2013 Summary!

2013 has come to an end!  And if you remember from our very first post our goal for 2013 was to run one race every month.  If we doubled up one month, we still had to run one the next month.

Unfortunately we didn't hit every month, August and October ended up being very poor and busy.  We were prioritizing and budgeting as Ben likes to call it for the Disneyland Half Marathon in August, and in October was busy with football season and getting ready for #500Strong for homecoming.

We had some awesome memories however!

From our first run at Grassmere Zoo in Nashville for the Zoo Run Run then heading over and grabbing some spiked milkshakes at Burger Republic.

Starting 2013 off Right with the Zoo Run Run at Grassmere!

Then doubling up in February and doing the Royal Family 5K followed by the Princess Half Marathon!

Royal Family 5K at EPCOT

 And, while we didn't know it at the time, we were finishing half the runDisney Coast to Coast Challenge with running the Princess Half Marathon!

Princess Half Marathon in Disney World!

 While i'm not sure if it was the best idea, we certainly tested the limits running in the elements of the 2013 Charlotte Spartan Race

Then making it a family affair in March at the Color Run!

Color Run with the Famliy!

Then we headed to Georgia for the 2nd Annual Party of the Southland Adventure Weekend for Warrior Dash!

PartyOTS Adventure Weekend 2013

We brought a couple newcomers with us for Foam Fest in Nashville.  While it was our least favorite race of the year, the Banderas made it much better!

BANDERAS!

Then we all busted out our #Swag for the first Urban Obstacle Course by Muddy Buddy!

#SWAG

We learned at the Fourth of July 10K that after a 10K, 2 beers is my limit for re-hydration.  3 beers, and I feel terrible.

Sisters at the Fourth of July 10K

Then we missed our first Tennessee home game in 20 years to complete the runDisney Coast to Coast Challenge at the Disneyland Half Marathon!

After just running through the castle

We met some friends from college as they also completed their Coast to Coast Challenge.

The whole crew at the Disneyland Half Marathon!

Then we nearly froze to death at the BoroDash in Murfreesboro on Thanksgiving!

Ben and Jenn at the starting line!

And we finished it off with the Christmas Story 10K virtual Race!

It's a Major Award!

We look forward to repeating some races in 2014, trying some new ones, and continue to run in our drinking shoes!

Foam Fest - Nashville

I've been looking forward to this race for a while. They advertised it like crazy on every website I'd visit.  Foam, Mud, Inflatable Slip in Slides...count me in!  So we signed up for it.  It was the 1st weekend in May so the weather should be gorgeous and we'd be good to go.  We'd invited a couple friends to run it with us, some friends who ran the Color Run earlier that year.

For some unknown reason in started raining in May...and never stopped.  It rained the entire month.  The weather in Nashville changes quickly.  It can be shorts weather in January and hoodie weather in July.  It was May 4th and it was cold.  Like 45 degrees cold, and raining and we had Foam Fest.

This race taught us to read reviews of races before we run them.  Obstacle Races are very popular now and I'm afraid we got sucked into one that was thrown together.  We parked our sweet Honda Element in a field, that was flooded.  We pulled in and I was afraid we'd never get it back out.  (We did thankfully)

We went to check in and it seemed like no one knew what to do.  We were handed a random number that didn't match those of our other teammates, the poor ladies at the tables were freezing - we later found out that they had hired help from a temp agency and those poor people didn't know they'd be working outside, they didn't know what obstacle races were, they were freezing, muddy and miserable and I was so appreciative that they were there handing us water, checking our bags among other things.

My only picture from Foam Fest 2013

We finally just decided to run in the next wave.  I wasn't sure what wave we were in, I wasn't even sure if they were checking to make sure we were running in the right wave but with no one to tell us we figured it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.

It was fun, more hills than I was anticipating, and very muddy. It reminded me of the hell race that was the Charlotte Spartan Race in 2013.  The more we ran the colder it got.  We got to one of the long slip n slides that they advertise.  They had run out of gas for the generator so it was down so that was a bummer.

Then we got to the mecca.  The GIANT slide they advertise at the end.  One of the slides was down because some dumbass had climbed up it in cleats and torn a giant hole in it.  The other one had ripped some other way and where there should have been 3 people going up it at a time they were letting one person up.  We tried to decide if we wanted to wait in this giant line - while our bodies cooled off from running and we got cold - or just skip it.  We decided we couldn't skip it, after all, it's the big attraction.  That'd be like going to Disney World and skipping Space Mountain!

We waited....and waited....and waited....finally after about an hour we got to go down it.  It was fun, I don't know that I'd wait in the line again.  We finished, pushed a couple cars out of the grass so we could get the Element out, and left.

It was Cinco de Mayo so you know this girl headed out to get her some margaritas!  We headed to Rosepepper Cantina here in Nashville where they charged us $2 per extra (after 1) basket of chips.  TWO DOLLARS!  Sorry Rosepepper, this girl will be making her own Pineapple Margaritas from now on that's ridiculous!  But we did learn about this new "shot" called a banderas or "flag".

The Ben's and their banderas

You set out three shot glasses and you fill one with lime juice, one with tequila, and one with tomato juice, and take them in that order one right after the other.

Holy. Cow.

They'll destroy you.  You cannot even taste the tequila after the tomato juice.  It was delicious.

While the day was fun, I want to encourage you to do your research before signing up for races.  Make sure it's a reputable company, make sure the reviews are good. Check them out on Facebook - if nothing else these races should all have Facebook pages, if they don't that's probably a red flag.