Nashville Country Music Half Marathon

I have not blogged in a while. Things are still happening around here, but I have not had the time to document all of them. I have instead felt bogged down by decisions and life! Maybe if I have time I will do a post about how the Smouts are HORRIBLE at making decisions...

And we are also obviously equally horrible at carrying a camera at opportune times which can make blogging difficult. I have to make a major disclaimer about the photo below. I did not take it, well originally that is! I instead took a photo of it off my computer screen which is why it looks so "pixelized"! I am absolutely positive this is illegal so if I disappear one day, you will know what happened. But come on, I do not want to pay for race images... I mean I just payed $80-$100 to run in the race. I think the images should be included to help you remember the pain!

So here is my friend Kim and me pre-race. Don't we look so happy? As I remembered Nashville is a killer race. All you people who complain about St. Louis should run this. It would make St. Louis look like Kansas!

If you have not heard about my friend Kim let me take a little time to let you know about her. I love her and respect her for her love of her family and Jesus. She is the picture of selfless. She is as horrible at returning phone calls as I am at making a decision about the fate of my dog! She lives in Nashville. She has 5 kids, home schools, trains for her first half marathon and beats me! Still not sure if I love her or hate her for this, but I continue to be amazed by her focus!! She did this race in 2 hours flat and I trickled in at 2:06. We ran 6 miles together and it was great. The race was crowded and at times we would lose each other only to reunite a few hundred feet later. It was a great picture of our friendship. We can always pick up right where we left off which is great considering we have been long distance friends longer than we were ever "in-town" friends. I love Kim's kids. We took all 5 of them to the race expo and it was so fun. They have fabulous southern manners and they have compassion on others and are constantly talking about Jesus. I did not get to spend much time with them because Jackson had a soccer tourney in Knoxville all weekend so we only had Annie (8) and Truett (1) for the weekend. We are hoping to get all the kids together over the summer!

I went to Nashville by myself this year. Kim and I did not have any race fans on the course, but Nashville is never disappointing in the fans department. This race is super well attended and despite the horrible hills that never stop it is a great race! I enjoyed the drive by myself more than I thought I would. I had a lot of time to think. I also had the opportunity to visit Tysha and Natalie, two other friends that live in Nashville and it was great to catch up with them and their families.

Racing is such a mental game. I think that is why I keep signing up. My times are continuing to improve. For example my time for this same race last year was 2:21, so I improved by 15 minutes. Even though my 2:06 was not a PR, I can still see improvement and that is enough for me to keep going!