DreamBig 2015 - #44 North Dakota

STATE #44 - Fargo, North Dakota
Go Far Woman Half Marathon
Finishers: 235

August 21, 2015

Hmm...well...looks like I'm going to North Dakota. There are some states on my list that sound normal in concept (being a 50 state and all) but then when you start planning it and start actually traveling, you start thinking - wait, I'm going where?

Fargo is not cheap to get to but being a state, I had no choice but to bite the bullet and book the trip. I took off work on Friday and head down to the airport via Marta around 8am. Evidently Matt Layton saw me walking on a mission with my backpack and jokingly texted me seeing if I needed a ride to class at Georgia State. I got to the Atlanta airport with plenty of time to do my thing - that being get my #8 from Chick-Fil-A. I was flying on American which is super foreign to me so I actually had to go way out of the way to get breakfast but it was worth it. Duh. I also saw a kid on a hover board going through security. Are Razor scooters not cool anymore?

Backpack - Check - Ready to Walk

Glad Marta made room for me... 

Can kids not walk these days? It was cool though...

Good Morning, Beautiful #8

My first flight was from ATL to Chicago (ORD) where I had a short layover and made the brilliant decision to get a bag of Garrett's Popcorn and sat at the gate like a little kid with cheesy fingers trying my best not to touch my white pants. The plane from ORD to FAR was super small which makes you nervous no matter how often you fly.

POPCORN!

Off I go to Fargo!

Flying into Fargo....seems about right.

I landed in Fargo around 3:30PM and with just my luggage on my back, made my way to rent a car and then head on to the expo. The airport is surrounded by cornfields which is such a North Dakota stereotype I almost feel like they did that on purpose. Fargo doesn't have a ton to look at and the expo was at Scheels Arena where I basically walked in, grabbed my bib (#4) and didn't really feel the need to browse the booths because I would end up spending unnecessary money. 

Just 4.

From the expo, my hotel was around the corner so I figured I would go check in . I was staying at the Element - a Westin Hotel and it was new and super nice. My room was super nice (see photo) so I hung out and while I was in race mode, decided to do a little research and booking for my next two races. I soon realized all I had eaten was ChickFilA and popcorn so I ran down to Firehouse Subs and grabbed a sammy.

Cool room, right??

I figured while I was in town, I would do something local so around 6:30PM I head over to North Dakota State University to Newman Outdoor Field to catch a Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks game. Several of their players actually went to Auburn including one of their pitchers, Ty Kelley, who I had semi creepily messaged prior to my trip to tell him I would be in the area for the race, War Eagle, and good luck at the game. 

Small town baseball is always fun because the community gets so into it. I reserved a seat on the end so I wouldn't have to bother people getting up but for some reason no one was sitting anywhere near me and several people pointed it out "Wait, are you alone?" -- "So you don't have any friends coming". Nope....just me. I stayed for the first 4 or 5 innings but wanted to go get dinner number two, so I went down the street to Buffalo Wild Wings so I could watch some of the Chiefs v. Seahawks preseason game (JMac's first TD of the season!). Why I decided eating hot wings and french fries the night before a race was a good idea - I will never understand but it happened. 

I must smell...

Sitting at the bar, the night before a race...eating chicken wings #carbload

I went back to the hotel once I had finished eating and did some more booking for Race #45 and #46 and then did my best to go to bed. I slept absolutely horrible, if I slept at all and kept getting up and thinking my clock was wrong and couldn't do the math. I guess I didn't mention this but I think a lot of it had to do with my nerves because the last month of training had been absolutely horrible. After we got back from Montana, I realized I needed to start getting my cardio endurance up and running more and no joke, I couldn't even run two miles without my arms falling asleep and just getting a bad attitude and needing to walk. It was bad - I was freaking out and contacted my old trainer, TonyT, to see if he would be willing to mentor me again and get me back on track with accountability, etc. (Surprise! I'm human and I struggle with things too) So the most I had run between #43 and #44 was 5 miles but I had gotten back to spinning, lifting, and swimming and running a few times as well. I just prayed that my extra bit of preparation would at least get me to the finish line in the morning.

August 22, 2015
As I said, no sleep made for a very early morning. I got up and down a bunch and then finally decided to get up and get dressed. I left the hotel around 5:45am for a 7am race and hit up McDonald's for some oatmeal before heading down to the race start. The race was at the same place the expo had occurred the day before so it was nice they had indoor, clean bathrooms and a place to stretch and get ready. The weather wasn't horrible in terms of temperature but it was SUPER windy which made things a bit challenging. 

66 and WINDY!!!

Inside Scheels Arena

The race was an all women's race which I hadn't done since Disney back in 2010. After the Canadian and American National Anthems, we were off at 7am on the dot. I knew I couldn't take off like a cannon because, well physically I couldn't run very fast at the moment and also I knew I couldn't let myself get tired right away. 

Starting to worry...about my sanity

The entire race was through newer neighborhoods on streets, paths and sidewalks and it was actually really pretty. We had some sunflower fields and little ponds to look at along the way. At Mile 2 I saw a lady with a 50 States Club shirt on and after trying to count the states and run at the same time, I decided to give up and just strike up conversation. She was on #29 and she was projected to finish in June 2016 running 25 races this year. See, I'm not the craziest person out there. We talked about our goals for a while and then at the 3 Mile water stop I bid her good luck and realized that the 2:00 hour/9:10min/mile pacer had caught up to us. 

This was only at Mile 2

I've never really run with a pacer because it sort of pushes me out of the "run your own race" mentality and forces me to fall into a goal that I'm not necessarily there to achieve. But, they were going a pace that I could handle so I figured I would hang with them long enough until I felt like it was messing with my brain. That point hit around Mile 6 and I just sort of let them get out of range ahead of me. Pacers are great if you are going for a specific time goal but my goal is always just to finish and if I do well then great, if I don't then I don't have a time goal to be upset about. Ya feel me?

At Mile 7, I made my Snap Chat as always and I was surprised to see how good I was still feeling. Not awesome and my knee was starting to give me a little pain but nothing I couldn't handle. Mile 8 and 9 made loops back through some more new neighborhoods and they had some chocolate energy gel that was awesome - almost like fudge. Fat Kid Ashley almost turned around to go get another one. 

Mile 9 we passed a house that had a sign that read "One Free Sprinkle" with a little sprinkler our front that made me laugh. Since the course ran us all through neighborhoods, a lot of families with their kids and dogs and coffees had set up water stations in front of their house. Love with the community get involved -- especially when we are barricading them from leaving their houses anyways. 

1 FREE SPRINKLE! 2 and we charge you....

Mile 9 - only 4.1 more to go! I kept thinking those were flamingos...

We turned out of the neighborhood at Mile 9.5 and ran back the way we came with the slower runners going in the opposite direction - I love cheering people on. It probably wastes a lot of my energy, but whatever. Mile 10 came and all we had left was a 5K! We passed a group of college athletes handing out water at Mile 11 and then we just had a 2 mile stretch to the finish. We ran past a house where an old man was just out mowing his lawn...not a care in the world for the hundreds of females running in his backyard. My knee started being really weird at this point so I started to fall into this hobble mode where you don't really bend one leg you just kind of hip lift and move it along. As long as I didn't change the angle of it too much it was fine. I was so pumped to finish it was hard to hold myself back!

I knew the arena was close but I couldn't see quite how close until right at like Mile 12.7 when I realized it was basically right in front of me. We ran through a tunnel under the main road and it seriously elevated the volume of my feet hitting the pavement and it gave me that last burst of energy I needed to push up the little hill, across the grass (which reminded me SO much of high school cross country!) and down the finishing chute. The clock said 2:03 and I was thrilled since I hadn't had a good race in quite some time and I really needed that as a confidence booster. 

What the finish looks like

The medals were handed out by firemen and since I would never see them again, I had no shame in asking if two of them would take a picture with me. Why not, right? I grabbed some snacks and had a lady take my finisher photo with the finish line in the background and then head back to the hotel to shower so I could explore.

StolenPhotos....

Thank you Firemen!

SnapChat Check-In

Official Time: 2:03:49 - 20 minutes faster than Montana

Official Race Pic! - 44 states down, 6 more to go! #DREAMBIG

Here is a serious vent: WHO invented vegan all natural 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner and WHY would they ever had it as the main shampoo/conditioner at the hotel?!?! This "Pharmacopia" garbage made my nappy sweaty hair 100x more nappy and sweaty and no joke made it feel like packing peanuts - or like cotton balls - it was so bad I couldn't even brush it and I had to go out with a wet hair, birds nest ugly bun to the store to buy normal, American, chemical induced shampoo and conditioner. Okay, rant over.

Once I was clean, I made my way to the Cajun Cafe who I heard had a killer Crawfish Omelet and Sweet Potato Pancakes. I don't like it, but I am getting more and more used to eating by myself in restaurants. The food fully lived up to the reviews and the waitress was very impressed with my appetite and speed of consumption. 

Crawfish Omelet AND Sweet Potato Pancake

Clean Plate Club - Where's my toy? (Schnucks anyone? Back in the day?)

After lunch, I head to downtown Fargo to see the famous "Fargo" sign and snap some few photos. I also did a little JMacGivesBack photo contest for our Instagram and an employee actually came out of the pizza shop I was sitting outside of to ask me about the toys I was playing with on the bench which I was assembling my lego JMac. Once that ordeal was over, I settled into a coffee shop for a while to chill and write some fan mail (postcards to my family). 

Where in the World is Lego JMac (You are all disqualified from playing)

I had to drop the car off at the airport by 3:30PM so I had some time to kill at Hector International to...well....write this blog =) It started pouring about 30 minutes ago so fingers crossed I get through to Chicago and back to Atlanta at a decent hour. No need to bore the readers with any future travel drama. 

44 states down, 6 more to go!
#DREAMBIG