Rockin Recap...



Kim and I in the back of the Ford Fusion Hybrid.

So Saturday morning, Kim, Abby and I loaded up with our driver, Brian, and headed down to Dallas for the Rock n Roll half marathon.   After we left Kim's we only stopped four times on the way down there.  The first was the gas station in Norman to get coffee, and water.  Then we stopped off in Ardmore to drop Abby's dog at the groomer's, and then at a gas station in Ardmore for a potty break.  Once we got to Texas we had to take another potty break.  We did get to pick up a bottle of wine for Tommy's parents for letting us crash at their house Saturday night, so it was a win win situation.

Love Abby's look here.

Once we were there, we headed out to the train (Love public transportation!) and we were off to the exp to pick up our bibs and swag.

Abby and Kim on the train.

We had to have someone take our picture.

The best part of riding the train is that you have time to take pictures.  You also get to see a very interesting mix of people on the train.  Sometimes you get to meet new people.  There was a guy from New Orleans on the train back from the exp.

 So we picked up our race packets, and shopped around the expo.  You really should eat before this sort of thing.  It was lunch time and we were starving, so we ended up trying alot of protein snacks. 

 So after we hit the expo, had lunch, there was only one thing left to do while you are in Texas.  We hit the Allen outlet mall.  There were deals to be had.  I picked up a new Coach purse for only $80!

We meet up with Tommy, Brian and Tommy's parents for dinner.  Carrabba's for a little pre race carb loading, the Pasta Sostanza with whole wheat pasta was amazing.   The food was good, and our waitress was very entertaining.  I was asleep by about 10, because we were getting up at 5 am.  Had a little breakfast and we headed to the train.  It was free on Sunday for racers. 

Again, what to do on the train for 45 minutes?  Well take pictures, of course.



A shot of our shoes.

 

Me, Abby and Brian.

Me with my Honor Bib and my new headband.

 




When we got downtown, we were fortunate enough to find real bathrooms in the convention center to use instead of the portable ones.  Apparently, it was not a big secret because there must have been about a 100 women in line.  We also got to do a little stretching inside before we headed out to the starting line and took up a spot in our corral.

Waiting in the corral to start.

The race was good.  The course was not as flat as Tommy would have us believe, but Abby and I were ready.  We had the miles set to notify us on my garmin, and Brian, our man purse, had set the pace settings on her garmin.  For the record, it was highly annoying, but it did keep us on track.  The scenery was nice, and the last four miles of the race were a nice downhill, which was very nice after the uphill start. 

We did see Brian at about mile 7, and handed off our jackets, which turned out to be a big mistake.  This is our action shot that Brian took.  That's Abby in the pink, and if you look real close you can see me behind the guy in the white. 

I did get an action shot that actually doesn't make me look like a huge dork, which is usually the case when I run.  Although I will not be ordering these pics because they are hugely expensive, it's nice to see that I did have a smile on my face during the race.  This must have been really early on.

So it was a great race.  I finished in 1:53, and made it in at 2:00:06 based on the gun time.  We started with corral 5 so we were back a bit.  I still can't imagine how I got here.  Abby picked up her pace in the last half mile, but she was waiting on me at the finish line.  A girl came up to us when we were waiting for our picture to let us know that she and her friend had followed us the whole time, they said they wanted to stick with the girls in pink.  It's nice to know that we might have inspired someone.

Not a bad looking piece of hardware.

I must say that while the race was great, the expo had lots of interesting things, and the course was nice, my only complaint came at the end of the race.  It was freezing, and even though we ran in shorts and short sleeves, by the time we finished it was very cold.  We had given Brian our jackets and he had trouble navigating the trains to the finish line so we were just walking around like popsicles at the end.  I went to the medical tent to see if we could get a couple of Mylar blankets, because we had seen people walking around with them, and we were told that they weren't handing them out.  They only had a limited amount and they were using them for people that were suffering hypothermia and were being transported to the hospital.  The people I saw walking around with them didn't appear to be being transported anywhere.

Me and Kim trying to be warm on the train.

After the five of us all meet back up, we made the trek to the train station.  This was the most painful part of my day.  By then I was so cold, and my quads were killing me.  Kim was in the same boat.  We kept having to stop to stretch, while Abby and Brian power walked it to the train.  Abby is ten years younger than me.  The freezing didn't stop when we got to the train station, we took a bus to the train, and had to wait a little bit, and then we had to switch trains.  We were lucky enough to switch trains underground, but it was still darn cold.  Then Kim had to pee again.  But that's nothing out of the ordinary.

We got back to Tommy's parents house, Brian and Abby left, and I took a nice hot shower.  Seriously, I could have stayed in there all day.  Then we headed back home.  I regret that I didn't get any pics of Kim sleeping in the car, or of Tommy driving, but by then I was worn out.

It was a great race, and now I am hoping to check out the Chicago Rock n Roll, and then there's always Vegas in December (fingers crossed).

***It appears that I have no pictures of Tommy to post.  Not sure how that happened, but he was with us and he did awesome!***