Half…And Another Half

Way back at the beginning of the year, I posted that M and I were going to do two half-marathons this spring. The Go! St. Louis half-marathon, in our beautiful city of St. Louis, and the Kentucky Derby Half-Marathon in Louisville.

I’m pleased to say, we successfully completed both and earned the beauties showing in the photo. By “successfully completing” I mean that in both races, we 1) ran the entire thing, 2) finished each, and 3) did not get injured. We set our best time for running together in the Go! St. Louis run.

For Louisville, we set our worst time. But for this run we also agreed to go slow and possibly even walk (we didn’t). It was a damp, dark morning, and both of us would have simply stayed in bed, but we had paid our entry fee, driven to Louisville, and doggone it, I wanted that medal (this was my first out of state run). So we rose at 4:30 a.m., drove to downtown Louisville, parked (and hoped we remembered exactly where), and headed to a shuttle bus, which took us to the starting line, a mere 13.1 miles away (though some folks say the run was actually 13.3 miles). We realized we were, at that point, going to have to do this run – we had no idea how to get back to our car without following the crowd!

The weather got better as the run went on. Louisville had a decent crowd – spectators, music, and even a troupe of Elvis impersonators.

After recovering for a couple of hours, we got in the car and drove to the Maker’s Mark Bourbon Whiskey distillery. We missed the last tour group, but did get to jump in on their tasting. I’m really not a hard alcohol gal, but must admit I did enjoy our little taste. To further commemorate our run, I bought a bottle that I got to dip in hot, red wax – the signature Maker’s Mark seal. You can see I’m hard at work in the photo.

On the way back on Sunday, we stopped at a little winery in Indiana. We stopped because of the name – Turtle Run Winery – and found we really enjoyed the wine quite a bit as well!

All in all, I’d call this a good trip. I was definitely ready to be away for a couple of days and did like the new scenery.