Girls weekend/Cooper River Bridge Run

Happy April!  I cannot believe it is April already!

This past weekend, the girls (Sarah, Alisa, and Jade) and I packed up and headed to Charleston for a much needed girls weekend and to run the 34th Annual Cooper River Bridge Run. 

We got to Charleston on Friday afternoon and headed to the Expo and pre-race spaghetti dinner.  In the back of my mind, I imagined huge pots of spaghetti sauce with women in hairnets dishing out sauce on top of our pasta.  The dinner was actually a "Taste of Charleston".  Some of the best restaurants, bakeries and the culinary school had various food items.  I think we all would agree that the macaroni 'n cheese from the culinary school was slammin'.  So good!

On Saturday morning, we got up at 5:30 and headed to Mount Pleasant.  This was after a night of my barely sleeping because I was so excited.  I think the only person that was more excited than me was Sarah.  The race organizers instituted a "wave start" this year.  While this is my first time participating in this race, I can imagine the absolute madness in the past without the wave start. 

Once the race got started, Sarah, Alisha, and I just trucked along at our normal pace.  When I saw the bridge on Friday evening, I though "Oh, well that's not so steep.  It'll be easy compared to the hills in Raleigh."  I was totally wrong.  Once you get past about mile 1.5, you start on the incline.  The incline goes until about mile 3.  That's about 1.5 miles of uphill, while dodging some of the other 40,000 participants. 

Despite dealing with the headwind and 40,000 other people, we finished in 1:21 - pretty dang good if you ask me. 

After the race, we walked around downtown Charleston and had lunch at Mellow Mushroom.  The veggie calzone that I had for lunch was the perfect finish to a great race. 

The weekend in Charleston was great!  I definitely think that the Cooper River Bridge Run will remain on my "must do" list for years to come.

By the way, our half marathon is 38 days away!!  I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am about the half!  So, so pumped for the rest of the training and the actual race!