I really do it for the people watching opportunities.

Last night I got home from the big Nashville Half-Marathon Adventure and I'm happy to report that my participation in the race did not disrupt my regularly scheduled Sunday afternoon Zumba class. Friday morning Kate and I set out towards Tennessee via Cherokee County...otherwise known as my hometown. I was excited to see the Biscuit Sisters welcoming us as we neared the county line.This is quite possibly the funniest billboard that I have seen in a very long time. Or maybe I just need to get out more. These sisters seem pretty confident. Perhaps it would have been to my benefit to eat at least half of this tray of biscuits in preparation for Saturday's stroll. I suppose I'll never know. Something tells me that's not such a bad thing.

Our first stop upon arriving in Nashville was the "Health and Fitness Expo" at the Convention Center. Otherwise known as "the place I have to go to pick up my number and race shirt". It was a zoo. So much so that after driving around the parking deck for no less than 25 minutes I stooped to standing in a parking space until Katie could drive to it and park the car. Has anyone ever been to a big expo like this? They are quite interesting. You've got the people there who are obviously runners. It's what they enjoy. They look the part and they are good at it. Then you've got those people there who are trying very hard to look like the aforementioned group. They are there all decked out in their best running outfit which is a little confusing to me since I've never known of any actual running to occur at an expo. Good thing because I would have been absolutely unprepared on Friday had that been the case considering I was in my khaki skirt and flip flops. Which brings me to the people like me. I fall into the group of "it's something to do and it keeps me healthy but I'll never start in Corral #3 and I'm ok with that." However it is at events such as this that if ever I'm in doubt of my own athletic abilities, I simply look around and take comfort in the fact that there is no way that I will finish last. Because surely I will finish before all the people carrying their numbers and shirts walking outside with cigarette in hand ready to light up as soon as they cross the threshold. No kidding. I always really appreciate it too when there are spectators smoking on the sidelines all along the course because there is nothing like a little secondhand smoke inhalation to give me just the boost I need to keep running. But I'll save my public service announcement for another day.

After the expo, Katie and I walked around town a little bit while we waited for our college pal, KP, to finish up with work for the day. It's been years since I've seen her and I was super excited to be able to meet for dinner and catch up. Not only is she funny and oh so fun, she's kind of a big deal in Nashville meaning she knows people so it was fun to hear about famous Nashvillains from a firsthand perspective. After what seemed like just a short time of visiting, we realized it was almost 10:30 which really felt like 11:30 for us Georgia girls. Not good news when you've got to be up and ready to run before the rooster even enters the REM stage of sleep. After saying our goodbyes, Katie and I headed towards the hotel where upon our arrival we discovered that this was happening... As luck would have it, the 8th Annual Tattoo and Horrors Festival was taking place in the same hotel we were staying at. Now I'll be honest - this discovery would have been much less frightening in the daylight hours. We drove up and there were motorcycles everywhere, and I have never in my life seen so much ink. I think the quantity present would put a Bic factory to shame. Talk about an interesting subculture of folks to observe. Too bad I'm not a sociologist. I think that the word "horrors" is used very loosely here. It seemed to be a family affair for some as we saw parents walking in with their children on Saturday afternoon. It appears that someone even brought an infant to the festivities.I hope that their insurance plan includes therapy because I'm afraid the poor kid is going to need it after looking at a skeleton bobblehead for the first 12 months of her life. Enough of the tattoo talk. Let's move on to the purpose of this little trip to Nashville anyway: the Country Music Half-Marathon. Here is Katie at Centennial Park pre-race...By the time we made it here, it had already been a long morning and this was taken at approximately 6:40 a.m. [Who knew that the sun rose so early in Tennessee?] And here's me just as I was reminiscing about the "Crayon Parthenon" that I constructed for my project in Art History during college...

At this point, I had not fully processed the fact that I was about to move my body 13.1 miles [in the hot hot heat] with nothing but my socks and Saucony's between my feet and the pavement. It's a thousand wonders I even remembered sunscreen since I left town on Friday with no breakfast items, iPod, cash, or hotel confirmation slip, but thank goodness I did because it was sunny all the way. ...All the way up the ten thousand hills located in Music City. By the time we arrived to the start line, I had already spotted Amy Winehouse [or a runner who looked exactly like her] cutting in line at the port-a-potties so I thought that I had seen enough for the day. But wait...there's more. We spotted two girls running together who were dressed exactly like me. So much for originality. Then I spotted a guy dressed just like his girlfriend/wife/female companion who was wearing a pink running skirt. I suppose it makes laundry less confusing to sort. There was a little excitement on the sidelines when a 4 year old was holding her baby sister up around the neck and the poor baby was choking. Thank goodness for an eagle-eyed "mom-type" runner who raced over to the rescue of kid sister. Too bad their own mother wasn't really interested in watching them. Probably the most impressive [in their own unique way] contingency was the hula hoopers. Hula hoopers? Is that correct? Probably not, but why worry about grammatical correctness at this point in the post? This group was walking the course and hula hooping all along the way. It appeared by the high volume of pink that it was for some sort of Breast Cancer research fundraiser which is a super great cause. Not only were they doing something nice for others, but they will be the envy of everyone else on the beach this summer with the abs that must be necessary to hula hoop and walk for such a long time. Thank goodness they didn't cross the finish line before I did though because that would have been a definite downer. All in all, it was a fun day. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if they were giving away glasses of cold chocolate milk at the finish line instead of beer. Well, that and the finish line being about 10 miles closer to the start line.