Country Music 1/2 Marathon - Nashville, TN

This was a great race!!! I ended up going with a friend of a friend, Christie. We were roomates for the trip. I flew to Nashville around 2pm on Friday, the day before the race and just made it to the Race Expo in time to pick up my packet and my number!! We stayed at the Maxwell House Hotel outside of downtown. They really catered to the runners, having a great pasta dinner the night before the race and a shuttle to take us to the race start bright and early! We woke up at 4:00am to catch and early shuttle to the race start. Had a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast and my pre-race drink on the way to the race. We were at the start pretty early and there was a little rain shower beforehand. The race ended up starting early because they were calling for some major thunderstorms to hit later in the morning that day. We got the race started without incident. The course was much hillier than I had expected!! Up and Down, Up and Down, Up and Up and Down . . . neverending! I wasn't really prepared for the hills but tried to battle through the best I could. Finished the race in 2:16 - about a 10:20 min/mile pace.

After the race was the true disaster! We waited forever for our shuttle bus which as it turned out many other people were waiting for too! It was raining and windy with nasty thunderstorms rolling through. Christie and I got tired of standing around, especially after just finishing the race, so us and about 6 or 7 other people who were all staying at our hotel decided to start walking back to the hotel, 3.5 miles away! It was pouring, thunder and lightening and one of the wettest walks home ever! There was flooding on the sidewalks and roadways that we were on trying to get back to the hotel. We got home . .. but I was definitely soaked more than I have possibly ever been.

We got back to the hotel and I stuffed my sneakers with newspaper to help them dry out and then we took a nap to recover!!

On Sunday, the next day we spent time touring Nashville, the outlets and even took a trip out of town to check out a local winery. It wasn't the best wine, but at least we had a picnic amongst some beautiful scenery!

The flight home was relatively uneventful. I'd definitely recommend this race again - it was alot of fun!!