drivers, the maid didn't want us to drive because the headlight was out and the house is off a dark and bumpy dirt road. So she took two of us on the scooter to go to the local market and a restaurant. She solved the no headlight problem by simply holding a maglite flashlight in her left hand while driving. We went on to pick up eggs (I accidentally bought 30 instead of 10) and mangoes (at 40 baht=$1.30 for four delicious mangoes, they were a deal that helped make up for my egg mistake) at the market and some delicious northern Thai dishes.
Our run wasn't until Sunday, so all we had to do on Saturday was register for the race, explore what we wanted of the national park, and maybe find one of the wineries that surprisingly exist in the area. Registration (and pre-registration shopping) were highly successful and entertaining based on the number of times that we had our photo taken by the Unique Running race staff. As farang (Thai for western foreigners...and also Thai for guava), we tend to attract attention, even when we aren't posing for silly photos like this!
After that we decided to venture into the park. We hadn't researched much, but we were told we could ride our scooters to the park's visitor's center (14K into the park) and could take a short walk to some waterfalls from there. Despite the fact that Khaoyai is filled with big hills/tiny mountains, we didn't realize how much of the 14K would be vertical assents and drops. This became our next adventure, as our borrowed scooters were not equipped with the best motors (or brakes!). During our assent, as Colby drove, I chanted "I think I can, I think I can" at least twice in an attempt to give some good karma to our scooter.
The views, greenery, shade, and cool breezes were incredible. We chose a short "trek" (would be more accurately described as a walk, as it was on a paved path) to see a waterfall. However, the waterfall was so discreet, we missed it on the first time through! Bridget and I went back to find the waterfall, and we soon realized how we had missed it the first time!
Khaoyai does have other, stunning waterfalls...just not in the small area of the park that we explored.
We also kept our eyes peeled for cobras, elephants, and guars! We didn't find any of them, and the monkeys didn't have any trouble finding us. They seemed quite used to humans, stealing trash and jumping onto cars!
On the way down I practiced my best "great-grandma" driving, as the brakes didn't feel great when I drove on flat roads, and I have control issues when it comes to going down steep hills.
After successful descending and leaving the park, we went in search of a nearby winery. However, once we realized how far the winery would be, we opted for a wine bar/restaurant/garden. Vino felt strangely out of place in Khaoyai, yet I welcomed the delicious white wine and warm artichoke salad. Then we headed home to make yummy Whole Bowls and head to bed.
We were up early and on the scooters by 5:00am to get to the park entrance. The race started and ended at the park but mercifully did NOT go through the elevation changes in the park. Bridget and I started the race in the pre-dawn dark. Bridget's most recent half marathon was just three months ago, and she's got a much better pace than I do. However, the idea of running for over two hours by myself sounded terrible. Therefore, I told myself that I would run at her pace. By about 7K the sun had come up over the big hills of the area, which is beautiful (and filled with many resorts). Luckily, the heat wasn't too strong yet (the high was 34 degrees Celsius/94 degrees Fahrenheit). Bridget kept us at a pace, and a bag of gummi bears, Darcy's homemade granola bar, sheer will, and many small cups of water kept me going with her! We both finished the race strong! So strong that I had a personal best, and Bridget earned 3rd place in her age bracket (she's got almost two decades on me and can crush me in a run and swim)!
Darcy and Colby ran a fantastic 10K. And our new "team" shirts (which we bought the day before for less than $5 and to which we will be adding a logo and tag line) were great!
Afterwards we made a delicious breakfast (using just some of the 30 eggs I bought us on Friday night), and then we got massages. This was the best idea and best $7=230 baht spent all weekend. Actually the best idea was a run in a beautiful setting with fantastic friends!
