Music City Half Marathon- Oct 2008

By the time I registered for my half marathon all of the hotels close to the race finish were long since full. I ended up at a rather ghetto Holiday Inn, although it did have a guitar shaped pool.

The race started a good 30 min late. This was fine with me since my stomach was all butterflies, which was due in part to the fact that I had a banana, 5 hour energy, and slim fast for breakfast. While we all waited I met Bridgette and Katie, who were training for their first full marathon and had already run 13 miles that morning. Overachievers.

The three of us set off, with the two of them keeping pace on their fancy Garmin GPS watches. This was fine as my 11 min pace was right in line with theirs. The route took us through a junk yard, out on a wetland preserve and ended up in the Predators stadium. There were only two aid stations and ZERO port o potties, forcing Bridgette to veer into some tall grass at one point. A girl fell about 8 miles in and the race officials had no plan for a way to get her back out. Runners all around me declared that the race was awful and they would never return. When we finally got to the finish line they had run out of medals so Katie gave me hers declaring that it would be tragic to run my first half marathon with no medal. I ran just a few steps further and to my surprise a good friend of mine from high school stood at the finish line with his camera poised for the shot! It was only halfway through the race that I realized I would have no way of taking a picture since I had come alone, so seeing him was doubly rewarding.

Finish time: 2:23:40

D.J. waited for me to shower and then we hit a fabulous Mexican restaurant. While we were eating I got a phone call. Turned out the girl who fell during the race broke her hip and couldn't use her ticket to the Auburn-Vanderbilt game so she gave them to a friend of mine who knew I would love to go! DJ and I left the restaurant and headed to the stadium for some pregaming. If you've ever been in the Vandy stadium you know that it is very, very steep and the seats are very, very close together. By halftime my quads were screaming from jumping up and down. We barely made it back to the car but it was worth it, although Auburn lost.

All in all, my first half marathon experience was a pretty good one.