"Kiawah"...and all this nostalgia!

We moved to Charlotte in '95 and I knew that that would make it more of a challenge to continue running the New York City Marathon (since we lived in Jersey, that was my home course). It would be another 13 years before I made it back. So I started looking for a marathon to focus on in '96 in the Charlotte area and found the Charlotte Observer Marathon to be run in Jan. of '97. In preparation for that race (and any marathon for that matter) I like to do a couple of half marathons. In October, I ran the Governor's Cup half marathon in Columbia and still needed one more to complete my preparation. I think it was in the Running Journal or maybe through Larry Frederick, and either way, we found the "Kiawah Island Marathon/Half Marathon and 5k"...where is this in Hawaii? We didn't know anything about Kiawah...

The half went well (1:13 and my wife was 3rd in her age group) and prepared me for my Charlotte Marathon debut which also was a success. PR's, multiple "Pelican's" (which is the awesome award that each top 5 finisher gets), and numerous vacations later...Kiawah holds a special place in our heart!

For Easter weekend, we went back and stayed at the beautiful hotel that opened in Aug. of '04...the Sanctuary! For some reason, on the drive down I started to get extremely nostalgic/sentimental...who me? It all started with the drive. Driving to Kiawah Island is simple enough...1 1/2 hours to Columbia, 1 1/2 hours to Charleston and then 30 minutes down that road. "That road" is 17 miles long and consists of Main Road, Bohicket Road and Betsy Kerrison Pkwy and for the most part it is a funky 2 lane, moss tree covered "keep your eyes on the road" stretch of pavement. I couldn't help and think back to the first time we drove it on a Friday night back in '96 so we could check in for the following days "Half". I was fit...

My workouts for this weekend were as follows:

Saturday: 5 miles in 30 minutes on the treadmill in the fitness center (I know what your thinking...Spada, you went all the way to Kiawah and ran on the treadmill?) and it was a very difficult 30 minutes...after that it was breakfast and then an awesome 1 hour tennis match with my daughter. After we finished, an older gentlemen asked my daughter if she was going to be the next Sharapova...to which I responded, "she's got the look, we'll see about the game!...not very nice. Jacuzzi and frisbee followed by dinner. That lawn outside is the perfect place to throw the disc.

Sunday: The 20 mile Easter Sunday morning long run! Phenomenal...I started at 5:30am in the dark and eventually got to see the sun rise (beautiful!). As I was running, I could not help and think back to all of my battles with Hurley, Annan, Clark, Hyde, Bonfiglio, Okeburg, Kaplan and all the rest. We had some good battles. My course for those of you that are familiar with the island...I got onto the bike path and made a left and went all the way down to the round-a-bout when you first turn into Kiawah, I then turned around and ran all the way back to the "Ocean Course" at the other end of the island, I then turned around again and headed back to the Sanctuary. What a run. The songs on the i-pod really got me into a nice rhythm and I was able to do the 2nd long run that Mark Hadley from MPR recommends (steady). On a side note, the reason why a lot of us stopped doing this race is because Tim Rhodes has the Thunder Road Marathon on the same weekend...gotta support the locals!

Monday: After a 3 mile warm up, on the bike path in front of Night Heron Park it was time for the Ben Hovis inspired "Hammer 400's" workout! By now you know the drill...20 x 400 meters, with a 30 second walk/recov. and every 5th one is run hard. It went reasonably well, and then a 3 mile cool down back to the hotel. Shower and breakfast followed and then we all went to the beach/pool (I had a vanilla smoothie and it brought me back to when Hurley and I would have the Sanctuary make us milk shakes after our races!)...good stuff...

For those of you who have been to Kiawah, hopefully some of what I have blogged about brought back some good memories for you as well. For those of you who have yet to visit...put it on your to do list...

Thanks for reading...

So my question is this: Where is that place for you that you've been and when you return, it gives you that feeling...