Weekend/Race Recap

Saturday I ran the Oak Barrel Half Marathon HERE.  My 6th half marathon!! I didn't PR or anything, but it was an amazing race. My friend Erika and I made the 1hr and 30min drive up to Lynchburg, TN., at 5:30am Saturday morning.  It was a cool 40 degrees and we debated whether or not to wear a light jacket. We decided not to and were so thankful for that decision. The weather warmed up to a beautiful 65. It was sunny with just enough breeze to cool us off.  The course was unlike any course I have run(I may need to get out more), it was 13.26 miles of scenic country and history.  The race was in Lynchburg, TN., home of the Jack Daniels Distillery, and the race was sponsored by Jack Daniels. (no samples though, it's in a dry County)

This is where the race finished....

 This was the most organized race I have ever been to.  I highly recommend it and will be running it again next year.
It was NOT flat at all, so if you plan on running it you might want to hill train first.....unlike me.
I was warned about  the hills- the race director even sent out a warning email to all runners that stated:

• This is NOT a flat course
• There is one character building hill (Whiskey Hill) that starts at about mile 4.
• Whiskey Hill is a gradual climb for about a mile.  The last little bit of it however gets very steep.  The steep part is very short.

"character building" is a nice way of saying "this hill will kick your butt, you will want to lie on the side of the road in the fetal position.....but once you get to the top the rest of the race will seem like a cake walk."
 They were right that it was a gradual climb... half way up the hill we were still maintaining an 8:30 pace, I started to think that they were totally over exaggerating the severity of the hill.   And then. we turned a corner and the road made a double "S" and went straight up..this is the first time I have ever had to walk during a race. I could hear "Eye of the Tiger" playing on speakers at the top of the hill and it pumped us up enough to start running again. We finished that mile in 11:37.  Next year I'll be ready for Whiskey Hill!
The benefits of having outrageous uphills are the gorgeous downhills.....these are where we made up our time.

  I finished 1:58:29 and 16th out of 88 in my age group.  Not too bad.  I went into the race with absolutely no personal goals, which was kind of nice for a change.  The only goal was to help my running bud Erika run a sub 2hr half.  Erika finished in 1:58:50 and 9th in her age group. She did awesome!

Post race pic- I look like a GIANT!!

Finishers Medal- Cool, huh?

After the race they had food and a little festival and were giving people tours of the Jack Daniels Distillery which would have been really cool to participate in, however, we had to hit the road in order to make it to kids ballgames.
We drove the 1hr 30 mins back home and I had 10mins to shower and be back out the door to Seb's ball games which were 1hr 30mins in the opposite direction in Birmingham, AL.  This is his first year playing travel ball and I'm not sure I fully understood exactly what travel ball entailed when J signed him up.  Especially since J coaches Ty's team, which means I am the one who will be doing all of the traveling for Seb's games.(I'm almost positive this detail was not fully disclosed to me.) :)  Thankfully we have friends who have kids on the same team and they brought him to the game so he wouldn't be late in the case I was running behind.....and of course I was.
I missed the first game. :( They played well, but lost all three games.
During the last game Seb went to catch a pop fly and the ball smacked him right in the face. Thankfully it didn't knock out any teeth or do any real damage. It hit him on the side of the jaw and left an imprint of the baseball seams on his face. He thinks that is pretty cool.

my little slugger

It was a pretty great day! 

There was really only one casualty.......

another toenail bites the dust...

seriously. My feet were never this ugly before I started running....so much for looking cute in sandals this summer.;)

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend too! Last week was super busy and I am looking forward to catching up on all my blog reading this week.

Grace and peace,