Baltimore Marathon

Today was the Baltimore Running Festival, and Kathleen was doing the half marathon.   So I got up in a timely fashion (they weren't starting until 9:45AM), and rode down to spectate.   I waited at President Street and a few minutes later the runners appeared.  With the first group Kathleen appeared.

And that was the last time I saw here until she got home.   I rode over to Baltimore & Linwood to wait for her, and apparently totally missed her, she said she called out and everything.   This is right where the half marathon group meets the full marathon group, so there were a ton of people coming through.  I did however spot this couple in tutus.

After a while I realized I had missed her, so since I had no idea how much further ahead she was, I decided to head over to the finish area to scope it out.   Since the Boston Marathon, the police are much more paranoid, so I couldn't get super close, but I found a spot to watch for her at the finish.  I usually figure she is going about 9 minute miles, so I made a note of when I needed to be back and headed out to noodle around and kill time.

Right behind the stadium is this bit of graffitti on the skylight of a warehouse building, I am totally curious what MEAR! means.

I rode over to Carroll Park from there, and heard a very steam train sounding whistle from the direction of the B & O Railroad Museum.   So from my previous encounter with the steam trains I knew the line they run them on runs behind Carroll Park, so I kind of triangulated where it would be by the smoke and steam rising from behind the treeline.   I found a platform that must have been built for them, and sure enough, here comes the train.

Complete with nattily dressed conductor.

Here's the engine going by the platform, since they don't have a way to turn around, it runs backwards out, and forwards back to the museum.

And off they went.

I noodled around Carroll Park and the golf course for a little bit, then headed back to the stadium to catch Kathleen at the finish.  At 2:20 clock time I gave up, and headed home, the finish area was a total cluster to get into, to try and find her.   So I pedaled back to the house and got my act together, sold the old exhaust off the Subaru.  Kathleen turned up, she had a pretty terrible race, some sort of weird knee pain?   So we went and drowned our sorrows at the Red Star for lunch.