Cooper Young 4 Mile Race

Today's 4-miler was supposed to be a tempo run, but since I hustled so much yesterday morning (fastest pregnant run yet) I decided that tonight's race would be a "take it easy" affair. As John "The Penguin" Bingham might say, I got my money's worth out there!

I took a 2.5 hour nap this afternoon, after sleeping about 10 hours last night. Growing a baby is hard work! But I was primed and ready when Chasen got home. The race was to start at 7 PM in the Cooper Young area of Memphis. We got there early enough, so I set out alone to go and get my packet. I met up with Lisa before the CHAOS that was packet pickup began. Yuck -- the crowd was HUGE and the organization was lacking. By the time I got up there, they had ran out of numbers. And I pre-registered! Oh well. At least I got my cool shirt. I ordered XL, in hopes that it'd do me good during the colder months of pregnancy. They only had L left. Oh well.

There were tons of strollers out there. Funny how you notice these things all of a sudden...

At this point is was 6:55 and I HAD to go to the restroom. Chasen had arrived at this point (there was zero time for me to go back to the car and drop off my stuff, so he just lugged it around for the next hour). Luckily the race started late; I did make it to the port-o-pottie. Note to self; NEVER again pass up a lineless port-o-pottie on the way to packet pickup.

Lisa, my 4'-8" Tower of Power, and I before the race. See my shirt!?! Dang my legs are white...

The Cooper Young part of town is a happening place! There are lots of neat restaurants, bars, etc. And since this is their annual festival weekend, most of the neat homes along the course were having parties, so we had TONS of crowd support. In fact, after seeing us off at the starting line, Chasen walked down to Celtic Crossing for 2 beers and some baseball on TV. He later commented that this was his kind of race!

It started out quite warm, yet breezy. Soon thereafter it got dark. The homes had those "candles in white paper bags" lining the streets, so it was a neat place to be. Because it was dark and breezy, it felt like running in fall (even though it was officially 86 degrees).

Each mile got progressively slower, but I didn't care. We had a GREAT time out there, and as I said I was looking to just keep moving. The splits were 14:57, 15:53, 16:24 and 16:35.

Chasen popped up at mile 3, but it was too dark so the photos didn't turn out. It was a pleasant surprise. I noticed that I was gleaming with sweat. The humidity was in full force. One woman cheerer said to us "You're winning! You're kicking the a** of the Memphis humidity!" Lisa said she thought it was the other way around. HA!

A great use of yard lights!

Chasen said this was the largest "fun run" he's ever attended with me. In fact, the finish like area was so congested that it took us several minutes to find him after crossing the mat at 1:03:51. There was a live band, Outback Steakhouse food, beer, pizza, etc. The lines were so long that Chasen, who is NOT one for waiting, said "I'll buy you both a steak if we can skip this." Ha! We parted ways soon thereafter. But not before taking a post-race photo:

Am I an Amazon woman or what? I wish I had more of a baby bump so I'd look more pregnant that fat...

I will do 10 miles on Sunday (Baby S willing) and I am trying to convince Lisa to join me. We shall see!