Country Music Half Marathon!

For some reason I'm competitive with Ben. Entirely too competitive.  Regardless of what we're playing he gets called a cheater, whether he's cheating or not. (let's be honest thought, he had to cheat if he was beating me. right?)  I've broken Xbox controllers, thrown golf clubs, and signed up for races that I am no where near ready for.

Ben wanted to run the Country Music Half Marathon.  He asked if I wanted to.  The answer was a big fat no.  But then I realized that he'd have yet another medal than I would.  So, being the medal whore that I am, I said yes.

He registered us for it maybe 2 months ago, not enough time for me to complete the usual ~12-15 week training schedule of most half marathon training guides but enough time for me to be in decent shape...

It was official, I was running the Country Music Half Marathon with no training

Then March happened, where we had something going on every single weekend in March, then April...where we had a race every single weekend in April. And in the 2 months leading up to the Country Music Half Marathon I had run a grand total of 11 miles.  That's right...11.

Flat Runner is Ready!

So we get all our items ready for the race and set alarms at 4:00am to head downtown to get parked then to the starting line.  Race started at 7:00.  We were in corral 24 so we got to the starting line around 7:40ish where I proceeded to have a complete breakdown.  I'm talking tears and everything.  I was so nervous about this race as soon as we hit that starting line that I thought I was going to have to wait for the next corral.

Waiting for what seemed like forever for them to call on corral 24

They counted down and we started running, immediately I felt better, I guess that anxiety of it all just caught up to me. From then on I ran/walked for the next 13.1 miles.  Met some people along the way, talked to several people with runDisney shirts on about races.  Heard that our upcoming Wine and Dine Half Marathon is the best one at Disney.

I hope this is us in 40 years

I've lived in Nashville for 22 of my 31 years on this Earth...how is it possible that I still don't know where I am in the city?  We ran around the naked statues, Demonbreun, 12 South, Belmont area and I was lost the whole time.  I do know at some point people were giving out free tequila shots.  I definitely took part in their generosity.

Ben's goal was to finish this is 2:30, my goal was to finish this.......that same day.  Around the 2:30 mark I sent Ben a text saying that I thought he'd be finishing soon, but if he hadn't he's still awesome in my book.  He said he had bonked around the 10 mile mark.  It started off cool, in the low 40s, but it heated up quickly. Everyone back with me were starting to feel the effects of the hot air.

Photo: Jamie Richardson Hurt

I got back to Grumpy's and had one final bridge to traverse and I'd be finished.  I called Ben to let him know I had less than a mile left so he could take pictures of me and meet up at the finish line.  As soon as I crossed the finish line I got a text from him: "Sitting in a chair next to gate 5 at the finish line med tent. I'm fine but trying not to vom banana and Gatorade."

I grabbed all the post race stuff they handed me - Gatorades, water, cold towels, bananas, cookies and most importantly chocolate milk, my favorite post run drink - and headed to find Ben.

Ben had committed the great mistake that Tim committed after the Disneyland Half Marathon including the blue banana vomit story.  Ben was one minute under pace when he got to the 10 mile mark, then bonked. The last 3.1 miles of his half took him 48 minutes and crossing the finish line he chugged anything they handed him.  Which included a 24 oz bottle of Gatorade, 2 bottles of water, and a banana.  Way too much right after running for 2 hours and 45ish minutes.

I found him and we headed to the car where he asked if I'd drive.  That's my key as to when he's not feeling good.  I never drive.  Ever.  So when he asks me to I know he's either really tired or really sick.

I got in and headed back to Murfreesboro.  I told him if he needed me to stop to let me know.  He did, as we barely got out of town.  Under the overpass of Harding, Ben unleashed hell, or at least 24 ounces of Gatorade, 2 bottles of water and a banana.  And felt like a new man.

Voiding

Somebody cue up: "Don't you forget about me"

We got home, took ice baths, ate something and rested for a little while and headed to Franklin for the Main Street Festival where we logged anther 4 miles looking at the booths.  We went to get supper where I almost fell asleep at the booth and I was in bed and passed out by 7:30.

ahhhhh!

It was a great race, live bands and entertainment throughout the race.  Friendly volunteers and great people to run with.  Highly recommend this race, if you are looking for a nice, hilly, potentially hot half marathon this is a great option.

Tap N' Run - Nashville

On the home stretch of our four races in four weeks for April!  We ran the Tap N' Run last Saturday.  It was nice to not be going out of town for the weekend!  We were able to hang around the house, work on projects and then head up to Nashville to run that afternoon.

 Obviously this race is in the afternoon.  Who wants to wake up to run and drink beer in the morning (other than my younger more "youthful exuberant" self as the academic probation adviser once called me in college).  The race was at 5:00, so we headed downtown around 3:00 to go to packet pickup at BB Kings.  We of course took the Jeep as it was a BEAUTIFUL day, but that also meant we forgot Ben's parking pass for his lot downtown.
No problem, I have this all figured out.  He can drop me off at BB Kings, I'll get the packets and he can go to the parking lot by Hooters and we'll meet there.  He drops me off, I go in get the packets, and head back out and realize due to the traffic he's not even a block from where he dropped me off.

I sprint...full speed to catch him before he turned on 3rd where I knew there wouldn't be any cars.  I was probably 5 feet from him, reaching for the door knob, out of breath so I couldn't holler, and he makes the turn and leaves me in the dust.....of course he got a huge kick of of this as I walked slowly to the car so we could grab lunch at SATCO. (yum!)

After we scarfed some tacos and cheese dip we headed back downtown to run.  The costumes.  Oh man everyone was in costume.  I wore a tie-dye shirt and a beer mug hat leftover from St. Patrick's day and I was under-dressed.  There was a man dressed as a baby, ninja turtles, Mario Kart, a couple of guys barefooted since they were hanging out in a bar downtown, heard about the race, signed up and ran it barefooted.

the starting corral

They were having issues with the sound, when I say issues, I mean ear-piercing feedback.  You'd think in Music City someone would be able to work a PA.

Starting Line Beer!

We got in the starting corral and were handed a beer - not a full beer, I think it's around 5 ounces.  They count us down and we chug and run, we ran down 2nd, up Broadway, turned on 3rd then headed towards the dreaded Pedestrian Bridge.  The degree of the arch of this bridge is insane, ESPECIALLY if you're trying to run it.  This is by no means a fast race, almost everyone jogs or walks it, roughly 99% of the people walk the bridge.  We got to the top of it, a Saturday evening in April means one thing to all high schoolers, Prom.  There was a group of people who obviously didn't check to see what was going on downtown as they headed to the bridge to take prom pictures.  A group of maybe 16 kids on one side of the bridge and their parents on the other side...and hundreds of runners between.  They tried to take advantage of a break in the runners for the obligatory "jumping picture" but they didn't account for Ben's ridiculous speed, as he ran, and jumped at the exact moment they did.  I'd love to see a copy of that picture.

Just a couple of Hulks

This Hulk knew the JT dance that was playing over the speaker so obviously she had to complete it.

Then at the bottom, another chug station.  We go around the stadium, back across the other bridge to Printer's Alley to another chug station, then back around to 2nd and are done.  It's only a 4K so it's certainly not that difficult.

Printer's Alley

This is the 2nd time we ran this.  We also did it in 2012.  Would we do it again?  Probably not.  Would we recommend it to people? Absolutely.

It's a great race, pretty well organized.  I wish they had more entertainment throughout the course, even if it's just speakers blasting music.  It was completely dead on the other side of the river so anything would have been nice.

We scooped up our awesome medals and headed to Bro's for ENTIRELY too much crawfish with the family.

Finish Line Medals and Beers!

Warrior Dash - Georiga - 2014

Finally Finally FINALLY, my favorite race and race weekend of the year.  Warrior Dash.  This is the 3rd year we've run as a group (hubs and John went in  2011).  You can read about last year's here!  If you are looking into running an obstacle race or mud run, hands down this is the one to do.  They are by far the most organized race we've done.  (I'm not including Spartan in this since our experience with that race was less than the "norm" as far as races go.  Read about it here)  Last year they had some...snafus to be nice.  Parking was a nightmare, buses to get to parking was a nightmare.  They owned up to it in a big way.  They apologized and offered all runners from that race I think at least a 50% off discount for this years race if not more.  And this race was DEFINITELY above par.  Minus a back-up at Goliath (their big and new obstacle this year) there we had zero issues.

2014 Warrior Dash - Mountain City, GA

We've had everything planned out for AT LEAST a month, probably 2 months.  Of course, the curse of the new runner hits.  I've probably talked about this before, we have a theory that if someone comes and runs with us who has never run with us before, something bad happens.  See my post on the Spartan Race where we had several new people running with us and it almost killed us!  The Tuesday before the race, so 3 days before we were heading to Mountain City, GA our cabin rental place called Ben.  They had a pipe burst 2 weeks before and "thought it would be fixed by now" so we had to cancel our reservations there and find somewhere new.  Back to the Murder Cabin!  We stayed here in 2012, it is seriously a set of a scary movie.  You know how I know it's the set of a scary movie?  It has a book case...no real hotels have book cases, if you still question it, the copy of Deliverance that we left in 2012 was still on the bookcase.

We arrived Friday evening and proceeded to get ready to properly fuel our bodies for a race, with a shrimp boil and beer. It was delicious.  After we devoured it, we chilled for a little while and went to bed.

Pre Race Crew

The next morning we got up early and headed to the race site.  It was awesome.  Completely different than the previous year as the course was basically completely reversed.  It was uphill both ways, seriously you began and ended the race going uphill.  Jerks. We had to swim through a lake that was absolutely freezing, climb over cars, jump fire, (successfully) traverse A frame walls.  It was a great race.

Warrior Roast

Goliath

Goliath

After Ben almost killed a photographer on Goliath we headed to the post race party.  Beer and Turkey Legs.  You really can't ask for a better combination.  We hung out there then decided to head back to the cabin and drink the beer we had already purchased.  Apparently we thought we were in college still because 5 of us drank nearly 40 beers...excluding the ones we threw like grenades when someone didn't describe something well enough during our game of Charades (phone app....where you put the phone to your head and you have to guess what the word is based on the other person's description).  We grilled out entirely too much steak, then of course at it all, complete with baked potatoes, watched Boondock Saints at senior citizen audio level and crashed.

Post Race!

Turkey Legs!

Post-Race Party!

2 years ago we followed up Warrior Dash with white water rafting on the Ocoee.  Why not do it again this year?  It was awesome last time.  What we didn't realize was that Warrior Dash was a month earlier this year as compared to 2012.  When I say the water was cold, that's a severe understatement, if I were to say it was freezing, also a severe understatement.  Was it awesome?  Of course.  There were only 2 boats of people, then they had about 4 or 5 boats of trainees.  It was crazy to see them in their training.  That's a tough job.  Hats off to anyone who does it.

It was an awesome weekend with amazing friends.  I get to run another Warrior Dash in Ohio this year, it's going to have some GIANT shoes to fill if it's even going to come close to the race weekend we just had.

Glow Run - Chattanooga, TN - 2014

I cannot believe we were in April before we did our first race this year.  Last year by this time we had already completed 5 races!

There are some races that I learn about on my various webpages that I simply MUST do.  Glow Run was one of them.  To my knowledge, they are the only glow run with medals, yes I'm a medal whore, and they are GIANT AND Glow in the Dark!

So I proceeded to start my campaign, emailing them multiple times to come to Nashville, citing that other races have multiple races in Nashville with a huge turnout.  Sadly, they didn't come to Nashville.  BUT they were 180 miles away in Chattanooga.  This had to happen.  Then I had to start my next campaign.  Convincing the hubs to let us drive to Chatt for a race.  We decided to drive down but only for the race.

The race started at 8:30, so we left Nashville at 3:30, met some friends for supper (word to the wise: running with a belly full of pimento cheese WILL come back to haunt you), and headed to the race.

It was awesome.  Very small.  Only 2000 runner/walkers.  They had pre-race zumba, free glow in the dark face painting, glow merch, and the brightest race shirts known to mankind.

The race was great, very well organized.  I HIGHLY recommend this race.  I'm glad too because I had been excited about it for quite a while!