Taste of Core Sound

Conditions were ideal this morning for our final "long" run of six miles.  The Crystal Coast 10-K is next Saturday, so the plan was to run a nice, easy five miles followed by a final mile at race pace or faster.  As I have mentioned in this blog over the past few weeks, this is a training technique that I have used for many years with success; it seems to prepare the body for "digging deep" at the end of a race.  Over my past three long runs of six, eight, and ten miles, that final last mile dropped from 11:52 to 11:36 to 10:52.  This morning my final mile dropped again, to 10:36, my fastest mile in a long time.

We had planned for tonight's dinner a long time ago.  It is called a "Winter Taste of Core Sound," and it is a benefit for the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harker's Island, which is nearly ready to open again after extensive damage from Hurricane Florence.  It is one of our favorite area museums and we hope our contribution helped them.  Martha bought the tickets on-line a long time ago - No. 1 and 2.  It pays to plan ahead!

As they did last year, the organizers held the event at Southern Salt restaurant in Morehead City, which is so much more convenient for us than the former location (in the Museum building on Harker's Island) and has generated so much more interest that I think they have decided to hold it here from now on.  Southern Salt is the perfect place, out in the sound in a long building with plenty of windows; Martha said it reminded her of being on a ferry or a ship.

Tickets this year were limited to only 200, fewer than last year by a hundred, and it was pleasant not to be packed in quite so tightly as we got in line for the oyster bar, and then a delicious "downeast" buffet dinner of fried oysters, scallops, shrimp, chicken & pastry, stewed duck, collard greens, sweet "taters," corn bread and light rolls, and a small taste of "Albert's Lemon Pie," which must be a local favorite and a well-deserved one.  Bless Albert's heart, whoever he is!

This was definitely not the kind of dinner to have the evening before a hard run, and we were thankful that we could indulge in fried oysters and shrimp, a rare departure from pasta and marinara sauce.

It was a wonderful evening, and although we did not bid on any of the many vintage duck decoys that were part of the silent auction, we are sure it was a success.  And what would we do with a $300 decoy?