Team Rio celebrated our Finish Line Party at the Mercy Lounge tonight. Team Rio is a group of dedicated, energetic runners and walkers who trained together to support Big Brothers Big Sisters and participate in the Country Music Marathon or Half Marathon on April 30. This is the seventh year for the team to join together for the kids!

Team Rio raised $110,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee! Many of you supported my fund raising efforts for Team Rio and your donations contributed to that fantastic total. Thank you!

I was surprised and grateful to receive two awards – #5 Top Fund Raiser award and Top Tweeter award (along with James Crumlin).

It was great to talk with other Team Rio runners and walkers and hear about their experiences at the Country Music Marathon. A few ran the full marathon (most for the first time), but most people ran/walked the half marathon. You can read about my experience in this blog post.

For me, it was a great experience training with Team Rio this year.  A big thanks to Renee Rehrman and Jimmy Olander (Diamond Rio fame) who the drivers of Team Rio. They made me feel welcomed and encourage me – even though I was a walker, not a runner like nearly everyone else. Also, thanks to our coaches Jill Mongene and Diane Bolton for their encouragement, consulting, and training regimen. From Big Brothers Big Sisters, thanks to Ingrid Castioni who provided drinks, goo, orange slices, and bananas each week. She arrived early and stayed late during the Saturday team sessions.

I plan to be part of Team Rio again next year. Why don’t you come join us?

Thanks to everyone who donated to support my fund raising for Big Brothers Big Sisters and the American Cancer Society in conjunction with the Country Music Half Marathon! You are awesome and I thank you very much!

I completed the County Music half marathon this morning. It was a great experience. All the training days paid off. Click here for pictures and more info.

Today started early when the alarm went off at 4:00am! Lots to do to get ready for “race day” – the Country Music Half Marathon.

Two of my co-workers, Cathi Goff and Teresa Elliott, ran the full Marathon and we met at the Team Rio gathering point before the start of the race.

Don’t we look great! All smiles at this point.

A little cool at 6:00am, but it did warm up quite a lot by the time we all finished. Of course, I had it easier since I was only doing the half marathon while Cathi and Teresa did the full marathon. Their first one! As Cathi said, “My goal is to finish and get the medal” and they both did just that. Awesome!

I trained with Team Rio, supporting Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle TN, in preparation for the race. I want to thank the coaches, team members, and BBBS sponsors for their support and encouragement.

I started in corral #27. By the time I got to the start line, the first group had left 42 minutes earlier! The road was wide – 6 or 7 lanes at the start – so runners and walkers spread out pretty quickly. No problem with anyone running over me. The race is very well organized, well run, and the runners/walkers back in corral #27 were certainly not running to win the race so they were pretty easy going.

Two great things about the County Music marathon are that there are live bands playing about every mile and there are thousands of cheering crowds on both sides of the road along the route. Both keep you pumped up!

It started getting really warm about mile 7. Fortunately, there were plenty of water stations, and I did not miss any of them.

My goal was to finish in under 3 hours. I finished in 2hrs 53 minutes 😉  Officially, that’s a pace of 13:13 per mile. Since I did not walk the shortest “official” path my Garmin said I walked 13.23 miles, which translates to a 13:03 average pace. Either way, I’m happy!

Thanks to everyone who donated to Big Brothers and Big Sisters and the American Cancer Society to support my fundraising for this race! You are awesome – thank you very much!

One week to go before the Country Music half-marathon and we are cutting back on our Team Rio practice distances. However, one thing that we will be increasing is our water consumption to increase our hydration level during this final week of preparation. The personal hydration recommendation is calculated from the formula – divide your weight in half, convert the result to ounces, and you have the quantity of liquid to consume each day. For me that’s 174/2 = 87 oz. per day, or about 10 glasses  of water a day.

The temperature was 70 degrees (F) at 7:00am this morning and the sky was overcast. The weather forecast for next Saturday is warm and sunny so it hydration should be a major factor for everyone. I feel good, ready to go.

After today’s practice session, many Team Rio members met at the local Bruegger’s bagel shop to support a Big Brothers Big Sisters fund raiser. Bruegger’s donated 15 percent of all purchases made by people with a BBBS fund raining flier at all stores in the Nashville area on Saturday. I hope this raised a lot of money for BBBS.

I’m training to walk in the Country Music half marathon to support Big Brothers Big Sisters. If you’d like to donate to Big Brothers Big Sisters and support me, please click here. Thanks for your support!