Mardi Gras RnR Race Recap!

I had a BLAST this weekend! The weather was beautiful for the race, I met my goal, and the whole weekend was fun. I feel like I can’t recap without telling some of the details of the weekend and showing pictures, so I hope yall don’t mind I add that in, too! Here we go!

Friday night we drove down and stayed at my parents house, Karen and her husband Jason stayed too. Then Saturday we drove downtown, checked into our hotel and headed to the expo!



we went back to the hotel to drop our stuff off then shopped in the french quarter
front of our hotel

race goodies

we shopped, ate at the riverwalk then walked back to the room and tried to get some sleep!
the next morning we got up at 5 and at about 5:15 I heard sirens, and a band and looked out the window and saw a 2nd line band leading a large group of people already haeding to the start. We were still in the room getting ready! oops.

ready to go!

we walked down to where everyone was hanging out until we could get into corrals at 6:30.

it was a beautiful sunny day but slightly chilly, but it was great for running once we got going.

we were in corral 13 of about 21 maybe. you can see the start curved to the left, see the balloon arch? that was the start!

love this one!

there was a wave start and they let a corral go every 3 minutes or so. we didn’t start till 29 minutes after the start!

when we got close I started getting pumped and singing and dancing and embarassing myself. Then it was pretty quiet, and the announcer made a joke about Drew Brees being there, and so i SCREAMED rally loud, WWWAAAHHH! DREW BREES, WHERE! I LOVE HIM!
some people laughed and some looked at me like I was crazy. It was funny.
yay here we go!

there were bands at every mile

We started out at a good pace, not super fast, but fast enough, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep it up. It takes me about a mile to warm up but after that I felt great and we kept a great pace for us.
Karen and I were talking and I was taking pics of the pretty houses to post for yall. I love these old houses.


love there two

this poor girl. Her running skirt was about 3 sizes too small, and it was riding up her butt

we hit the 5k mark at 33 minutes, which I was happy with because I ran my first 5k 9 months ago and my time was 33 minutes so I was stoked this was my split on a half marathon!

there were a couple times the half and full courses split in different directions

this was about mile 4

run Karen!

there were beads all in the trees from the Mardi Gras parades

at mile 4.5 we stopped to take some GU and drink water so we stopped to walk a few seconds while we partook haha. That was when this guy stopped behind us and says “I have been following you ladies for over 4 miles, I am not a stalker yall are just keeping a good pace” Well, alright then! haha
we kept on grooving, and then Karen’s heart decided to speed up and go crazy so we stopped for a minute or two until it stopped. We hit the 10 mark around 1:08 and miles 7 and 8 flew by and we headed back downtown on magazine

St. Louis Cathedral is to the left (out of the pic)

cafe du monde is on the right with the green awning

about this time, I got an AWFUL cramp in my right side, like someone was stabbing me. We stopped and walked for a minute, then it went away. at mile 9 we got to the GU station, and walked for a sec while we ate that and got some water. Soon after, the cramp came back, and it was the most AWFUL pain! I could barely walk. I tried to stretch, change my breathing, it was awful. I kept apologizing to Karen! It went away after a minute or two and we were off again and I am happy to say it never cam back.

Mile ten is where it started to suck. I have no pics till the end bc I was hurting! My fet ached and I was wearing down. My longest training run was 10 miles so I was not surprised this happened at the ten mile mark! I looked at my garmin, did some math and realized if I wante to hit my 2:30 goal, we could NOT slow down!
I saw the museum of art ahead and knew we were withing a couple miles bc the Crescent city classic ended at the same place. we took a right and I saw we had to go around a lake, but it was a trick! when you ot to the lake you had to go RIGHT down a road, then back up THEN aroun the lake. What a tease! This is when Karen’s knee started hurting so we stopped for a minute, got some water, and then kept going.
We got to mile 12, and I realized we were only a mile away! I passed a girl groaning with every breathe and I wanted to turn and look at her and say “I feel your pain!” I was so close to my goal and was pushing myself so hard. We could hear the finish line music, so close! The last mile was TORTURE! We rounded a corner and had two tenths left and we started into a flat out sprint! We ran about a 9:20 pace and crossed the finish line at the same time. It seemed to go in slow motion. As soon as we crossed we yelled WE DID IT and hugged. I was SO HAPPY to be done I could cry! Not only did we reach the goal but we ran under it by 2 minutes. we ran a 2:28:07!!
sorry this is blurry but I was moving!
We got our medals and our food, took our pics with the backdrop and met Karen’s husband and then went and found my husaband. He ran a 2:14. I was so proud!
we sat down and it felt so good to sit!

the music stage. we left before sister hazel and cowboy mouth came on b/c it was 10:30 and they were not coming on till 2:30 and later!

after party

we walked back to the shuttle, then walked back to the hotel to shower and check out then we headed back to my parents for lunch, then drove back to MS and got home about 8:00. WHEW! It was great but so tiring. I am sore but not near as bad as after the Disney half! It was a great experience, and a very organized race, I highly reccommend it to anyone! I leave you with one last photo: