I spent the weekend in Nashville with Ara.  I went to help her complete the marathon there and she did it!  Despite pouring rain at the start and very high temperatures the rest of the time with humidity she made it to the finish.  It was a great accomplishment for her.

We arrived Thursday night and went to the Marathon Expo to pick up our race stuff and checked out the city.  Here are some photos.  And yes, there are Jack Daniel’s signs surrounding the baggage claim, you won’t see that in Utah! 

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Friday we drove to Lynchburg to tour the Jack Daniel’s Distillery.  It was a really nice tour and drive.  We got lost and ended up going the long way despite the fact that I was navigating with a map and we had a Garmin GPS system.  The problem was the map very not large enough scale and the Garmin couldn’t seem to figure out where we were.  But we got to drive through gorgeous rural Tennessee with nice rolling green hills, horse farms and plantation style houses.  It was a great time.  Here are the photos of “downtown” Lynchburg.  

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The distillery tour lasted about 90 minutes.  There were lots of places we couldn’t take photos because we were around very flammable alcohol.  The crazy part about it is that the distillery is in a dry county so they cannot sell the whiskey unless it is in a commemorative bottle and you cannot sample it not that we would have with a marathon the next day anyway.  It was interesting learning about the process and meeting the people that make Jack Daniel’s whiskey.  I didn’t know much about the history.  There have only been 7 master distillers in the history of Jack Daniel’s and the current one just start April 1.  Here are the photos from the tour.  If you are ever in Tennessee whether you like whiskey or not I definitely recommend that you take a tour.  

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After the tour we headed to another small town, called Franklin.  We had hoped to get dinner there but it turned out they were having a festival so we headed back to Nashville.  We tried to get to bed early so our 4:15 wake-up didn’t come as early.  We got up and got ready for the race.  It was pouring rain.  Luckily Ara had brought disposable ponchos so those kept us dry for the several hours of standing and running in the rain.  Since there were 30,000 runners, they used a wave start.  The elite racers started at 7:00 am but we didn’t start until 7:45.  The wave was nice because you could run from the start but all the standing around was tough because it was really cold.  Ara made it to the finish despite facing several challenges that would more than likely would have made other people quit.  She was a trooper!  Here are the photos from the marathon.  

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We got to meet up with some of Ara’s friends from work after the race which was a lot of fun and went to the concert after the race as well.  Since the race was part of the Rock-N-Roll series, Lady Antebellum played along with another group.  We only watched Lady Antebellum so that we could go meet Ara’s friends but they were really good!

Sunday we slept in, packed up and then drove out to Opryland to check it out after stopping briefly at the Country Music Hall of Fame.  It was pouring rain so we didn’t get out at Orpyland but it was cool to at least see it.  We headed to the airport and returned home.

I am really sore and sunburned and now at home trying to study for finals.  They will be done Tuesday and I can’t wait for the semester to end…Wish me luck, hope all is well.