Rocket City Marathon 12/14/13

 What a time!!! I kept hearing from other friends that PINK was on tour and they had stayed an extra day after such and such run to see her so I thought I wonder if she will be on tour near any of the events I am doing. I found out she was going to be in Birmingham the night before Rocket City, now Birmingham was another 100 miles south drive and the time zone changed. I found this out about a week before and since it was just me I search for tickets for one and got a 12th row seat!!! Hold smokes I gotta see her, I had heard she put on one heck of a show.
I left around 8am friday morning knowing when I arrived it would be an hour before, I had a 465 mile drive to Huntsville went straight to packet pickup and then checked into my hotel and went ahead and laid out my clothes for the run the next am knowing I wouldnt return to my hotel till super late that night. The weather forecast all week would call for 100% ran 36 as a low and 51 as a high then switched to 50% then 70% then back up to 100% the night before,,,ugggg this was gonna such but lets make the best of the weekend and heck Im gonna go see PINK in the 12th row!! I got to Birmingham around 7:30 and the concert was gonna begin at 8:00 with a group called the HIVES, they were a little heavy and screamy for me but they did a decent job. I couldn't believe my seat!!! PINK came out and wow....people were right she is amazing. Lots of acrobats and I have no idea how she sings and does all that. After the concert I had to then drive back to Huntsville 100 miles, I arrived at the hotel at about 1am which was 2am to me and had to get up at 6 to catch the shuttle to the race at 6:45 from my hotel, thought that would be easier then trying to find a parking place. There was almost an hour before the event and met a guy who kinda looked familiar and we got chatting and we had run some events together, he was an older man and was 3 states away from finishing the 50 states for his 3rd time around. I then saw Jorge!! We met at Center of the Nations and I got to meet his wife Paula. Grabbed a banana since our hotel didnt have anything but cookies out yet. Finally we were told to go line up!! It was a light rain and a little windy but not super cold, I did wear a short sleeve with a long sleeve and a toss away rain poncho. When the run started it was spitting the rain and after a couple miles I ditched the poncho as I was getting pretty warm. I eventually took off the long sleeve and tied it around my waste. The rain would just come and drizzle every so often and actually made almost perfect running conditions. I met a guy out there that had some some ultras and had some major medical issues the past year and this was his first marathon back, we talked and ticked off about 5 miles together which was nice. I felt ok but I felt TIRED!!! I had driven almost 800 miles the day before stayed out till 1am (or 2am if you look at my time zone) at a rock concert then slept for about 4 hours and got up to run 26.2 miles. After the event I had some chocolate milk and ice cream sandwich but was ready to get the shuttle back and shower and eat something real and start heading home. I drove about 4 hours and stopped for the night then got up and headed on home at 6am for the last 3.5 hours. That weekend wore me out but it was an amazing time!!!