Rock the Parkway 2015 Recap Part One

Sometimes running races is like childbirth, you kind of forget details about said race, because they were painful and uncomfortable and it's a good thing. You sign up and do it again and then remember the pain you forgot.  Let me back up a little and lead into the race (which ended up giving me a big PR, however painful it may have been).  I am going to break this into two parts by the way cause i have tons of pictures!

I took friday off again this week to get some work done on my van. I dropped it off at a local shop and headed to our local coffee shop to get a homemade muffin and delicious coffee.  All are down town which is only a few blocks from my house so I could walk around and didn't need my van.

Our little town is so cute this time of year.   They import these tulip bulbs from Holland every year and plant them.  The old bulbs from the previous year are dug up and sold for charity.  This weekend is the tulip festival and the tulips this year did not disappoint.  Our little city park was also lovely and ready for all of the craft and food vendors.  

I was riding with my good friend Amanda and she had to work friday morning, so we got on the road to KC around lunch time.  

Neither one of these guys wanted me to leave.  I kind of didn't tell little red I was leaving so he wouldn't get upset.  

The expo was small again this year.  Most of the cool stuff belonged to the KC running company that puts on the race.  I am once again regretting not getting a cool t shirt that they had.   I did pick up some cool shirts for my BRF and my coach.

Picked up my Heartland Series T and drooled over the giagantic medal I hope to be having post these three marathons.  It comes with the years engraved on it that you do the series.  PUMPED!

Also picked up my bib and my pace band.  Since I was in the wrong wave (totally my fault, never dreamed I would be running this fast), I figured I'd better have one so I could pace myself.  

After checking into our hotel (that had a suite, yippeeee), we headed over to the nearest Italian place for some yummy pasta.  Don't worry, I only ate half of this plate but I did eat a TON of bread and dipping sauce.  Holy yum.  I went over my calorie count for the day by 1000.  Whoops.  It was all in the name of carbs.  We also did some shopping and i got a new sports bra made by Victoria Secret.  I have heard good things about them (they have underwire which hopefully means good support).  I also found some Thomas stuff for little red.  

Got all of my stuff laid out and prayed for good weather.  I had decided even though it has been cooler than predicted temps to brave it out and go with compression shorts and a tech T along with my compression socks.  I kept trying to get nervous and was doing a great job of keeping the butterflies from fluttering.  I kept remembering how I had plenty of gas left at Wicked and how this course was flatter (HA, bad memory).  I slept really well and woke up at 5:30 on the dot to fuel and prepare.

Okay enough for now!  Part two coming soon.