Are you tired of the teasers from this past week?
If you answered yes to either of those questions, grab a chair and hang out with me a while. I've got a story to tell.
My first weekend of October started off like this...
[caption id="attachment_756" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="My 2am coffee buzz for the drive to GA. "]
[/caption]We traveled from home (actually a football game) to GA on Friday night/Saturday morning because our Saturday was totally booked up. We met up with my pal, Julie, to get my race bib and tee that she so kindly picked up for me. We had to check out the race sight for parking and walked around the Karhu booths. We even did some shopping since we didn't have the kids. I induldged in some of this for lunch...
[caption id="attachment_757" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Yellow curry chicken from Stir Crazy...too delish!"]
[/caption]And I worried about what it might do to me the next day at my race so I only ate a small portion of it and boxed the rest to go. It was so good. My next stop was across the street to the cupcake/coffee shop for my usual post race cupcake.
[caption id="attachment_758" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Keylime cupcake for post race. Mmmmm"]
[/caption]Funny story about the girl at the cupcake shop. She asked if I was running the race the next day to which I told her yes. She then asked if I was running the 3 mile or the 13. I told her the half marathon. And then she said,
"Oh well, that's still good."
Yes, yes, young girl who knows nothing about distance running (apparently) a half marathon IS still good.
Our day went on from there. We were in the car almost all.day.long. I was exhausted because not only did I arrive at my mother's house at 3:30 am BUT I was up at 5am relieving my bladder of the 32 ounces of coffee and twice as many ounces of water I consumed on the 3 hour drive down. I was also wide awake at 8am. Then it was the trip to ATL, lunch, shopping and a trip back to mom's to change and get ready to see my BFF. She lost her dad earlier in the week and we were going to see her while we were in town. SO, that meant a trip back out to Atl. Thankfully the grandparents had the kiddos and we didn't have to worry much about them. We hung out with them though for a while that evening before we finally decided it was time to get in bed for the night. I think I nodded off around 10:30pm after setting my alarm for 4:15 AM! I have not set my alarm that early since I worked at Gap on Black Friday about 12 years ago! haha
I woke up right on time and quickly got into all my gear that I had so strategically laid out the night before like so...
[caption id="attachment_761" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Everything I need to run 13.1"]
[/caption]Our goal was to meet Julie and her sister at around 6am at the race start site. Luckily we didn't run into much traffic nor did we have issues parking. When I stepped out of the car though...it was cold! I thought that would be a problem but I was prepared. I had my arm warmers on and took a jacket. I planned to pass my jacked off to my hubby before the start and if I needed to after I started running I would just roll my arm warmers down. But it was so cold I could see my breath. I was not excited.
Anyway, we pottied and took some pre-race photos. I was glad to have Justin along to be my own personal racing paparrazi!!
[caption id="attachment_762" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Pre-race...pretending it is not freezing! "]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_763" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Julie and I pre-race! "]
[/caption]Julie and I went to high school together and I don't even recall us being very close friends, but more like classmates. I am thankful to have reconnected with her over the last couple of years through Facebook. We talk through email almost daily about running and mom stuff and everything you can imagine in between. When I ran my first half marathon earlier in the year Julie mentioned she wanted to get back into running and she signed up for 13.1 Atlanta. I am SO very proud of her progess over the last few months. She has dealt with sick kids, being sick herself and a whole ton of other things that kept her from running for the 3 weeks prior to the race yet she still kicked butt and crossed that finish line. I am thankful for the time I have shared with her through the training of this race. I know she is going to go a long way with running.
[caption id="attachment_764" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The start line. "]
[/caption]Before we knew it, 7am had rolled around and it was time to start. I don't remember being nervous at all the week leading into this race. I don't recall feeling nervous at the start line. It was weird not starting with my hubby right beside me though. My body felt ready and in tune to run. I didn't have an exact plan. I just wanted to run based on how my body felt. And at the start my body was feeling great though you might not have known from the look on my face....
[caption id="attachment_765" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Ready, set, GO!"]
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