The Nashville Country Music Half Marathon

On Thursday Shersti, Dana and I packed the car, left the hubbies and kiddos at home, and headed to Nashville for the weekend! Friday we picked up our race packets, walked around the Fitness Expo, and hit the town to do some touristy stuff.
First stop: A Nashville classic, The Wild Horse Saloon for some lunch.

Next stop: The Country Music Hall of Fame. Which turned out to be a disappointment, and I'm even a fan of country music. It was overpriced and there was not much that interested me. I did take a picture of my favorite thing at the Hall of Fame which is this super cool dress that was worn by Carrie Underwood. Wow! That's a lot of dress!

For dinner we carb loaded at Macarroni Grill then headed back to our hotel to get a good night sleep for what lay ahead of us on Saturday morning . . .

The Nashville Country Music Marathon

35,000 runners cross the starting line with wind, rain, thunder, lightning, hail, and tornadoes in the forecast.
YeeHaw!
Despite the possibility of nasty weather we were happy to be there and ready to run 13.1 miles!

The spectators had all sorts of funny signs like this one that said,

"RUN TO BEAT THE RAIN!"

Another of my favorites was,

"RUN LIKE A TORNADO IS COMING!"

And sure enough just as we crossed the finish line the rain came! Unfortunately, that meant a lot of runners did not get to finish their race since everyone was pulled off the course due to the severe weather. It's not every race you get a medal and they tell you not to hold it to close to your body because of the lightning! Many of the full marathon runners were only allowed to complete a half marathon, and others were pulled off the course at mile 20 or 22. I can't even imagine how frustrating that would have been! To train so hard, to get so close, and to not be allowed to finish.

Anyway, we finished the half marathon in 2 hours and 43 minutes. That's an avgerage of 12.4 minutes per mile. It really was a great experience and I would run another half marathon again. I liked the challenge, but didn't feel like it was too extreme. It was a fabulous girls weekend away! Thanks to John and Matt for watching the kids so us girls could play!