13.1

So what did you do this weekend? Oh, me? Nothing major. I just ran (ehh, mostly walked) a freaking half-marathon. And almost drank aloe vera gel.

Yep, you’re seeing that correctly. A finisher’s medal for the 15th Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville. My time wasn’t glamorous. My form was lacking. My energy and motivation disappeared around mile 9.5. Around mile 11, I saw the massive hill that winds up to the Tennessee state capitol and decided wholeheartedly that I would quit the race before I hauled my ass up that thing. No, the hill from hell was not on the course. We took the slightly less steep, longer road that wound around it.

My goal was to finish in the four hours allotted for the half-marathon. Our hotel was about two blocks from the start line. Ashley and I didn’t feel like walking the whole way back to our corrals from the start (she was in corral 32, I was in 40), so we hopped in with corral 23. I alternated running and walking for over 8 miles. The 3:00 pace team didn’t pass me until mile 9. Like I said, around mile 9, I hit a wall and sucked the last four miles. But I sucked them up while never stopping. So that’s good. I made sure to run the last stretch and crossed the finish line 4 hours and 23 minutes after the 7 am start. My official time was 3:47:57. My show-off of a brother-in-law finished 53rd overall. Out of everybody. He was almost halfway done by the time we started.

This was a good first race for me. I had no other plans than to finish. If I run any other half-marathons, I will have a lot of room for improvement on time. Ashley and I decided Nashville sounded like a fun weekend trip (which it was. We just needed more time!). The biggest downside was the horrific sunburn across my back and shoulders. Remember how I wanted a racer-back shirt? My sunscreen application was rather lacking, so I’m currently varying shades of red. My lidocaine aloe vera gel is sitting on my lap, and I reached down to drink it because I thought it was my water. Whoops.

I’m going to blog about the whole weekend tomorrow, so y’all can see what we enjoyed during our whirlwind trip to Music City!