the half

Two weekends ago, I ran a half marathon in Austin with my girlfriends. It was a great excuse to make a whole girls weekend out of it!! We had a blast.

We left Friday afternoon, got there, checked in for our race, checked in at the hotel, and went to a pretty scary restaurant for dinner. The race and hotel were in a city southwest of Austin called Bastrop. When we checked in at our race, we asked a girl who lived there a good place to eat, and she referred us to this restaurant. April said it best when we got our food that it tasted like something she could've made herself. When I go out to eat, I want to eat something I can't make at home.... plus we had to add tons of pepper and parmesan cheese. Oh well. It served it's purpose- carbs! I wish I would've taken a picture of the restaurant.

Afterwards, we found a candy shop. It was unique and all decked out for Easter!! They had some YUMMY fudge though!

Amanda, Molly, & April - being silly as usual.

and Camille !

Ready to RUN - at 5:30am ! What's up with all the make up girls?!?!

My goal for the race was to make it under 2 hours since my last half I ran it in just over 2 hours. Well, that didn't happen but I got close. My time was 2:03:37, pace was 9:29. I was happy with it though, since the course was so dang hilly. There were tons of constant, short, steep hills, and a few bigger ones. There were only 2 generally flat(ter) parts. One of them you were passing people ahead of you, until you turned around and then started passing the people behind you. And the other flat part was the last 1.5 miles or so, where I was completely drained physically. I knew I was at the end, so mentally it was hard to keep pushing myself. I just wanted to be over. I had to pee the last mile or so too, and peed a little in my shorts! Haha. But I finally made it, and was happy with my time. Here's some more stats on my race.

• Overall
  379th
  of 1,390
• Female
  302nd
  of 1,239
• F20-24
  31st
  of 97

After the race, there was an after party with food, shopping, wine, and massages. Who drinks wine after 13.1 miles?

We finally got to our hotel, showered, rested, and got ready for a night on 6th Street!! We went to an amazing restaurant called Iron Cactus. We ordered so much food because it all looked so delicious. We loved it so much, we went there the next day for lunch!!! We were happy to find out there is one in Dallas!!

Out on the deck at Iron Cactus

Camille and I wanted to see Brad Womack at his bar he owned, but he wasn't there. Surprise, surprise. hahaha His bar is called Chuggin' Monkey - in the background.
We found a not-so-crowded country bar to hang out in for awhile and listen to some music. We were out before all the real party-ers, so it wasn't too crazy. Really- there were only like 7 other people in there, with a big dance floor wide open.

After hitting up the bars (ha), we went to a dessert place and got some yummy cheesecake, sundae, pie, and other goods. After that, we walked back to our car, and that's when everything started getting busy! Glad we got out when we did!

Sunday, we shopped for a bit, and hit up an ice cream place before we took off for home. The drive took forever, because of a huge fire, and another accident further down the road. We finally made it home after about 5 hours!

Paxton & Ty were waiting for me out front. It was so fun to see them waiting for me. What sweet boys I have.

It was a fun weekend!