I'm in Music City

Well getting here was a bear.  Somehow in between the time I left my office and arrived at the airport just a half hour later my flight had been delayed. Ugh. At that point it was only delayed about a half hour which wasn't bad at all. 6:35 came and went, 7:10 came and went as did 7:30. Finally a quarter to 8 we finally boarded and took off for a bumpy ride. We landed in Nashville just after midnight.  I picked up my very wet (they must have left it on the tarmack while it was raining) bag and head to the hotel.  My head finally hit the pillow around 1 am.

I woke up way to early this morning around 8ish.  Of course I couldn't fall back to sleep so when Deanna called to say she was down the street at Panera around 9 I was all over it.  The expo opened for the day at 10. I was looking forward to getting some free swag. Love expo samples!

I picked up my bib and headed over to get my t-shirt and goodie bag.  I noticed this little countdown they had going on.  Looking at this picture now I notice that it was off by about 12 hours. Someone doesn't know how to tell time apparently. Or maybe they got confused and thought it was supposed to be the countdown to when the expo closed. 

Last year in Seattle I didn't really purchase anything which was kind of a bummer. I missed out on getting a regular t-shirt to wear around which I didn't want to do this year.  I got a cute little Rock Star t-shirt amongst many other things. 

Including:  more KT Tape (why can't I find a store in Colorado that sells it?), Bondi Bands (one of them is for Nancy), and The Stick. I'm pretty excited about all of my purchases. I'm definitely trying out The Stick later.  I also got an awesome reuseable bag courtesy of Publix and misc samples. Overall I was kind of disappointed with the expo. There were really not many samples or freebies. Clif wasn't there which made me sad. Love Clif Bars.

Anyway, after the expo I was finally exhausted and headed to the comfy hotel bed. Two hours later I was refreshed and headed down to Broadway to check out all of the music joints. 

Deanna and I met for lunch shortly thereafter then it was off on a trolley tour. Totally cheesey I know but it was the only way I was going to get to really explore Nashville (well other than the race). I was the only single person on the tour and it was actually kind of lame. Here are a few pics from it.

As was the norm for my weekend, the trolley tour ran late which made me late for the Inspiration Dinner.  I was so frustrated at this point. I hauled ass to get there, hurting calf and all. The Penguin spoke again. Even though I heard the same speech in Seattle I still laughed. He's a good speaker.  I was so ready to head back to the room after dinner. 

I got back to the room and had a mini breakdown.  All of the doubts in my head coupled with not having any of my loved ones with me at the race just got to me. After talking to my mom and watching Deanna burn a huge hole in her TNT Coach shirt I felt much better. So funny!

Everything is laid out and ready for tomorrow. Time to try to get some rest. Oh yes and the latest on the race.  Runners of the full marathon must reach the 11.2 mile point by 10:40 am in order to be able to stay on the marathon course. Runners not there by that time will be diverted to the half.  I don't think I'll have any problem with that but it certainly puts a lot more pressure on me.