DreamBig 2015 - #48 Oklahoma

STATE #48 - Tulsa, Oklahoma
Route 66 Half Marathon
Finishers: 7,347

November 21, 2015
I just flew in from Atlanta last night and the only thing on my mind was Thanksgiving dinner - so I will not lie that I sort of forgot this was a race weekend. Even after waking up, I spent most of the morning chillin on the couch talking to mom and in my mind figured that's where I would spend the day. Around 9:30am, I decided to go check my phone (because I'm soooo popular) and had a text from Katie Bahn/Bodine saying she would be by around 10am to pick me up.

Hmm...so much to do, only 30 minutes. The most important thing on my mind was not a shower, was not packing - but first and foremost I HAD to get ChickFilA. But I also needed to pack and shower. Mom owes me about 300 hours of running errands after my sisters wedding last weekend, so I sent her up to ChickFilA to get my breakfast while I speed showered and packed. Don't speed pack because you will almost forget your running shoes - whoops.

Mom joining me in the #7 tradition

By 9:55am, I was done with my chores and mom was home so we stood around and ate ChickFilA and watched the SNOW fall. Yes, snow. You southerners don't really understand snow but in the Midwest its a rather common occurrence just out of the blue -- and no we don't get full weeks of work off for it either. (Gotta love Atlanta)

So Katie arrived around 10:10am and off we started on our 5.5 hour journey to Tulsa, Oklahoma!

So a little background: Katie's younger brother Andrew went to Auburn with me and was a Freshman when I was a senior. But due to my additional 1.5 years of grad school, we ended up in college longer than just a year together. Andrew and I hung out a lot and then realized our mom's used to work together in Saint Louis and then realized that we lived less than a mile away from each other in Saint Louis and that is slowly how I became part of the Bahn Family. I have slowly become an invited guest to all family dinners and holiday functions and even family vacations (I spent a weekend in Istanbul with their family back in 2012).

Joining in on the Bahn Family vacation to Turkey

Katie got married in September 2014 and at the time had mentioned she would love to run one of my races with me, so I gave her the entry to the Route 66 Half Marathon as a wedding gift. It's not all that weird, because Katie actually went to Tulsa for college where she played soccer so it was a trip back down memory lane for her. Katie is also very weird - like if you think I'm weird with my running she is weirder - this girl signed up for a half ironman before she had even run a half marathon or owned a bike. She also completed a full ironman, qualified for Boston Marathon like it was no big deal and then ran the Boston Marathon this past April in 2015. So me signing her up to run with me was a bit of a death wish because I knew she could smoke me.

During registration, I asked what she wanted me to put down for her expected finish time and her reply was "I don't know, like 1:40 - right? Or whatever you put" -- 1:40?? Ya, sure - let me add another 30 minutes to that for it to be anywhere close to my speed.

Aside from her weirdness, she is such an encouraging person so I was thrilled to get to run this race with her.

Made it to Oklahoma!

Back to our road trip: The drive to Tulsa was about 5.5 hours so we arrived in time for Katie to give me a driving tour of campus minus a few key things that were blocked off because it was gameday for Tulsa who was playing Navy. The tailgating was almost as big as a little kids carnival! Just funny compared to Auburn.

We then head down to the expo which was organized really weird and we had to wait in a super long line to get our race numbers and then walk all the way across the expo to get our jackets.

The line to get our packets

We finally got back on the road down south to Katie's friends house. We arrived just in time to see Jenny come outside to grab an uber downtown. She had baked us cookies so we sat around and watched some football until we were both so tired we knew we had to go eat before we fell asleep. We head up to a place called Hideaway Pizza and split a pizza and some garlic knots to carb load prerace.

They ARE Oklahoma Pizza

We watched a little more football when we got back to the house and the crew showed up including Wes, Jenny and one of Wes's coaching friends. They ate pizza and watched football while I passed out on the couch -- great house guest, right?

Cookies, Pizza and Football - nothing better

Katie and I finally went to bed with a plan for the morning and I think we both slept like rocks.

November 22, 2015
RACE DAY!!

We woke up at 6am and thankfully Wes and his friend were up as well for an early morning of coaching. After grabbing a few granola bars we were out the door into the 26 degree weather. It was the first hard frost of the year for them so we (and by we I mean Katie) spent a good few minutes scraping the ice off the car windows.

Good morning, Tulsa!

A nice little ice scraping warm-up

Nice, clear FREEZING cold morning in Tulsa

We were on our way as the sun was coming up and found a great parking spot 2 blocks from the finish line near OSU-Tulsa. We hung out in the car for a little bit but around 7am decided to go walk to the start line. Seeing as we were at the finish, we ran across a small village of line-less porta-potties. You never see that! It's like a rare unicorn sighting.

An unheard of pre-race no line sighting

Hiding in the alley pre-race

Another 5 or 6 blocks south we finally started to see people and realized that the trash bags we had brought as windshields and left in the car because "we were good". The wind was crazy it was freezing and I was slowly losing all feeling in my toes and hands and we still had a good 30 minutes until the start of the race. At this point we turned into street rats and just started wandering around looking for a way to get out of the wind. We found some reprieve in an alley and hung out there until 10-15 minutes before the race.

Getting ready to run! So happy Katie could join me in this adventure!

Start line! Wish we could have gotten a confetti cannon pic - but had to run

We started in Corral B and they had some good pump up jams for the wait. They had a five minute gap between wave A and B so we had plenty of time for my feet to continue to fall asleep frozen. Finally when it was our turn to go, confetti cannons went off and off we went on my 48th race! Katie ran with me for the first 2 minutes or so but then we fell into this fairly efficient formation of her running about 3-4 yards in front of me so I had something to watch and keep me moving at a decent pace.

Legit though, I could not feel my feet for the first 4 miles. No feet. Which sort of worked out well for me because the first 4 miles were basically a roller coaster of hills. Of course Katie is just skipping along in front of me while I'm just praying the hills stop while dragging behind.

Oh look - happy as a clam. I'm the best pretend smiler ever!

I wish I could tell you more about what the course looked like but I was starring at Katie's back the entire time and my eyes didn't stray very much. My hands were also way too cold to take my gloves off to take any pictures during the first half of the race. But from what Katie told me, we ran through a nice shopping area called Utica Square and then some nice school called Cascia Hall and then just around a lot of really nice neighborhoods.

Goof 

Then we headed south for Mile 6 and 7 and around Mile 7 I called Katie back so we could be in a snapchat together. They also had some crazy loud music and cheer sections along this stretch and 41st street and I could see how some people would hate it but it got my pumped up.

Mile 7 - quit it with the tongue Ash

We turned north again near Mile 8 and I knew were were on the home stretch home but my lovely knee was starting to bother me so I'm sure I turned down the pace a little. We were heading north on Riverside Drive along the Arkansas River and then due to construction had to take a detour through some neighborhoods where things got crazy. I wish I wasn't a few things at this point: 1. Exhausted 2. Cold 3. A lightweight because they had SEVERAL stops giving out shots, beer, fireball soaked gummie bears, jello shots and it was all blowing my mind. Katie enjoyed a beer while I just really wanted to finish. So onward from the Mile 9 "Block Party" we had 4 miles to go.

We continued North for about 2.5 more miles where we did a little loop de loop on Route 66 on the bridge and then headed straight up a hill to downtown.

Coming off the bridge on Route 66

At every mile Katie would hold up her hands to tell me where we were and it was awesome to hear her yell back - one more! At that point in my mind I started thinking, not only was it one more mile, but I was 27.2 miles from being done with my entire goal. One full marathon plus one mile of this race and I would be done. Not only that but one of those half marathons would be in the gorgeous Maui and the next one would be with all of my friends and family crossing the 50 yard line in Auburn, AL. I could finish this one last mile no matter how much pain I was in. It is 90% mental.

So around the last couple of turns, I wasn't able to give it the normal Ashley kick but I did my best to get across that finish line.

Katie ready for another 13.1 - Ashley ready to fall over

I was so thrilled to be done and of course Katie was ready for another 26.2 miles or an Ironman or something after that warm up so we grabbed some snacks and heat blankets and made our way back to the car a few blocks away where we got some pictures in a park and then head back downtown to Jenny and Wes's house for showers.

#48 for me! #WAYmore miles for Katie

I eat 48 for breakfast

OFFICIAL RACE PIC - 48 states down, 2 more to go! #DREAMBIG

We got a little lost trying to get back on the highway and needed gas and found the perfect stop right on the marathon route around Mile 23 so Katie got to cheer while I went and got the chocolate milk and Gatorade from inside.

Once showered, we got on the road back to Saint Louis around noon. We aren't sure why we decided not to eat but ended up rationing our available snacks only allowing ourselves to eat one every hour on the hour like we were lost at sea or something. We were able to listen to the Chiefs game until we lost the channel around half time but made it to the Bahn's house around 5:45pm where the whole family was home and had made ribs and a whole spread of sides for dinner. It was great catching up with the whole family and Mr. Bahn even let me have icecream =)

I was asleep on the couch by 8:30pm and thrilled to check my last race of the year off the list!

48 states down, 2 more to go!
#DREAMBIG