13.1

Race day started at 4:30am in Nashville on Saturday. We woke up to the sound of pouring RAIN..ugh, I hate running in the rain. Lisa, Eileen and I left the hotel at 5am and didn't get to the start line until after 7am. Apparently Nashville doesn't have a good system for directing traffic for the race.

The Country Music Half-Marathon started at 7, but there were so many waves of starters, we jumped in the long line of (slower) racers. About 3 minutes before we crossed the start line, the rain stopped and never made another appearance. How lucky!

The whole experience was amazing! I had never run a half-marathon, but there was so much more city and crowd support than some of the 10 milers I've run. It was motivating, and so were the live bands playing inspirational songs along the course. I was pretty nervous about being really slow, but I actually ended up having one of my better races and completed it in under 2 hours. I felt like the miles were clipping by until I hit mile 11 and 12...those were tough and the whole course was pretty hilly (my legs were sore until the following Thursday). Lisa and Eileen were rockstars and had great times too!

It took us quite a while to get out of the parking lot, but after Lisa started directing traffic, we sailed out (it's so obvious she's from New York).

We hit the honky-tonk bars the rest of the day and night on Saturday. We met up with Rachel's cousin Tim and his cronies at the Second Fiddle.

We later found out that Joe (Rach's Dad) was up early tracking all of our race time results live on the web! He is THE best sports fan! And of course, we made a stop into my fav, Tootsies.

On Sunday, the gals and I dropped in on Nathan, Hollie, Charlie, Kaylee, and Jake. I am so impressed at how easy they make having triplets look! They have a beautiful home and were great hosts.

We rounded out the weekend with a mad dash for souvenirs on Broadway. In our night out on Saturday, Lisa made me put a cool pair of cowboy boots on hold (with PINK stars), and I did end up purchasing them completely sober (unlike Lis, who bought a genuine Stetson leather cowboy hat Saturday night!)