It's a GREAT day to run a race!!!

We woke up bright and early to get ready for the race!!! All throughout the day on Saturday, we kept checking the weather over and over. We were struggling with what to wear - the temperature kept dropping and it was windier than we thought because we were so close to the water. We all settled on wearing warmer clothes than we thought we would!

David - looks ready to set a PR doesn't he!

We met Beth & Anthony downstairs in the hotel breakfast lobby (they opened early for the racers :) ), grabbed a banana, and were off to get on the shuttles!

Savannah's downtown has ZERO parking, so the runners were told to drive out to the Mall (about 30 minutes from our hotel and about 30 minutes from the start) to park and then ride a shuttle to the start.

Thankfully they had lots of buses there so they kept us moving. And we were there early so we didn't feel too stressed about the time. Time to head to the starting line!

Pralines, PAULA, and Pasta!

Next stop on my list was the River Street Sweets shop. About a week before we left for the race, my Mom told me to be sure I ate some pralines while I was there! DUH - I had forgotten that Savannah is sort of well known for that! So this was another stop we had to make!

This is THE place. THE best. On Paula Deen's list for sure. They hand out free samples at the door. Every kind of candy confection. But the BEST pralines. Unreal. Ate only the sample they gave me and then bought the kids each a treat and me & David a treat to eat AFTER the race! :)

Not posed - I swear. Walking behind our husbands and noticed that they are twins! :)

Next up - Paula Deen's!!! We knew we were not going to be able to eat here. Sad. But the lines are so crazy long and we weren't going to be able to get our name in early enough on Saturday morning because of...well....the little race we were running in.....so we had to settle for going to her store and just peeking in the windows at the restaurant :)

Yes, that's me at the cash register...David bought me a few Christmas presents :)

Me and Paula!!! She's short! :)

I love these two girlies!! :)

The menu. Yum...

Then it was time for us to head and find some dinner. We knew that of course, every pasta place was going to be crazy busy. Everything in the city was crazy busy. There were 23,000 runners there!! We found an Olive Garden and were told when we walked in that it was a 1.5 hour wait. Ugh. That's no good. We were starving. It was already 7 pm. Needed to eat and get home and in bed. We decided to order our food to go and take it back to the hotel and eat. While Beth & I ran in the bathroom though, David snagged a table in the bar-seating area (where it's first come first served) and the next thing you know, we were sitting down ordering our food! Way to go David!! It pays to be observant!

We had a delicious dinner, ate plenty of carbs, and headed back to the hotel to get a good night of sleep. After all, we had 13.1 miles to run in the morning!! :)

Shirts at the EXPO

One of my FAVORITE stops at the EXPO is always the One More Mile stop - they have the FUNNIEST shirts and things. Totally crack me up! Here's some of my favorites...

LOVED this one...because when I run, whether it's a mile or 12 miles, I am a sweaty, stinky, red-faced mess. Always. I do NOT look like the people on TV - all pretty, hair still perfect, make up still in place. I definitely do NOT smell like a princess when running! :) And that's okay!

I totally laughed out loud of this one...because Beth & David had been posting on facebook left and right! :)

We runners are a little crazy about our Garmins. I begged Kelli to ship us hers so that David and I could BOTH wear one for the race. (He bought me one for my birthday last year and we share it...but neither one of us was willing to go without it for the race!!)

The front of the shirt....

...and the back.

And yes, I'm DEFINITELY a runner! :)

The EXPO

We drove up near the river in order to be able to board the ferry and head over to the expo. This is always a highlight for me of race weekend - it's always so fun to walk through an expo and get my free swag bag, see all the vendors, try all the samples, just enjoy the cameraderie with ALL the other runners milling around - it's exciting!!

I swear - it's like we were with Mr. & Mrs. Photogenic all weekend!! I kept taking pictures of them and they were all so good!! :)

It was fun riding the ferry over to where the Expo was...a little nerve wrecking perhaps, but fun :)

Our husbands hate us for making them take ALL these pictures...but we don't care....we do it anyways!

Me and my running buddy! :) Love her!

I mean - how can you resist these photo ops? :) (And I said when I took this picture that I would be SO stoked if that was my real time!)

(We also commented that the moral of this story is ALWAYS smile at the finish line - someone may be taking your picture and use it as a photo backdrop at an expo one day!! Just look at that poor lady on the right side...not looking very happy!)

This was me and Beth's first Rock & Roll race - and it was SO fun seeing all the rock stuff everywhere! :)

We all love our kids. Don't get me wrong. But we were super excited to be able to walk through the EXPO without them. And get to stop at whatever vendors we wanted! Take this one for example - an ear buds vendor that guarantees they DO NOT come out of your ears. Guaranteed. We were all sized (we all wear the same size if you can believe it) and it really was remarkable - they did NOT come out. Very cool.

Then we stopped at this foot place. David has had foot/back/hip issues and he loves for someone to look at his feet. No big surprises with his eval.

Then Beth got up. She's had a whole FIT of trouble with her feet and ankles during this training, and this guy was the first one to actually give her some good answers/reasons/suggestions/help with WHY and what she can do about it!

Of course, Anthony was watching the prognosis with dollar signs flashing before his eyes.....Beth did buy some new inserts for her feet.... :)

AND THEN....we turned the corner....and I about fell out on the floor!!!! Guess who I saw??? Dan & Jackie from the Biggest Loser a few seasons ago!!!

TOTALLY knew them right away. Totally threw my camera at Beth & said I've got to go meet them and take pictures!!!!

It was the COOLEST!! See the picture on my left? That was Jackie - Dan's mom. You can sort of see Dan's before picture to his right. He was huge. He's super young - early 20s. His mom said that she was totally to blame with him - took him to drive thrus and fast food all the time. He would down a 2-liter of soda at a meal. It was just so sad.

They totally changed their lives on Biggest Loser almost 3 years ago and are still keeping the weight off and staying healthy. They've started this KidsFit foundation that is promoting healthy living and active lifestyles for kids and travel around the country working with that. It was SO cool to get to talk with them! I told them that I am a total fan of the show and always am so inspired watching it!!! (Did NOT tell them we usually are eating ice cream on the couch while we watch...)

It was SO exciting. So proud of the changes they have made and how they are continuing to "pay it forward" with other people. Dan said he has done 10 half marathons this year! Talk about inspiring!!

It was so much fun. Loved taking our time. Picking up samples. Looking at goofy stuff. Tasting things. Grabbing freebies. Coupons. So much fun. I think we were there for 4 hours or something crazy. So fun.

And as we were standing in line to ride the ferry back over, David was giving Anthony a little cell phone lesson.....they crack me up....we married ourselves some crazy boys.

Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House

Many months ago, when Beth & I decided that we were all going to do this race, we immediately started getting excited about the awesome food we could enjoy while we were there for the weekend! It sounded like the perfect place to get to enjoy some good southern cooking after all those months of training!!

She began having several people talk about going to "Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House" while we were there and so we began investigating. It's only open Monday - Friday, only from 11 am - 2pm, and there is limited seating. The line begins early in the mornign, and you either line up early to get a seat, or you are out of luck. Southern cooking at its best, served family style, and several people even said that they liked it better than....gasp....Paula Deen's! (Don't worry Paula - I still am hopelessly devoted to you, but I'm just saying what people said...)

I had heard about this place somewhere along the way....maybe Food Network? But I was initially skeptical. Our only shot to go eat was going to be Friday at lunch. The day before we ran a half marathon. Not really the perfect day to go indulge on a feast quite like that. And I'm not really a poster girl for self-control when it comes to yumminess like that. But as we got closer to the weekend and we both continued having people tell us "Oh, you've just GOT to go eat there" I gave in. We promised each other to slap wrists if we started reaching for fried chicken piece #4 or something, but just didn't want to miss out!!!

We met in the hotel for breakfast that morning - Beth & Anthony had gotten in late the night before. It was great to see them and know that the fun was about to begin! We made our plan and then headed downtown to get in line!! :)

It's the cutest little place - just this little bitty sign out front. Parking is near impossible downtown. Lined up with the crowds. Had plenty of time to start the picture taking! :) Started getting nervous about how windy and cold it was...and begin the first of a LOT of discussions on what we would wear for the race....

It's really quite an amazing thing this place has going. They've been there for about a hundred years. Only open M-F, 11-2 pm. Apparently makes plenty of money and has no need to change what they are doing!! They would open the door, seat about 80 people, close the door again and say we'll seat more in a little while. And so the wait would continue. Then people would come out of the door, make hilarious comments like "man that was good! Totally worth it! Loosen your pants up!", etc - so funny.

Finally it was our turn to go in and man were we excited!! :)

So glad I changed my mind about this place! We totally would have missed out!

This is what the table looked like when we sat down. I think David counted 22 dishes! Everyone had sweet tea at their plate. The waitress came by and asked if anyone wanted unsweet or water (I thought she was going to cut my head off when I asked...ashamedly....for water), and then she said "the food has been blessed - go ahead!!"

Oh my - it was incredible. Fried chicken, mac & cheese, buttered noodles & peas, okra, rutabaga, sweet potatoes, stuffing (with hard cooked eggs in it?), the best collards everyone said they'd ever had, cheesy potatoes, rice & gravy, macaroni salad, baked beans, black eyed peas, biscuits & cornbread, and a ton more I'm sure I"m forgetting. It was amazing. We ate our platefuls and then pushed away from the table! They brought us cherry cobbler or banana pudding (which I unashamedly STILL love Paula's recipe for banana pudding WAY better) and then told us that when we were done, we could carry our cup, silverware, and plates to the dishwasher lady! Seriously! It was the cutest!!

They accept cash or check only. No receipts. The man puts your money in a basket and pulls out your change. Had this great shirt in their little "gift shop" area. The man said that Mrs. Wilkes grandson now runs the shop - he was the one that seated us - and that they are one of only 4 restaurants in GA that are still allowed to serve family style. If they were to sell the restaurant out of the family, they'd have to align with new healthy regularions/codes and switch to buffet. Family style is sort of a fun thing - luckily we were sitting with a cute family of 5 that we met while in line. The mom and dad were both running in the race and they had their 3 kids with them that were super sweet.

So we were SO glad we didn't miss out - totally glad we went - and DIDN'T eat too much! We decided to walk around a little bit and head over to the expo to get our race stuff next!!!

...oh yes, and on our way there, we saw the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile!! (And Anthony was obviously driving too fast because this is as good of a picture that I could get!)