Rock-N-Roll New Orleans Half Marathon Part 3

The Race/Post Race Celebration

**Check out Rock-N-Roll New Orleans Half Marathon Part 1 -
The Expo

**Check out Rock-N-Roll New Orleans Half Marathon Part 2 –
ACS Decorating Party and Pasta Dinner

The morning of the race, my alarm went off bright and early at 5 a.m.! I wanted to leave our hotel no later than 5:40 a.m. so I could check in with the DetermiNation tent and meet up with my running group for our group picture!

Race day items ready to go!

Heather and Bobby waited until later to walk down so that’s why she’s still in her pajama pants here!

From our hotel, the walk was not far at all!  Jason woke up early and came with me!  Isn’t he sweet?! :0)

I made my way over to the DetermiNation tent where I found these two…

 

Katie and Erin!  They were both running their first Half Marathon!  We were on a team together to raise money for DetermiNation!  They did awesome and had a fabulous time!  Way to go, ladies! :0)

After giving a few words of encouragement to Katie and Erin, I made my way to Corral 20 where my running group was meeting up!

GO RUN! :0)

I love these guys! :0)

My sister in law Kayla also found me!  Yay!

Wow….these costumes were quite interesting…and looked very uncomfortable!

My awesome husband was awake bright and early to see me off! :0)

 

A picture of the back of my race shirt….

I do have to say, the weather for this race was GORGEOUS!!!  Very similar to the weather we had for last year’s race.  Not too cold, not too warm…just perfect!  It was a beautiful day, as well!

I also met up with Heather and we made our way to Corral 10!

  

The MASSIVE line of people waiting for the race to begin! We were much closer to the start line this year vs last year!

The start of this race went MUCH faster than last year it seemed.  Before we knew it (I wasn’t even ready with my Garmin), we were off and running!

About to cross the start line!  I was too busy taking pictures that I forgot to sync my Garmin. Ugh.

I got my Garmin working pretty quickly though…and before I knew it, the first band appeared!

Also, right away I spotted the first group of DetermiNation cheerleaders.  I do have to say, they were INCREDIBLE through the ENTIRE race course!  I LOVED every minute!!!!!

I also loved all of the gorgeous homes that we passed along the race course!

I could not believe how fast this race seemed to fly by!!  We were making very good time!

Loved the tree line streets!

A band was playing from the front porch of this home!

These cheerleaders won the contest!  They were pretty awesome if I do say so myself! :0)

Here’s where the Half and the Full people split…

Another band…

This guy’s sign cracked me up!!!

Self-photo!  Hah!

Another group of DetermiNation cheerleaders!!  Again, they were AWESOME!

The people at this table were giving away free beer/donuts.  Umm…no thank you! 

Making our way into downtown!!

I stopped for a photo with this group!  I’m sure they wondered what on EARTH I was doing!  The girl that’s smiling with me kept looking at me like “Do you need something?!”  They were awesome as usual, though!  LOVED the cowbells!  :0)

 

The St. Louis Cathedral in downtown New Orleans

Passing Cafe DuMonde!  No beignets for me, thanks! :0)

Around mile 8, a DetermiNation coach joined me for a little while during the run.  She made sure everything was going well and that I was doing ok.  She was super sweet and I loved that they had people along the course like that!

My traditional Mile 12 sign…

Hah!

Call me crazy, but I’ve never seen one of these fancy water contraptions!  How cool is that?!

Getting closer!!!

This guy was begging people to take his King Cake!  Too funny!

I knew when we saw the Museum of Art, we were VERY close!

I got distracted by the pretty DetermiNation banners, though!  Just a quick picture and we were on our way again…

Conquer Cancer…I LOVE it!

 

These guys were playing on the front steps of the Museum!

After we passed by the Art Museum, another DetermiNation coach joined me for a little while during the run!  I feel the need to say it again…this was their first event in New Orleans and they were AMAZING.  If any of you read this, thank you for everything.

The finish line!

Here we come!  I was waving at Heather’s husband…I totally didn't see mine just a few people back…

We finished at 2:27 something…definitely not what we wanted but that’s ok we had a good race! :0)

There comes Kayla!

Post race goodies!

After Kayla crossed the finish line, Jason and I made our way to the DetermiNation post race party!  Woohoo!

They were awesome!  They had a LOT to drink, King Cake, Red Beans and Rice, Jambalaya, the list goes on and on!

 

Yummy!

 

Kayla and Brian found us and we stood talking for a while, trying to recover from the race.

I LOVED this.  I have it up on my Facebook right now!  Hah!

I’m a dork, yes we’ve established this already.

I couldn’t resist this picture, though…. :0)

The Rock-N-Roll post race party!

We took a group picture, then parted ways.  We still had a bus to catch to downtown.  We had to be out of our hotel by noon!

Because of Jason’s sweatshirt, I forgot all about his DetermiNation shirt that we made!  Yay!  Go Team Karen!  Hah!

We made it out by noon (and got a discount cause we had a very hairy bathroom…yuck!).  Instead of staying in town to eat, we decided to go back to Mandeville and stop at Times Bar and Grill!  Can we say YUMMY!? :0)

I had a roast beef po-boy and sweet potato fries. Oh my goodness it was amazing!

Heather and Bobby split this massive hamburger!

Jason had a hamburger, too!

Jason and I in our Team Karen shirts! :0))

After eating, we went back to Heather’s parents house to get everything together and we drove home.

I wore my compression socks for recovery (I even slept in them!) and the only thing that was sore on my body the following day was my hip flexors.  :0)  Yay!

Thanks for following along on my journey and thanks also for the support of my DetermiNation goal! I had an incredible time and would definitely recommend running with them!  It’s totally worth it!! :0)  I know I will definitely consider running with them again in the future! :0)