Friday April 27th, 2012:
Since Sherri and her friends were coming from Columbia and I was coming from my home town, we decided to meet just before St. Louis and carpool the rest of the way to Nashville. We met up at 10:30am and were on our way to Music City. We didn't forward think enough to realize that our timing was going to put us in Nashville traffic right at rush hour. We arrived in the city at about 5:00pm and the expo was set to close at 7pm. No problem, we thought, we would just go to the expo prior to checking into the hotel. Problem was the affiliated kids run was going on downtown and it was nearly impossible to navigate down there. Every time we would begin to move from a stand still we would be detoured due to a road closed and have to sit again. Eventually we got nervous that we weren't going to make it to the expo at all before it closed and we decided that 2 of us would walk there (much faster!), get our packets, and then come back to the grid lock and switch out. Sherri and I went first. There was a humongous line to even get into the expo, which panicked us even more, and then separate long lines to wait in to get our bib, our tech tee, and our swag bag. Luckily while we were in line for the swag bag Jen and Heather texted that they had found parking and were on their way in. We got our necessities with time to spare for some booth visits, freebie grabs, and some photos.
After the Expo we headed to the hotel, checked in, and decided to carb load at our hotel's pasta buffet. It was made to order pasta dishes with soup and salad bar. The food was good, but due to the business the service was lacking. Jen's 'made to order' pasta dish was substituted with a different pasta noodle and as the waitress plunked it down in front of her she said they were out of penne and 'can you deal with that?' After dinner we went to our room and got all of our race clothes and gear laid out and ready for the next day. The race start time was 7am so we didn't waste any time with lights out.
Saturday April 28th, 2012:
I slept pretty good Friday night, but as with most race days I was wide awake by 4am staring at the ceiling. I didn't want to wake everyone up but at 5am I decided to finally get up and get going. The hotel had free bottled water and fruit in the lobby so I had a banana and a granola bar for breakfast. We had a 2 mile walk to the start line and headed out at 6:10am. Close to the start we saw a Jack in the Box restaurant and stopped in for a bathroom break knowing the porta-potties would be ridiculous. Other runners had the same plan though and we spent a little time in line there, but still so much better than a scotty potty. We realized then that it was super close to the start time and actually had to jog a bit to get there in time. We never did make it back to our corrals (14, 15, and 16) because we had to stop next to corral 11 for the singing of the National Anthem. When that was over the race was on so we jumped in at corral 11 to start. One good thing about being almost late for the race was that there was less time to be nervous before hand...although being somewhat nervous that you were going to miss the race wasn't great, but it was short lived.
The crowd was packed with over 30,000 runners...so surreal!
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| Ready to Rock the Rock n Roll Country Music Half Marathon! |
I carried my point and shoot camera with me during this race...I didn't take it out and very often but I liked having it for before and after the race without having to gear check. When I did try to take mid-race pictures they were pretty blurry, but here is one just after we started with a view of the first of MANY hills we would face in the next 13.1 miles.
Sherri and I ran together for the first 3 miles or so and then lost eachother at a water/gatorade station. We had said before the race that it was no big deal if we didn't stay together. Sherri had a calf injury going in and didn't want to push it too much and create more damage. I knew before hand that the hills were going to be a big factor for me. Remember the elevation diagram that was on the event website...
This is NOT AT ALL a good representation of the course! Those smooth inclines and declines were actually rolling hills throughout. I never felt like I wasn't either climbing up a hill or bracing myself down another one. Oh and I had the false idea that after mile 5 the worst would be over...it sure looks like it in the above diagram...but wrong-o, the hills just kept coming. Here is the elevation chart from my Garmin data.
And yes...I felt every single little blip on that graph! It was radonkulous!! And that steep hill at the end was super cruel. But more about that later.
Being a Rock n Roll Series race there were stages set up along the course with live bands playing. It was cool, but since I'm not much of a country music fan I still listened to my iPhone and only heard the bands when I was in very close proximity to them. One band though, which was on the biggest stage and right at a turn in the course was super good. They were singing "I Want Candy" when I ran by and I took out my headphones for that one. It got me really pumped up and that song has now found it's way into my running mix.
At about mile 5 I stopped for another cup of gatorade and water (I stopped at each and every station) and when I got going again I spotted the 2:00 hour pacer. I was feeling good at this point and decided I would try and stick with him if I could. Being in the pace group actually helped ease my mind about if I was going too fast or too slow, and helped the miles pass by faster. I was also super glad that I was with the pacer when the routes split...I definitely did not want to get on the full marathon track by mistake. The routes split at mile 11, and shortly after I stopped for fluids again. My legs were feeling pretty fatigued at this point and it was really hot and humid now. The temperature was definitely a factor, and on top of the continuous hills that still had never stopped, I wasn't able to catch back up with the pacer after that final fluid station. He was in my sights, but I could tell the distance between us was growing.
Then came the cruelest part of the race and when my mental aspect started to get the best of me. It happened after I saw the 12 mile marker. I told myself just 1 mile left, but it was so tough! There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was bearing down on us. It was so hot and humid and there was that evil uphill grade I was tackling. I had seen a two runners flat out on the roadside with volunteers helping them already. I knew I should only have about a half of a mile to go, but there was no finish line in sight. Also, and I'm seriously not exaggerating, there were more racers walking at this point than were running. I really wanted to walk too, and I was constantly checking myself to see if I was still sweating wondering if I felt like walking because I was starting to dehydrate again. I was still pouring out the sweat on that stupid hill up so I just kept running, knowing that I would regret walking so close to the end when it was finally over. But where was the finish line?!? I struggled through the longest 0.5 miles of the race wondering if it was ever going to end and why this mile felt like it was taking eons to complete. It was definitely the time warp feeling again. Then the course took a right turn which allowed an open view of the finish line...finally! It was so mean to have the finish line just after a 90 degree turn onto a side street!! At least at that point it was a downhill slope to the end. I was so happy to be done...and that I hadn't stopped and walked afterall.
The post race grabs were great at this race. I really enjoyed the cold wet towels they were handing out and the food and drinks were really good. Water and gatorade, of course, but also chocolate milk. Publix sponsored some free food tents and had all kinds of fruits, frozen strawberry cups, yogurt (if I liked yogurt), there were marathon bars, and other snack sized carb snacks. I really liked the medal too, it is a gold record design and super heavy.
I finished the race in 2:01:09. That's actually better than I had anticipated...I wanted to come in under 2:10 and thought that a time around 2:05 would be so awesome. So I was really happy with my time...it's just hard to be so close to the 2:00 mark and not go sub-2 hour. Hopefully I will get that goal on a flatter course at some point down the road. For now my PR is this race at 2:01:09.
Before the race we determined the letter I would be our meeting place post race. It wasn't long before we all found our way there. We were all happy to have that hot and hilly half behind us!
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| Heather, Jen, Sherri, and Me. |
The race ended at LP Field. We hung out a little bit there then started our walk back to the hotel.
The other girls sat in an ice bath when we got back to our room, but I just couldn't talk myself into that torture. Then we got ready and headed downtown to eat since we were all ravenous by that point. We ate at the Big River Brewery. Yummy!
We walked down Broadway and did a little sight seeing at the original Grand Old Opry. Being in Nashville was really cool and brought back a lot of memories from when we had lived there almost 14 years ago.
As part of the marathon there was a concert at the Bridgestone Arena later that night. Your bib served as your concert ticket and the artists were Gloriana and Rodney Atkins. Once again, I'm not a fan of country music but the concert was still a lot of fun. In between the performances they announced the 1st 2nd and 3rd place finishers for men and women in both the half and full marathon. They also announced that Sheryl Crow had run the half as well as Dave Ramsey.
We got pizza delivery in our room after the concert, watched SNL, then went to bed. Not too crazy of a girls weekend, but we were all pretty exhausted.
This race was tough, but I really liked it. I liked the format of the RnR series, and St Jude is such an awesome charity to contribute to. I ran in honor of Lily Pratt who had just lost her fight against cancer the week prior to the race at age 5. She was on my mind a lot during those 13.1 miles.
Once I got home and looked at my race results closer on the website I really felt proud of myself. I did the math...because I'm geeky like that...and I finished in the top 10% of women runners and in my age group for the half marathon. That really amazed me since this is the 3rd largest half marathon in the US. Very cool : )
Here are my split times via my Garmin data. You can tell mile 4 and mile 13 were mostly uphill climbs!
So like I said before I will definitely do another RnR series race. I'm actually planning on the one in St Louis in October. It's only 2 weeks after the Chicago Marathon, but hopefully my legs can take it.
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