THE REST OF OUR TRIP
Summary: it was great! We had fun with our friends, there was lots of great outdoors time with the weather mostly cooperating (which exceeded expectations for Sept in the Keys), and the kids are just getting more and more pleasant to travel with.
We even made it to Miami Beach for a Labor Day BBQ lunch with Poppy on the way back!
I hit the gym on both Sunday and Monday morning (it was an awesome and uncrowded gym and everyone was asleep so I figured why not!?), and even enjoyed a little solo walk along the marina.
On Sunday we headed to the Lagoon at Grassy Key (5 min from Hawk’s Cay where we were staying) — our friends wanted to wakeboard and our kids wanted to do this course:
The kids did flips and jumped off of everything high and I went on too, just happy to make it around. Ha!
Then we hit up Sweet Savannah’s (in Marathon, ~10 min away) for ice cream. AND free arcade games.
We headed back to eventually shower and relax and then headed out to dinner at Robbie’s / Hungry Tarpon. The dinner was great, but Hungry Tarpon was the right name because our friends’ 9 year old got bitten while feeding the fish! (He is okay but we were all mildly traumatized).
DESPITE all that we had a great night and the weather was lovely, complete with sunsets. A took this pic from the car on the way back:
Everyone went to bed at some point and on Monday we had a resort breakfast (the other days we just made breakfast from groceries in our villa) and packed up and headed back. Josh and I marveled at our (relative) efficiency in packing/resetting compared to when kids were little.
We did run into traffic on the way back but were entertained by a Money for Couples episode plus Rich Roll’s Jenny Simpson interview. I did not love every aspect of this interview (I felt the host was bending over backwards to say “RUNNING ISN’T BAD FOR YOU, EVERYONE, DON’T GET IT TWISTED!”) and felt they would have benefited from a medical expert on the mic, but I do love Jenny — she was great, and I enjoyed hearing her story in more detail.
(To elaborate a bit further, there was one point when they said something like “trust me, if you’re listening to this and worried about it, you DON’T HAVE THIS” and I was like well hey, at least one person does. I know ARVC is relatively rare, but I also think the interview would have been a great opportunity to tell people experiencing concerning symptoms associated with exercise not to ignore them. I ignored my own because I didn’t know; thankfully everything ended up okay, but it easily could have not. I DID love Jenny’s emphasis on teaching people not to be afraid to perform resuscitation and to become comfortable with AED use!)
RE-ENTRY
I often struggle with re-entry but for whatever reason, I would say this one felt a bit above average. It was CLUTCH that I had recorded a podcast ahead of time so that I was not feeling weighed down by creative work deadlines on Monday, and I spent some time planning the week on Monday morning. I used Instacart so that we had something around for dinner (frozen pizza + salad, woohoo!) and we managed to unpack and generally reset most things in a frenetic ~2 hr period from ~5 – 7 pm upon arriving home from Poppy’s.
It is definitely a busy week around here (kids activities are picking up) but it feels doable, and I have ~2 “normal” weeks before leaving to travel again in late September.
Definitely overall a success and we will probably do it again 🙂 with the same friends! (This was our 3rd trip to Hawk’s Cay with them – first in 2021, then in 2025 and 2026!).
11 Comments
I’m about 2/3 of the way done with the podcast right now. I totally agree with you. I will say that just the fact that she’s talking about this publicly will raise awareness, and I get that she doesn’t want people to be afraid of sports and being active. I think the message could have been “Do all your sports and don’t be afraid- odds are very very slim that you have this. BUT if you do experience x,y, or z, go get yourself checked out.” I did like the emphasis on how people performing resuscitation saved her life, and how important it is that people be willing to jump in and do that.
ANYWAY. your time in the keys sounds really fun- you definitely lucked out with the weather! And yay for a painless reentry.
i listened to the episode 40 min this morning. I liked his question of whether running has accelerated the scaring process, but the answer was unclear. given how rare it is and that genetic testing is not accurate, it left me wonder what’s the overall take is, is it risky to run like her did if she knew she had the condition but maybe would not have advanced as fast if she didn’t run that much? I also agree that it’s not that rare after all, i know two runners that have it.
and yes, she is just great in all sense.
there is no debate about whether exercise advances this disease. It absolutely does, and that’s why so many diagnosed are endurance athletes (not all! but many, ESPECIALLY gene elusive, like Jenny and me). To be clear obviously most people DO NOT have this susceptibility – I get that! But if you do, activities like running or other endurance sports will bring it out. That is not up for debate it is in the scientific literature.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23871885/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29929667/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33200174/
That’s it! That’s the important information missing in this episode.
also I definitely don’t think she knew she had it!!! (Obviously neither did I!)
We went to Marathon this past spring break and did that same obstacle course at the Lagoon at Grassy Key. It was hard! I was sore for days, lol!
Hi Sarah, Would you be open to exploring your VO2max journey without running in the mix? I’m hopeful strength and walking still count for something!
My VO2 max has never been great (but I mean . . I also had an abnormal cardiac MRI and slightly decreased RV function when I was diagnosed so I don’t think I’m the typical example). I think it peaked at 44 when I was training a ton, and now hovers at 34 (I never look – had to check! That’s just what my Apple Watch says). I purposely don’t do any sustained endurance work though my HR def gets up there while lifting periodically. I don’t feel ‘out of shape’ really ever but I can be limited by my cardiac capacity if that makes sense plus the fact I don’t WANT to push it like crazy bc I know I’m not supposed to. If I had to run 10 miles to escape a predator I’d be in trouble, it’s def true! And my body composition if anything is better (I think) than in my mostly-running days.
I’ll have to give it a listen! I think this and other conditions that worsen with exercise are likely understudied and underestimated in prevalence because most people will never exercise hard enough to find out they have it. I agree that the message should have been, “Please do exercise! But if you have syncope, chest pain, palpitations, or just plain feel particularly awful one day… go see your doctor.” Ofc this intersects with the phenomenon of women getting blown off at the dr, and the concern that this will happen combined with the desire for there to be nothing actually wrong with you… maybe this is something you should delve into? I mean, as a physician myself I get blown off… it is much worse for non-doctors and non-white women I am certain.
Yes I am SURE!!! At least in my case I wasn’t really ever blown off (well, by anyone but myself!).