Run, Music City!

13.1 < 2

Whoo - hooooooooooooo!

How 'bout that!?! I got up at the butt crack of dawn this morning with the intention of limping across the finish line at around 2:20 or so. Not today, Junior! I don't know where I got it but I had tons of energy and I was ready to run. It certainly wasn't from my slack training the past few weeks, or the four whole hours of sleep I got last night.

Now, I have some clarifications. Technically, I might not have come in under 2 hours. We don't get official results until tonight, but I want to blog this desperately. At any rate I know I am within a minute or two. The clock time was 2:14. I know we were more than ten minutes behind the leaders to start. As usual, I had to make a restroom break. This time it only cost me 3-4 minutes. So if you subtract that then I am pretty sure I came in under 2. At any rate, I am close enough to 2 to call it a victory. If you don't like it then to heck with you! >:|

Last year I pretty much did the whole thing alone. It is exponentially more fun with people there to run with and to cheer me on. Thanks! You guys are great!!!

OK. I wanna make a detailed account of the day, not so much for publishing, but for my own recollection. If you aren't interested in the gory (literally) details, it won't hurt my feelings if you stop reading.

Let's see ... I'm not exactly sure what the clock time was when Amanda and I crossed the start line (Go, Amanda!), but I crossed 1 mile at 22-23 (something like that), so I am going to assume that we crossed at around 23-24 minutes. It was ridiculously cold, and I kept teasing Amanda that we were about to get poured on (it really looked like it). Literally, when we were queued up to go, I still believed that I was going to suck wind the whole time. About a quarter mile in I thought, "Wow! I feel unusually good." so I broke away from Amanda and just started truckin'.

My music was PERFECT for today's run. It was comical that in several places the song that came on fit exactly what was going on. I had forgotten to start my MP3 on a playlist that I had meticulously crafted last night, so it just played the songs in the order they were copied to the disk (or something like that). The first few songs were The James Gang. I hadn't listened to The James Gang in forever and it ROCKED. I listened to Funk #49 twice.

I saw LB (dear, cheering, helpful friend!) at about 2-3ish. I got to 4 mile at exactly 50:00. "Out Ta Get Me" by GN'R comes on. "They're out ta get me/They won't catch me" I was feeling awesome! Shortly thereafter I crossed the point where I had to make my disastrous break last year. I had resigned myself to it this year. It happens all the time; 3 miles, 10 miles, whatever. There's nothing I can do. So shortly after 5 I started getting the gurgle (right on queue). I was tailing one of the Nashville Strider's pacesetters. He was a marathoner with a 4:15 sign. At this point I had no thought that I would get close to 2, so I was pretty happy that I was hanging with that dude. Around 6 I had to stop. This year there were, thankfully, substantially more facilities. I took care of that and never stopped again.

So, for the rest of the race I will rely on my songlist. If you know how my mind works, you will know that I remember events through the songs I am listening to at the time. Hence, the following is helpful to me.

Complete song list:

Artist	Song	Comment
The James Gang	Walk Away
The James Gang	Funk #49
The James Gang	Midnight Man	LB, there's a line in this song that a woman sings,"Midnight Man, you're pretty." Thought of you. ;)
The James Gang	The Bomber (Closet Queen)
The James Gang	Woman	Ok ... getting tired of The James Gang right about now.
The James Gang	Funk #48
Lynard Skynard	The Ballad of Curtis Lowe	This is a running song from last year.
Guns n' Roses	It's So Easy	Perfect!
Guns n' Roses	Nightrain
Guns n' Roses	Out Ta Get Me
Guns n' Roses	Mr. Brownstone
Guns n' Roses	Sweet Child O' Mine
Audioslave	Cochise	I got a HUGE burst of energy from this one. I sprinted about a 1/4 mile.
Audioslave	Gasoline	This is where the break was. From here I switched to the playlist. Little did I know that the next song was "Can't Find My Way Home" by Blind Faith. Shoulda' waited.
Cream	Crossroads
The White Stripes	St. James Infirmary	The White Stripes own!
The White Stripes	Slicker Drips
Led Zeppelin	Hey, Hey What Can I Do	I am invincible when running to Led Zeppelin
Beck	Today has Been a F#@ked Up Day	There is much, much history with this song
Led Zeppelin	Misty Mountain Hop	I don't remember listening to this?
The White Stripes	Do
Black Sabbath	Sweet Leaf	This came on right as I was passing the Belmont Church choir. HA!
Guns n' Roses	Sweet Child O' Mine	Didn't care. Didn't want to fool with the player.
Velvet Revolver	Set Me Free	This came on during that miserable stretch on The Gulch, under Broadway. This was also right about the time that it registered with me that I had a legitimate shot at 2. I got a mean look on my face and took off. The Gulch is my bitch!
The White Stripes	Broken Bricks	I feel like I have listened to a thousand White Stripes songs and the good ones never come on.
The James Gang	Woman	Holy Cow! I've had enough James Gang
Cream	Sunshine of Your Love	I do not remember this song
Cake	Stickshifts and Safetybelts	I think this came on right about the split. Thank goodness that huge billboard from last year is gone. It said "Marathon runners! 15.(something) miles left to go!". That sign convinced me never to try a marathon.
The Black Crows	Soul Singing	This is about mile 11ish. I have had it. I am fighting with myself to stop.
The Beatles	Don't Let Me Down	This is the most perfect one of them all. JOHN LENNON is cheering me on! I sped up.
The White Stripes	Astro	There you go! A good rock out 'Stripes song.
Ted Nugent	Stranglehold	And that brought me down that street in front of the Coliseum and past the finish line. Perfect! Especially if you know how that song has a particular significance to my running (Pennington and Cornfed).

After crossing the finish line I realized that I was in some pretty good pain. My knee felt like somebody took a sledgehammer to it, and my nipples hurt. I peeled back my number bib to see this horror:

This grodiness is a link if you don't want to see

Finally, LB took my shivering, useless body back to HCA where I stood in the shower for 45 minutes. Much better now. I think I might do it again next year!