Nashville 5k finished

Jeanne and I went down to Nashville for some business and to run the I Run for the Party Cinco de Mayo 5k. We had a great time driving around looking at all of the changes that have taken place in Murfreesboro since we moved away in 2006. The new mall in Murfreesboro and the new area in Smyrna are amazing. We also got to visit with all of our friends, having lunch with Mel (sans Matt :-( unfortunately), and spending Friday night with Michael and Dawn made us really miss the area.

Saturday morning we drove around the area looking at new construction houses just for shits and giggles. The housing market is still amazingly affordable and we look forward to our eventual return to the area after Jeanne is done with her Ph.D. Finally at 3pm we headed toward Nashville and music row for our 5k. It was pretty busy when we arrived and we just hung out waiting for the race to start at 5:00. I had forgotten my wireless headphone transmitter and realized it with a small panic attack right before the race but my AMAZING wife had an extra pair of earbuds that I was able to use and ended up being my lifesaver.

The race went off just after 5:00pm and the weather was amazing. The sun was out shining brightly and the temperature was perfect around 70 degrees. This would end up being the high point of the day. We lined up mid-pack for the race and shortly after the starting line, jeanne left me in the dust. I made the mistake of trying to keep up with the pack and ended up running too quick of a pace and for too long. I wanted to stay with a 1:30 jog/1:00 walk pace throughout and ended up running hard for 5 minutes straight to keep up with the pack. By the time we hit 1.5 miles we came back around to pass by our van. My legs were hurting from being out of shape and I was miserable. The only thing that kept me from stopping and getting in the van was the good music i had picked out and was enjoying on my ipod. Around the 2 mile area my legs started feeling better and i was doing around a 1 min jog/1 min walk but the walk was hurting my legs more than the jog but my lungs were just not going to allow me to continue jogging nonstop. At the 2 1/2 mile marker we came upon a pretty big hill and my music had ended (due to a miscalculation on time) The hill was a beeotch and I was cussing Jeanne's name pretty bad in my head for dragging my fat ass here for this race. I ended up pushing through and finished around 40 min. Not very good but better than my training times had been and i felt pretty good after it was over. I kept reminding myself that I had just started to workout and deserved the slow time and it would only get better.

We will be back there next year and I plan to blow my time away.