The Bourbon Chase: The Finish (Part 7)

We left Woodford Reserve and made our way into Lexington. Turns out, I couldn't check into my hotel early, so a few of us hit up the downtown YMCA that was offering free showers to the runners. To be honest, I think it kinda turned out better. It was nice to be able to all take showers at the same time, and blow dry, dress, get ready all at the same time. We were in and out of there in an hour or so. It was also cool to meet some girls from some of the other teams.

We picked up the rest of our van and headed down to the Post Relay party to wait for our other van to get there.

Of course... there were Bourbon Beers to be had.

As we waited around, I started to walk around to find one of our other team members who had left the YMCA earlier to meet up with her husband. As I was doing so, I heard someone ask me... "Are you Amy?" I turned around and it was Meredith from This Runner's World and her husband, Dave!!!! I was thrilled and frankly, a little starstruck. I love her blog! We talked for a few minutes, and then I spotted the team member I was looking for and had to kinda interrupt the conversation. I was soooo hoping that I'd see her again, but I didn't. I immediately ran over to where the rest of our tent was to tell April that I'd met her!! So cool!

It wasn't long before I spotted some of our other team members, which meant that NashMash was making it's way to the finish line!

Anxiously awaiting the finish line run!

And then we spotted her and ran across the finish line (I was totally bringing up the rear... so hard to run in flipflops with a purse and no sports bra. Particularly when you're last runner is running in a like a freaking rock star).

We crossed the finish, turned in our time sheet, got our medals, had our picture taken and then we were done. It all happened so fast.

Afterwards, our van headed out for some dinner and the other van headed to hotels for showering.

It had been a long time since our last meal of pizza nearly 24 hours ago, so I was ready for some real food (plus, I learned my lesson last year with "drinking" my dinner. That wasn't going to happen this year).

Are you getting sick of seeing pictures of us in our kick ass blue shirts?

After dinner, a couple of our van-mates headed home and April and I headed to our hotel to finally check in. We made a pact that once we got there, all we would do is check in, call a cab and head back downtown. There would be no sitting on the bed and definitely no lying on the bed. We knew that would be the kiss of death.

So, we got to the hotel, called a cab and waited for almost an HOUR for it to come and get us. Ugh. Finally, we made it back downtown to the party and met up with everyone. It was decided to head to a bar not too far away and we made our way there. When we got there, we realized that about 5 team members were no longer with us. Turns out they had made their way back to the hotel. So there were just a few of us there to celebrate.

It got sloppy pretty fast, folks.

After hanging out at this bar for a little while, we lost a couple more teammates and a wife and then there were just 4 of us (and it was probably only like 9:30 pm at this point).

We headed to another bar where we met some guys from another relay team: Smell the Sock. They were really fun guys. We ended up talking to them for a good bit and they started telling us how they were the guys that kicked an opossom around in the middle of every exchange. I had no idea what they were talking about, but one of our team members, kept telling them that "yeah!!!" he remembered them. All the while turning to me and whispering... "I have no freaking clue what they're talking about." It was hilarious.

Team NashMash and Team Smell the Sock!

Eventually, we started asking about the opossum. Where was he? They told us he was back in the hotel room and asked us to walk them to their hotel and get him. A couple of us decided to go (the hotel was at the end of the block) so we headed over. Once we got to the hotel, they first took us to the indoor pool area. No idea what that was about and then we followed them into a ballroom and turns out there was a wedding reception going on! We chilled in there for a few minutes, reveling in the fact that we were officially wedding crashers and then got the hell out when people started looking at us funny.

Finally, we got up to their hotel room and there was the opossum! (Along with another teammate of theirs in bed trying to sleep). We grabbed the opossum and headed back to the bar. We kicked the opossum through the intersections of downtown Lexington the whole way back.

The opossum tucked into the guys jeans.

Eventually we left the bar with the intention of going to the hotel to wake up our other teammates and drag their asses out (we were drunk, afterall). Once we got to the hotel, we decided to wedding crash again, but this time, as soon as we walked in, we were spotted and told to get out. Ugh. We opted out of pissing our teammates off and headed down to the hotel bar instead, where we came upon another bride...

We stayed at the hotel bar for a couple of drinks and made our way to another bar, before calling it quits around 3am.



Not before taking some pictures, of course.

April and I grabbed a cab, and got to our hotel room where we crashed hard. I dont even think we changed out of our clothes, and I'm pretty sure April even fell asleep with her medal still on. Haha.

Surprisingly, the next day I wasn't too hungover, which is a good thing, since we had a long drive from Lexington back to Nashville ahead of us.

Overall, the relay was sooooo fun this year and the after party was insanely fun! I haven't had a fun night like that in ages!

I love my relay team and look forward to our relay next year (which isn't going to be the Bourbon Chase! We're moving onto a different one next year)!

We had a post relay party at my house this past weekend and it was awesome to get to catch up with everyone. I think this year.. year 2, we got even closer... people from both vans got to know each other a little better and we seemed like a more cohesive team. I did miss our teammates from last year who didn't make it, but they're still apart of NashMash and I'm confident that they'll run with us again!

Viva la NashMash!!!!

I love you guys!