Sandy Point Beach Resort, Restaurant and training for a half marathon. Lake Winnipesaukee, NH

Please bear with me as there is a story that goes with each review.  By not telling the full story I would feel like I wasn't giving you the real me, so here goes...

Each year I go through a lull in my work out routines.  I really am a runner at heart, among other sports, but running on that treadmill every single day gets really boring really fast.  Come early spring I start looking at some 5K's I can start training for.  This year March came around and I went on to www.coolrunning.com and one of the first things that popped up was the Big Lake 1/2 marathon along Lake Winni.

About three years ago I had signed up for the Rock and Roll half maraton in Virginia Beach but never ended up going so I promised myself that sometime in the near future I just had to run the half.

So I started my training in March following Ryan Hall's half marathon training guide.  Very quickly I burned out my already somewhat aching knee seeing as instead of taking days off I would just run at least three miles.  I ended up having to go see a physical therapist who unfortunately put me out of commission for two weeks due to a wrong stretch move on their part.  I then had a massage session with my friend Ginnette Ryan who was studying to become a certified massage therapist.  She gave me a new stretch to perform and followed it up by a great massage.  Miraculously after doing that one stretch it helped me overcome my knee problem that was actually hindering me from walking down the stairs at this point.  I took a few more days off and was back on the tread.  By this point I was about two weeks away from the half marathon.

I had booked a beach eficiency room at the Sandy Point Beach Resort right along the route of the half
marathon.  I wasn't expecting anything much for $80 a night.  We arrived a little late the night before the half marathon but the girl behind the front desk stayed and waited for us.  We checked in and the room was pretty much what my boyfriend said he expected "rustic."  Meanwhile I was surprised because for $80 you don't really expect a huge room and a full kitchen! 

The next morning that we woke up we fell in love with Lake Winni.  It turned out that we pretty much had the best room in the whole place, outside our window was a huge deck right overlooking the lake.

 

I went for my "short morning jog" of 13.1 miles which was also pretty fantastic.  The whole course was relatively easy and there were more water stations than I think anyone would know what to do with.  The finish line was only a half a mile from the motel which was perfect seeing as driving back along the running route may have been a problem since runners were still coming in pretty strong.

We spent the rest of the day exploring and playing at the arcade on the Weirs Beach boardwalk.
There needed to be some celebrating so we asked the guy at the front desk about the best place to eat out, and quietly joked that he'd probably send us over to the (Sandy Point) Restaurant right next door.  Fortunately he did just that.  Apparently it had just opened that day and the people were flocking in.  There was even a police officer guiding traffic. The prime rib and lobster really did turn out to be fantastic and we deemed this to be the hot spot, Club R.

We got home Sunday afternoon and were incredibly bummed out about not having a lake to walk out onto.  This was truly a perfect vacation spot and I have decided that I will most certainly be running the half marathon again next year and we plan on returning to our favorite spot in NH, Sandy Point Beach Resort and Club R.

So...let's review...
1. If you plan on really training for a half marathon for the first time, don't over do it and run 6 days a week.
2. If you plan on taking a short get away to Lake W seriously consider Sandy Point Beach Resort
3. If you have children who need to be entertained outside of doing the usual hiking, which there is a lot of right near the motel, you should definitely take them to Weirs Beach.
4. If you stay at Sandy Point, do not forget to go to Club R!

Look forward to the next review!

Linda