I’ve been BAD. I’ve been out of the Loop for like a week, and I am feeling the effects of the withdrawal ;-(

There’s just too much going on in my life this week, and I haven’t run enough to be able to get mentally organized. But I did 6 miles yesterday and 7 more tonight so all is back on track, and I am back in the Loop. Don’t let this happen again!

I was in Nashville over the weekend, and showed up at the local 4th of July race. 😉

I have only done 2 races outside of NYRR races and they were both half marathons, so it took me a few minutes to adjust to the smaller local race atmosphere. There were no shirts left, no chips for the walk ups, credit cards were no good to register, no mile markers…

Still, after a few minutes I was loving it and embraced the spirit of the race. It is also some kind of national holiday in the US (he,he!) so people were wearing flags as shorts, flags in shirts, painted flags in their faces, and/or flags all over. I wished I had thought of that.

At around mile two, there were 2 volunteers at a water stop, they had the gallon sized bottles of water and super tiny cups, and they were struggling to get enough of the cups full in time for the runners to grab them. Some runners were waiting for water. I could have seen that as unorganized, but, somehow I thought it was cute. Maybe it’s because I was relaxed and not racing.

I had decided to give my legs a rest week and just enjoy myself getting to know the city. I was stopping every other block to take pictures and obviously the runners thought I was insane. I always think that way too anyway! This one woman that I was talking to at the porta-potties actually stopped and took a picture of me in front of the Tennessee Tower. I thought it was incredibly nice that someone would stop at a race. I am not sure I would have ever stopped at a race for that! Definitely not in NYC.

The biggest shock of the day was that Nashville is insanely hilly. I had no idea. My legs were glad I was not racing. And, the second shocker is that I CAN actually run a race and not need to race it. I really didn’t think I could. The fact that my ITB was hurting and the scary hills probably helped. But it seems like I am learning to relax in a race. I think it’s great that we have the chance to see a city on foot like this. It’s even better when you can relax about your race time and everyone around is so chill!!

Hope you had a nice Fourth of July weekend!!!