Allen & Sally's Family Blog: 2010 Country Music Marathon

Well folks, road trip #2 is in the books for the Bray family, and overall I would consider it a success. The weekend before last we drove to Nashville so that Allen could run in the 2010 Country Music Marathon. I had the bright idea to leave home around Natalie's bed time so that she would sleep during the drive. Then the plan was to check into the hotel and try to transfer her up to the room, maybe even without waking her up. We thought we were so smart, calling ahead to have them set up a crib in our room. Boy am I laughing at my naivete now! Natalie woke up as we entered Nashville and was not happy. Then the unloading/valet parking of the car took forever and a day. By the time we got up to the room, Natalie thought it was party time. This did not make for a restful night to say the least.

Despite a couple of nights of rough sleep and some inclement weather on race day, Allen had a great race. His chip time was 3:23:51, a personal best by more than three minutes. Natalie and I stayed busy during the race, walking all over downtown Nashville to cheer Allen on at various places along the course. Just as Allen was finishing the race, a nasty storm hit the area and we hurried back to the hotel in the rain. Allen was one of only 700-something marathoners to complete the entire 26.2 miles. They ended up cutting the course short for a whole lot of people due to the storm. We were definitely having flashbacks to the 2007 Chicago Marathon fiasco.

We decided to try the night-driving again on the way home and luckily it worked out much more in our favor the second time around. Natalie and I will be heading to Charlotte next weekend with my folks and we'll have to drive during the day. Keep your fingers crossed everyone - we're gonna need some luck with that! Either luck or earplugs.