Monday, October 10, 2011

Finisher, part 2

So this second part is coming a bit later than planned.  I am having trouble finding time to blog.

The Friday before the race, my wonderful friend and I headed out to the race expo.  There we got our race packets and visited all the different vendors.  I picked up some swag and purchased some of my own.   We also met up with my friend's friend who was also running the race.

The meal before the race is apparently very important.  I have never paid much attention to it.  Apparently that is OK too.  My friend's husband is a very good cross country coach and he said just to eat normally and not carbo-load or anything.  We had pizza for dinner and it was wonderful.

After a good night's sleep we were up and ready to run.  We drove to downtown Nashville and walked to the Country Music Hall of Fame where the starting and finishing line was located.  At this point I was on my own.  My friend and I were in different corrals based on our mile time.  Before I knew it we were off and running.  And running....and running.  I still had not come to terms with the fact that I would be running 5k further than I ever had before.  I knew I could do it. but I still had reservations.  My friend's husbands and children watched us run and the did a fair amount of running too.  They moved several times to see us through the course.  Around mile 6 or so I saw my friends from Divinity school and church.  They had even made a sign for me "GO MRNO!"  One of them even ran with me for a few minutes.

There were good things and bad things about knowing where I was on the course.  I was not exactly sure of the course but I knew where I was in Nashville and I knew where I ended.  Mile 10 was very close to the finish line but then you have to make a turn and go up a hill, across a river, through the Titan's LP field and over a very steep bridge and back to the Country Music Hall of Fame for a total of 3.1 more miles.  They actually went better than I anticipated and beat my goal time of 2:10.  One thing I will say about this course is that it is hilly.  You are either going up or coming down.  There seemed to be no flat parts at all. 

I ran 13.1 miles.  I did it in 2 hours 6 minutes and 51 seconds.  Well at least that is what my watch said.  My timing chip broke so there was no official time for me.  The very nice timing people went to the back-up timing to add me to the official finishers roster.  It feels great to be an official finisher.

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