Trip: Lexington, KY

I've been to Lexington, KY two previous times in my life. Both times I ended up a crying, drunken mess at the end of the night. This time, I was hoping for a different outcome.

2009

No sleep for 24plus hours+LOTS of bourbon+No Food= Drunken, dancing alone Amy who then turns into drunken, bawling my eyes out alone on a park bench Amy. GOOD TIMES!

2010

Rinse and repeat. Subtract the dancing and the park bench

and Add crying my eyes out to a cab driver.

In short, Lexington+Amy= SHITTY/DRUNKEN/CRYFEST.

This year, I was in Lexington on the same weekend as the Bourbon Chase. BUT, I wasn't there to run, I was there to continue on with the Tour of the SEC Stadiums that my friends and I do every year. I was hopeful that the Gamecocks would not leave me drunk and crying on Saturday night. Well, at least not crying.

Friday night we all got into town and I yelped a burger place for dinner: Sidebar. I am obsessed with veggie burgers, and theirs was only a 6 on a 10 scale. Oh well. Our waitress then sent us to an irish bar down the street.

About 30 seconds after this photo was snapped, we realized we were in a gay irish bar.

And after a dart game that lasted 2 hours it was time to go home. 

BULLSEYE BITCHES! 

I am going to give up running and start playing darts full-time.

Saturday morning arrived way too early, but we got parked and into our tailgating spot by 11am.

First things first:

 The erection of the Cockmaster 3000.

 Technically a beer was cracked first, but whatev.

The Cockmaster 3000 at full staff.

Then we stood/sat/threw a football/hit a shuttlecock around for about 6 hours all the while drinking beer, bourbon and some nasty ass strawberry vodka shots and stuffing our faces with processed foods.

And we took about a bazillion group photos.

Make that bazillion +1.

Finally, it was time to head to the stadium.

I must have been drunk at this point because there was an incident

with a pair of glasses and the concrete and me kicking them

that I didn't remember the next day. Sorry, dude.

I spent the first half of the game grumbling and pissed off.

But thankfully, we turned things around in the second half, and we were able to get our obligatory post game photo in the stadium with legitimate smiles.

This looks like my fake smile, but it wasn't.

I am happy to report that at the end of the night I was NOT crying! Yay!!! (I was however, really pissed off because our friend Brad spilled an entire solo cup full of bourbon in my front seat. Fucking amateur).

I got up Sunday morning and got my 6 mile easy run done and we grabbed breakfast and headed home. Another successful tour stop.

Previous years trips:

2011: Athens, GA

2010: Auburn, AL

2009: Tuscaloosa, AL

2008: Oxford, MS

2007: Baton Rouge, LA

2006: Nashville, TN (not blogged about. Sad).

The Other Side.

There's the running, of course. The weekly training plans, the emails back and forth with Coach over what the fuck a "progression run" is. There's the early-to-bed-Friday-nights and the group long runs.

But there's also this:

The beginnings of a huge booze stockpile.

I've only finished week 2. I'll be curious to see what the hell week 16 looks like in my fridge. (Hint: possibly some 40s and a huge ass bottle of cheap tequila).

20 weeks to go, bitches!

Race Report: Beer Mile 2012

Before I talk about this year's race, I think I should clarify that I never actually blogged about the race last year. There are a lot of reasons: I think I went out of town the week after, I was interviewed about the race on another blog, but mostly, last years race ended with some drama and embarrassment, so, I felt it was easier to just casually mentioned that I won last year (uhh... for the 3rd year in a row), than write up a whole report on it. You're welcome.

My favorite picture from last year. 

Who knew that asshole would become my coach?

After last year's drunken shit show, I was unsure if our great hosts would open up their yard, home, and pool to our drunk asses again. Thankfully, they did, they just made it an invitational event and it was scheduled for Saturday.

Unfortunately, here in Nashville we experienced monsoon-like weather all last week. It rained EVERYDAY and while we needed the rain desperately, it also made the hosts have to cancel the event. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty bummed. I have been wanting another crack at the beer mile for awhile. I felt like my PR was pretty soft and it's the one event every year that I can dominate. I NEED MY BEER MILE WIN.

So, I decided to hold an impromptu Beer Mile of my own.

My main goal was to PR (particularly since there were only 2 other girls and one of them didn't even really compete). I had my hopes set on something under 11. I felt like it was totally doable, and if it was a good day, that maybe I could even go sub 10:30.

The first beer went down pretty quickly and my first lap felt really good. I remember telling myself on that first lap to go ahead and push the pace, especially while I was feeling good. The second beer and lap were okay.  But the third beer was where I was starting to fall apart. The beer was not disappearing fast enough. I'm not sure if I let it get too warm or what, but normally, the beer drinking is the easy part for me. Not this year, I was struggling to drink fast. I also got kind of confused on my 3rd lap. I kept thinking that I still had 2 beers to drink and when I came into the beer area and saw that I just had one beer left, I was thrilled.

But good god, that beer tasted like ass. At this point, KoB had already won the men's race (!!!!!) and the rest of us were trying to get down our last beers. I was kinda casually chit chatting between gulps (something I'd never done in previous beer miles) and KoB encouragingly yelled... "TALK LATER, DRINK NOW!" and then he followed it up with an affectionate "RUN BITCH," when I started my last lap. And I swear I heard him say, "don't throw up." To which I said in my head... well dammit, which do you want me to do? To run or to not throw up, because it felt like I couldn't simultaneously do both.

That last lap was ROUGH. To be honest, the whole fucking race was rough. But, I'm happy to report that I won (obvs) and I recorded a measly 9 second PR: 11:19. 

Beer Mile 2012

Drunk, etc.

I was a little disappointed in my performance. I feel like my running definitely improved this year, but that my beer drinking wasn't up to where it should have been. I've already decided that I want another crack at it this year. I've got a sub 10:30 in me. I just know it!

Even though I was disappointed with my time, I was thrilled with the event. It was definitely ghetto and small, but we had an awesome time during the race and after!

12th Week.

Does anyone really give a shit about these weekly recaps anymore? I mean, if I were reading my blog, I would totally skip over the graphic. Numbers? Blargh. At this point, I'm posting it more as an archive so that when my Coach ditches me I'll have something to go back and look at to try and base further training off of.

You already know about the race. What you don't know is how I celebrated AFTER the race, by getting DRUNK. You see... for these 12 weeks, I've been dilgently putting in my training for next week's big race. But equally important (and too often neglected by others) is the training for the celebration that will take place post race. Just like in a race, you don't want to crash and burn in your celebration. So, Saturday early evening I met my coach Tanya and Cheryl for some "celebration training." Lots of beers later, I had a friend come out to meet me at the bar and when he realized that he was wayyyy too far to catch up he suggested we rent a movie, to which I suggested we stop so I can get a bottle of wine. We stopped at the liquor store and I picked up a $20 rioja. (WTF? I'm the only drunk person who suddenly becomes a wine snob. I should have bought a $5 gallon of yellowtail shiraz at this point). And approximately 3 minutes after I downed a glass of that wine I was passed out on the couch until it was time for me to go home. CRASH AND BURN.

Lesson learned... Stay at the bar. And probably take a nap before you go out for the night. I'll be good to go next week. Afterall, I have quite the celebration PR to live up to... the last time I PRed a half marathon.

In other RUNNING related news.... I discovered that I LOVE mile repeats. Or at least I did last week. I like the fact that I've got a mile to settle in. When I do 800s, I always start off too slow and then spend the last 200 meters running for my life. With 1600s... I have time to set the cruise control and chillax.

Another week down.