When signing up for this, I had been put in Corral 7 because I told them my predicted finish time was 2:10. Lo and behold, once I get there, I found that the 2:00 pace group was right in front of me. Hmmm... could I keep up with them? I mulled this over as we inched toward the start line (they had wave starts for this run -- very helpful in controlling some of the congestion they had last year). Then, the gun went off (for good ol' Corral 7) and I kept pace with the 2:00 group as the thought kept bouncing around my brain.

It was one of those days you hope for on race day ... everything felt great, my legs were fresh, running didn't seem to be hard at all. For about 2.5 miles, I kept up with the 2:00 pace group (who were going a bit slow). As they picked up the pace, I decided to let them go, but still thinking this was a good enough day to get the 2:10 I was shooting for.

About a mile in, I decided on a race strategy: keep a 10 m/m pace on level ground, try to keep the heart rate down on uphills, and cruise the downhills. That ended up working out really well for me. I never really felt like I was pushing myself too hard. In fact, most of the time, I kept thinking "I'm going too fast! Gotta slow down..." but miles kept coming and going and I still wasn't having any trouble keeping the pace up. For the first time ever in a long race, I got 6-7-8 miles into it and didn't feel fatigued.

Of course, there's a catch. Okay, so I'm absolutely cruising along. Feeling great. Wondering it is whose body I'm inhabiting for this span of time. Even saw my sister who came out as my cheering section and smiled all pretty for the camera. And then -- 10.75 miles. Like someone flipped a light switch -- BAM! -- both my quads started cramping up on me. I tried stretching a little bit, but that wasn't helping, and I'd be DAMNED if I ran that good a race up to then to walk it in. So, I kept shuffling along, looking a little bit like someone in shoes 3 sizes too small.

I made it through those last 2+ miles in a fair amount of pain, but made it through nonetheless. I was disappointed by my only mile split over 10 minutes, but all things considered, that wasn't the worst thing that could have happened.

In the end, I not only met my goal of 2:11 (10 min/mil pace), but exceeded it by quite a bit. AND bettered my time for this race from last year by over 14 minutes. AND beat my 2:14:35 PR from the Chicago half!! Woohoo!!

Not exactly sure what happened out there to my legs, but if that wouldn't have happened, I think I could have taken another minute off my time. Right before that happened, I was really starting to hit my stride, knocking off a 9:20 and 9:30 min/mile. There's always next time!

Made my way through the endless queues.... water, medal, gatorade, pictures, food, free flip flops. Then, met up with my sister, put on some warm, dry clothes (it was more than a tad nippy when you weren't running) and walked the .5 mile back to the hotel.

I was such an idiot not to have stretched more!!!! I'm in a whole lot of hurtin' now because of it, that's for sure! And after I got back to the hotel, I was going to do the ice bath thing, but instead we decided to go to lunch. Again - another bad choice.


Quads cramping.


This is a great race! Tons of volunteers and Nashville is an awesome city to hang out in! I only wish I had been a little smarter about taking care of my quads, because that was also a limiting factor in terms of my ability to party on Saturday night!!!