2 down, 2 to go!

Hey everyone, happy Saturday!! I've had a GREAT race weekend. Thanks for all the well wishing comments. I luv the RBF! It's so cool to read everyone's race reports and it's so motivating!!! I loved reading everyone's post the past week and seeing how just about everyone had at least one cool, rainy evening run. I am so ready for fall temps.

Ok, enough rambling and on to the important stuff. Our day off yesterday was awesome. The perfect day to me is sleeping in and running. The really, really perfect day would be sleeping in and running in a beautiful, exotic place. Pippin was feeling a little under the weather Thurs night so we let the little booger sleep in the bed with us. He's never successfully made it through a whole night in bed with us. He snores like an old, 500 pound man who could wake the dead. However, he did last 4.5 hours which is a PR for him. I've been blogging too much lately, because in my dreams I was typing a post about someone and saying 'he is snoring so loud. he has THE most deviated septum ever. i can not believe how loud he is snoring'. So then I woke up and dumped him on the couch. He repaid me by barking like the house was being broken into precisely at 5:40, the time my alarm USUALLY goes off. Uh, thank Pip but WE HAVE THE DAY OFF!!! So, I went back to bed for a few more hours until he came prancing through at 7:30 to let me know he needed to go out. Luckily we went out precisely when the school bus was going up the street. I looked gorgeous with some crazy hair, in my skimpy PJs and Pip's peeing on the mailbox. Hey, this is the South. I see worse on a daily basis.

The rest of the day was great, we got some things done around the house and rested up for Friday night's race. It was a HOT day. I don't know what happened to the nice, post-thunderstorm temps but they are GONE. We (well, Brent really) made some Chicken Marsala. He could open a restaurant and only serve CM, it's that good. The race started at 8 pm in Lavergne. LaVergne is approx 2 miles outside of Nashville, on the SE east side. The 'burb I live in is 4 miles SE outside of Nashville, so this was a nice, close race. We got there with plenty of time to spare and picked up our swag bags. This was the first year for this race, and they really had a cool gift bag. It actually had the race name and date on it and lots of cool goodies inside. Besides some various Tylenol and energy bar samples there were little glow sticks you could wear. How cute is that?? This race was the Howl at the Moon 5K, since it was a full moon. The first place overall trophies were little wolf statuettes. It was so incredibly hot. Our high yesterday was 100 degrees. I've tried to find a website that had the actual race time temp on it, but it seems like everyone stops recording temps around 6. At 6, the actual temp here was 99 with a 'feels like' of 108. When we pulled into the parking lot the our car said the temp was 91. I tried to pretend like I never saw that. As they lined us up they told us about the race course. We'd be running out of the park and up Murfreesboro Rd (the main road of LaVergne which continues on through Nashville into downtown), turn around at another park and head back. They warned us to run on the shoulder because they were going to do the best they could at containing traffic, which Brent and I found a little alarming. What's the best? Only 2 or 3 runners mowed down during their night run?? I guess that's why they gave us glow sticks! So, with this important warning we were off. Since this was a new, smaller race they didn't use Chip timing, they used the classic color coded sticker system. All before the race we wandered around looking for fellow dark-blue stickers and sized them up by their leg muscles. I picked one girl out who would be my main competition, and Brent found a couple to be his. We raced on out of the park and onto the main road. The police had traffic completely stopped, and the "friendly Southerners" really weren't shouting very friendly things as I passed. The first mile went by pretty quick and I was shocked out of my socks when I reached mile 1 and the lady shouted out 7:41. What the ##?? That's way faster than I ever run! So I journeyed on mentally trying to figure out what my time would be if I could keep that up. Pretty damn good is the best my quickly overheating mind could come up with. So, on I went. Did I mention how hot it was?? Running on the hot asphalt, after a 100 degree day, next to miles of backed up cars, most of them which stink and run on fumes around here anyway isn't the ideal race situation! I pictured myself as a crazy Badwater UltraMarathoner with my shoes melting below me. I had decided to run with my FuelBelt so I could hydrate as needed, and man, was I glad! I took 2 8-ounce bottles, just in case. Right before the 1.5 mile mark my main competition passed me. I decided to stay close so I could (hopefully) sprint and beat her in the end. Then, we approached the one and only water station and she STOPPED. Totally stopped and walked driving her water. She was history and I was headed onward. The heat slowed me down and I finished mile 2 at 16:something. Then came mile 3. OMG. I knew it was coming, though. Mile 1 was a nice gradual downhill. That mean mile 3 was a wretched, dragging uphill. A lot of people stopped and walked it. I bore down and ran it slow and steady, savoring the smell of pizza as I passed the local pizzeria. I focused on my tunes and watching for the heads in front of me to disappear back into the park towards the finish line. The run back into the park was so dark you really couldn't see the people in front of you, and I knew no one was close behind me because I could hear them letting cars go after I passed. I saw the finish line and gave what little I had left and finished in 26:54, a new 5K PR for me!

I walked back and waited for Brent and cheered him on to the finish line. It was a tough, hot, race for us both. Normally in a 5K I would drink 1 8-ounce bottle. Last night I finished off both 8-ounce bottles I had! As we waited for the awards I ran into some former co-workers who had also run the CMM 1/2 Marathon back in April so we chatted awhile about our summer runs and some upcoming races. Then, the moment of truth! Get this - I got 1st in my age group! 1st PLACE!! I now have a trophy that says I was 1st!!!! It's the coolest. I love it. Brent got second in his group, so we're a trophy family! Do we care that there were only 80 or so people in the race? Nope. I still beat all the other girls in my group and that's all that matters. They had a ton of food afterwards including pizza, sandwiches, good ole TN Moon Pies, and much, much more. For their first time they did a great job putting on the race and the traffic was WELL contained. We had no worries and no one was run over. We headed home and I got in bed around 11 to rest for this morning's race!

I figure I had about 11 hours between races. I tried to drink plenty of water last night to re-hydrate and instead of 1 piece of whole wheat toast with low fat peanut butter this morning I had 2. Race time was 7:30 am in Murfreesboro, at the local university. We got there about 20 minutes 'til race time and got my chip, T-shirt and bib #. This was a much bigger race with 540 runners. They have a big high school turnout and it's always interesting to me to see what these cocky kids will wear. I'm not sure what school this one group goes to, but they always wear the most hilarious outfits. Last year the girls wore tu-tus and tiaras. This year they all wore neckties and the guys wore sports bras and girly shorts that had random things like 'sleepover' across the butt. You gotta love the kids. It was another hot one and off we went. I focused on staying steady and just making it through. My legs felt great, even after such a short break from yesterday's race. I was really glad I was wearing my FuelBelt again. It was slightly overcast and the course was mostly shaded so that really helped. Brent didn't run this race so he was out on the course snapping pics. It always helps to have a fan club!! I pushed myself slow and steady all 3 miles. Mile 1 was 8:2? something, Mile 2 was around 17:?? something and I finished in 26:37! A new 5K PR!! Near the finish line I was pretty steady with a young middle-schooler. I heard her parents yelling for her and saw her pick up her pace and was determined NOT to let her beat me! We raced each other straight to the finish, full-out. I think we tied, the pics show us landing on the mat in a dead heat. Then I thought I was going to die. Have I mentioned how hot it is down here???? Brent got pics of people throwing up right past the line, people who LOOKED like they were about to throw up, and one guy had to be carried off and have paramedics check him out. Gotta love August in the South. I always TELL myself 'you're almost there, run hard, you can pass out when you finish' but when push comes to shove if I felt THAT bad I really would slow down. Anyway, the top guy finished in just over 15 minutes at a 5:02 pace. CRAZY. My legs would fall off at that pace. Literally. I headed over to grab some water and a banana and I thought I smelled cookies. They had cookies!! So I tossed the banana for later and had some cookies. We hung around forever for the race results. One thing about this race is the inordinate amount of door prizes. The awards lasted for over an hour due to the door prizes. They would draw a name for a hat, then a mug, then a T-shirt, and on and on and on. The natives were restless so they cut in with the awards. Even though I had a new PR I ended up 4th in my division, so no prize this year. Last year I was 5th, so I guess next year I'll be 3rd! I was pretty disappointed, but I should be happy that A) I have a new PR! B) I did not pass out from a heat stroke and/or vomit at the finish line C) be happy that I was 4th out of 19 in my division and D) be glad that I'm blessed with a body and spirit proud enough to finish the race strong. But a trophy would have been nice. =)

I've got lots of pics to post so I'll do that later! My foot's asleep because this blog is SO long. Sorry for the 'marathon' of a post! Have a great rest of the weekend!!!!!