The short version of the report is: "I set a PR by a minute".
And here goes the long version:
Anthony, the kids and I all made the trek to Nashville. We stayed South of Nashville on the way to Brentwood because all the hotels in the area were booked. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to run the race until pretty late in the game!
On race day, I got up at 5, got ready, opened the door and was shocked to see that it was raining outside! I was in the car by 5:20, thinking I'd be parked at the stadium, by the finish line, way before 6 a.m. and have plenty of time to catch a shuttle to the start. Not so much... I sat in traffic for 30 minutes. I guess that's what happens when you run a race with more than 30,000 participants! I finally made it to the stadium, parked my car and waited in line in the rain to board a shuttle. I made it to the starting area around 6:50, barely enough time to drop off my gear bag, grab 3 cookies, two gulps of water and head to my corral, look around for two minutes before the gun went off. Never mind that I needed to use the bathroom. The lines to the porta potties were never ending and no way I was using one of those anyway!!!
They started the race in waves. There were 32 waves based on projected finish times. I was in wave #5.
The race was fun. Of course, I found myself curing, wondering what in the world I was doing running for almost two hours straight for nothing, thinking how my legs started to hurt, how I needed to go to the bathroom, etc. etc. etc. but the live bands along the course, the thousands of people cheering us on with "we're so proud of you", "looking good" and so on was amazing. They also had a few cheerleading groups cheering for us. I won't lie, I had thoughts of knocking a few out with their pitchy/screechy "R-U-N-N-E-R-S - GO RUNNERS!" at an octave I couldn't even duplicate! One of my favorite part of the course was probably around mile 5 or so when the Elite runners were finishing a loop we were just about to start and we crossed path, everyone in my proximity was cheering on the Elites and a few of us were cheering extra loud when the first female runner came through!
I wasn't thrilled by my time but given the fact that I ran my previous (and 1st!) race in Germantown, which is pretty much flat, compared to Nashville, which is hilly, I really shouldn't complain. I ran the half (13.1 miles) in 1:47:32, which puts me as the 392nd female to cross the line, 80th in my age category. My running partner, Debbie, smoked it at 1:43:08, she got in 44th in our age group.
I guess my perspective should be that 13,085 females were slower than me since 13,477 females finished the 1/2 marathon... of course there are all the lunatics that ran the full!
My lovely neighbors sent me some love by TPing my house, changing the house number on my mailbox from 1313 to 13.1 with chalk, writing "Sabine doesn't go all the way" on the sidewalk, etc. Gotta love 'em.
