Dear Charleston, We're Through.

It's been fun. Really. Two years ago when I first visited you, I thought we were going to get along great.

You were ok.

I didn't really love you, but you weren't horrible. I even thought, "Doing the Cooper River Bridge Run would be a great second trip to Charleston, surely they would roll out the red carpet for this event." Well, maybe it was just the year or maybe I just have high standards, but this race was not my fave.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:50.  We were about two miles away from the starting line so I figured this would be more than enough time to get up, eat, and get myself pumped up.  It was great. I never felt better about my morning routine.

Ready for the race!

Breakfast of Champions

Traffic to the start line was pretty heavy... I still wasn't deterred. I was excited. This was the biggest race I've ever run in. All these people were just gonna help me on the way to bridge run greatness! I walked around, found my corral: I. Then I jogged a bit to run off some nervous energy and waited in the corral starting at 7:45.  

That says 9:30.

And I am about 400 meters from the start line.  After a series of a very annoying woman saying, "30 seconds to go" "1 minute to go" "We'll start in 10 minutes", and a man saying "Put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care!" repeatedly, we finally got started... An hour and a half late.  I was hungry, annoyed, hot, dehydrated and had 6.2 miles to run, 3 of those over a very tall, very steep bridge. 

I decided to just run my own race. There wasn't much I could do about it now that we had actually started so I just ran. Around the top of the bridge, I started feeling gross. We were almost to the 4 mile marker and had only had one water stop. In 80 degree weather. 

 

                                                        Soooo Thirsty

I understand you don't want debris in the river, but we didn't want to start an hour and a half late. I just pushed through it and got water at every station after that. There were misters which were really helpful near the end too.  I finished at 1:09:46 which is pretty respectable for the shape I was in at the start. 

My plan was to go to the finish party and then take a shuttle back to Mount Pleasant.  I didn't even care at that point.  I saw some ladies from the Savannah Striders. (They wear bright orange shirts, it's hard to miss them!) Introduced myself to them and headed straight for the shuttles. I wanted to get home, take a shower and a long nap.  Which is exactly what I did.

Smiling after all the crazy. I earned this shirt!

Later that night, Hubs and I were able to spend some time with family to celebrate FIL's 65th birthday.  It being March 31st and all, it was a perfect night to enjoy the steak, scalloped potatoes, rolls and an amazing Tempranillo before the dreaded April 1st came along and all that stuff would be off limits.  This is the view FIL and his wife have at their house.  It was like Savannah was welcoming me back from the big bad Charleston...

 Not too shabby

 And here is the delicious chocolate cake we partook in for dessert:

Mmmm, chocolate-y

We had a great day yesterday, went to church for Palm Sunday, took the pup to the dog park, got all our errands done and took a nice long nap.  Back to the grind, but we're heading to the mountains after Easter service and I couldn't be more excited! I'm a mountain girl. The coast is cute and fun, but the mountains are adventurous and exciting. 

So, sorry Charleston (and sometimes Savannah) but you'll always be a destination and the place I ran over a bridge once, not a place that's awesome...