This past weekend was very eventful at the Whitaker household. Our good friends the Moncriefs came in town on Thursday afternoon to kick start what was sure to be a busy, eventful weekend. Brent, Jimmy and Dusty were participating in the Country Music Marathon/Half Marathon in Nashville. We had made plans months in advance for the Cranes and Moncriefs to stay at the house as well as to host a pre-race pasta party the night before. We were so excited to have Katie and Owen, as well as the Garzas join in on the pasta dinner. It was a great UTC gathering at our new home!

Friday we spent the day downtown at the Health and Fitness Expo where there were a plethora of vendors and attractions related to the race. Also the guys had to get registered, get all their gear together and make sure they were fully prepared for the next day.

We saw some pretty neat things at the expo including Denise Austin, the work-out video lady. We also saw Dan and Dane from this season's Biggest Loser.

Friday was rather eventful with the dinner at our house with all of our great friends as well as Brent's aunt, uncle and their three kids from Birmingham. Their oldest daughter, MaryAnne was running the race so they came to support her.

As the night went on, we quickly realized something was terribly wrong with our air conditioner as the house continued to get warmer and warmer. Unfortunately, it would not work which made for a very balmy night's sleep.

Saturday morning came early - 4:15 to be exact as the guys started getting together and left our house around 4:30 to head downtown. It was a rough start to the morning as we had one camper that required a 2am drive around the town and another camper have a bad dream. (which actually we figured out later was really the beginning of an ear infection)

With just a few hours of sleep under their belts, we wished the boys well and they hit the road.

By 5:30 all the girls loaded up and followed suit to downtown. We had quite an eventful morning trying to determine the best spectator spot. We parked at the finish line, rode a "participant shuttle" to the start line and were fortunate enough to at least see Dusty on his way. Jimmy had already started with all the Kenyans and Brent was no where to be found.

We quickly determined we had quite the hike back to the finish line where we originally parked. I am pretty sure we hoofed about 4 miles that morning, babies in tow, with a cool 90+ degree temperature day.

We finally made it to the finish line, searched for Jimmy to no avail, then settled into a spot to watch for Brent. He rounded the corner on the last mile and looked fantastic! I was so proud of him. A few hours later, we all cheered on Dusty as he wrapped up his 5 hour, 26 mile trek.

We finally found Jimmy who had been finished for quite some time, but was walking aimlessly around searching for his "supporters." ha!

It was a great weekend, needless to say. Tackling many milestones: Brent completing his first half marathon (13.1 miles) in less than 3 hours and Dusty completing his first full marathon in less than 5 hours! We were very proud of all of them. (Even Jimmy, who hung with the Kenyans!)



There were RIDICULOUS lines pre-race to all of the port-o-toilets. We had to walk behind this huge long line and MAN did they stink!! I think it was safe to say there were a lot of nervous bellies... YUCK


This is hard to see, but these are some of the racers waiting to get to their spot on the start line. There were 31 corrals with 1,000 runners in each corral. They let them start every 2-3 minutes, so the start took over an hour for every runner to get through.

There's a guy in this pic without his shirt on, which was funny because Brent kept saying he was going to run shirtless because he couldn't find the right attire...


The girls waiting to see our guys.





The line of runners was infinite! I was amazing at how far down the street they were lined up.



Yep, more port-o-toilets...different spot...different line...same funky smell.




The official start line.


I could never find Brent, but I did find his corral number right before they crossed the start line. He's in there some where...






Brent - post-race after he changed out of his shirt. He just looked like a by-stander, all calm and cool. Other runners looked like they were going to die...literally!

All of the finishers:

Brent, Dusty (full) and Jimmy