Whew! What a week!! Friday morning as soon as the kids were on the bus I took off for St. Louis to meet my friend, Laura, and two of her friends, Michelle and Katie, to drive to Nashville for my first ever half marathon.
At the same time Hannah was on a field trip with her class to Prairie Fork and my lovely friend sent me this photo.
The drive from St. Louis to Nashville was 6 hours and felt like it went fairly quickly. We made one stop in Paducah, Kentucky for lunch (don't eat at the McAllister's Deli there - they don't have it together) and went straight to the pre-race expo to pick up our packets. There was a shirt with the name of everyone who had registered! I didn't buy it...
Got our bib numbers, parking pass, swag, and beer bands!
This green screen photo is hilarious.
Saturday was race day! Oh my, THE NERVES!! We were up at 4:50am to prepare and park. We were advised to park by 6am but the night before a semi carrying a crane had hit an overpass and messed up the whole downtown traffic situation so I'm pretty sure everyone was running late. It's ok, we made it. It was a chilly 45 degrees but we knew we'd be warmer soon enough. This is the view of Nashville as we walked over the pedestrian bridge towards the start.
We wound our way through the crowd, found a lovely church who was opening it's doors for bathroom usage and stretching, and then located the bag check. They gave each runner a clear drawstring back to be checked at the starting line and then driven to the finish line for pick up. We all had things like clean clothes, a long sleeve, energy bars, candy (gotta get your sugars back up!), water bottle, and deodorant. Very useful things to have at the end. Runners started in corrals that left in intervals based on how long it was going to take them to finish the race. Laura and I were in 24 (around the 3 hour finish mark) and the other two ladies were in a faster paced 15.
Here we go! I was so nervous! We'd planned to run our own race and not try to stick together and that's exactly what happened. It's hard enough to finish the thing, let alone try to run at someone elses pace.
2 hours and 48 minutes later, I crossed the finish line! 13.1 miles! Holy cow, that was not easy. I know I'm smiling but let me tell you a little bit about my journey. At mile 7 I started seeing migraine auras and soon after could not see out of my right eye. Luckily, the headache didn't come, just the auras so I kept my left eye on the middle line of the road and focused on what I could see. At mile 10 it went away!! Hallelujah! I think I willed it away because I was just repeating "No, no, no, this can't happen right now!" in my head. Mile 10 is also when my body wanted to quit but I kept trudging and only walked at the water stations. During the run I also cycled through a lot of emotions. I nearly started crying because I was thinking about how supportive Mason has been since I started training and how he didn't hesitate at all to cover an extremely busy weekend at home and how lucky I am to have him. By the end my "run" was barely a run. During the last mile I could tell the migraine wasn't entirely gone and I just wanted to finish. I was SO HAPPY when I finally did but all I wanted to do was sit down. They had fences on either side lined with people handing out water, Gatorade, cookies, pretzels, bananas, and bagels. I took a water and hazily made my way to the end where I veered into the closest parking lot (we were outside of Nissan Stadium where the Tennessee Titans play), parked my butt under a tree, and put my head on my knees to try to get the migraine to stop. I did text the ladies to let them know where I was and some time later Laura found me. I really wasn't feeling well and told her I needed to find the medic tent. She informed me that I'd literally walked right past it to get to where I was - Haha! I went in and sat down and a nice lady was immediately concerned that I'd barely had any water since I'd finished. I hadn't felt like drinking any because I felt like I was going to throw up (it happens a lot when I have migraines). They gave me some disgusting Gatorade with extra salt that I could only take one sip of. At this point she asked if I wanted to ride in the wheelchair or the golf cart to the main medic tent to get an IV. I didn't think I needed one of those...she wasn't paying attention to the fact that I had a migraine, only that I hadn't had much water. Then another medic started comforting me and telling me that "it's OK, it's only a small needle." Laura kinda laughed behind me because she knew that wasn't the problem. I inexplicably started sobbing at this point. I think because this wasn't how it was supposed to go and because I had just pushed myself harder than ever before. But then I then threw up a few times (still while sobbing) in the grass and my head cleared a little bit and I felt well enough to finish most of my water and stopped crying. I'm sure the medics thought I was crazy. I sat for a little while longer and then was allowed to leave.
The haze of the migraine stuck around for a little while longer but we were all enjoying not running and in no hurry. We found a nice shady spot to lay down in the grass and listened to someone performing on a nearby stage. After a bit I ate my snacks and had a beer (and more water) and was feeling great again! I'm so proud of myself and these ladies for getting it done. That was challenging to say the least and we all put in the effort to accomplish our goal.
Perhaps I was still a little delirious because I NEEDED a photos with the mounties in the background. Laura indulged me. We then headed back to the hotel to gorge on pizza, celebrate with adult beverages, shower, and nap.
Meanwhile, back in Columbia Zane is prepared to watch Hannah's first ever theater performance.
She was Little Red Riding Hood in the show Shrekless. It's a class on the Stephens College campus through an organization called TRYPS. She loved everything about it and has been working hard on her lines, the songs, and dances for the past month! I was so happy that Granmama came down from Iowa to watch her in my absence along with Mason and Zane :)
After Hannah's show Mason and Granmama were dividing and conquering to get kids where they needed to be: Hannah to a birthday party and Zane to baseball practice. They were busy! I however, was enjoying a beer at
Tailgate Brewery.
Followed by dinner at the
Peg Leg Porker. OMG. SO GOOD! We shared pepper jelly cream cheese with crackers.
I had a pork sandwich with a side of mac n cheese and a Yuengling. Heaven. We were slow to get moving again after our showers and naps so it was pretty late by this point, but still wanted to try to experience as much of Nashville as we could and headed downtown. The goal was to go to this place called Honky Tonk to watch up and coming artists perform. Oh, we also had tickets to a free Hunter Hayes concert (a very young country artist) but we didn't end up making it there. We did go downtown and found parking but when we went to pay we discovered it was the event parking rate of $35/hour. Nope. We went back to the hotel. We're old moms...we don't need to party with kids half our age - haha!
The next morning I had breakfast with my friend, Roula, who used to live in Columbia but moved to Nashville last year! Hannah and her daughter went to preschool together and it was great to see her again. After breakfast we went on a short, flat "hike" (I sort of hobbled) at the Natchez Trace trailhead before she dropped me back off at the hotel so I could pack up and get back on the road with the ladies.
Sunday morning at home, the fam went to Eagle Bluffs to play around on the rocks near the river before getting lunch at Katfish Katy's.
Hannah likes to make the monsters eat mud.
Sunday evening was Hannah's hip hop dance recital. This time it was in Jesse Auditorium and she nailed it (I saw the video when I got home). I had some guilt about missing two big performances, but I gave her extra big hugs when I got home and knew she had a very strong cheering section in Granmama, Mason, and Zane :)
A bright yellow canola field in Kentucky.
Almost home now! Laura was still driving at this point. I did not take photos and drive at the same time.
Home!! Sunday night was spent relaxing with the family, stretching, and getting the kids ready for school the next day.
Monday, mom and I ran a bunch of errands in the morning and then took it easy around the house. We both needed it after that crazy weekend! After school we took Zane to ATA.
And Hannah had her first t-ball game! I stole Mom's camera and took some pics.
Tuesday morning mom and I took a meander around Twin Lakes. We saw a heron, lots and lots of skittish turtles, and birds.
More baseball that night. Zane's first game went really well. He played catcher and 3rd base and had 2 solid hits. The fields he plays on have higher fences and it's harder to get good action shots. I'll take my big camera this weekend and get some!
Hannah had another game too and my friend, Susan, sent me these!
Wednesday we said good bye to Granmama in the morning and Zane had an all day field trip (8am-4:30pm) to Kansas City to visit the
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the
American Jazz Museum. A friend sent me this photo of him. He also had a baseball game that night...kiddo was exhausted.
