It's me again! Your friendly, neighborhood Dana. Man, Heather's been super nice to let me take over her blog so often lately. Today I'm here to review Zooma Nashville! Sadly, I have no pictures, so...come with me, and you'll see, a world of pure imagination.
You see what I'm getting at here, though, right? Visualize in your mind...or something. I don't know what I'm saying now. Okay, here we go!
Okay, so full disclosure here, I did not sign up for Zooma Nashville because I had heard great things about it or anything. Nope, I had never heard of it before. Instead, I participate in a wellness program at work where I earn points when I...
You know you read that in Jamie Lee Curtis' voice.
Well, this chick is a scant 400-something points from platinum status! And, at 250 points, a pop, 5ks are a pretty easy way to demolish a portion of that number. Oh, and those points I earn translate into $$$. Plus, races are so much fun! So off to the interwebs I went to search for Nashville 5ks. Yup, I picked Zooma like I picked my doctor. What? It worked out well; she' awesome.
November 8th rolled around after an incredibly stressful time wherein I didn't run for about a month. I'm good at planning...or not. It was a beautiful morning, though! 50-something degrees and sunny. Brisk but beautiful. The hubs was good enough to get up before 7am to drop me off at Bicentennial Mall (downtown parking is no picnic). The crowd was pretty small, but I kind of dig that. It wasn't madness, it was understated, so I could enjoy my surroundings.
The Bicentennial Mall, which you can learn more about here, is a swath of green right behind our big, permanently standing farmer's market. There's an amphitheater and a running trail. There are also some old cement ionic column pieces that I think are left over from the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition way back when. Nashville is known as the Athens of the south, you know. :-) . You can see a little bit of them behind me in this picture:
You can also see the great Runner 5/"Zombies, Run!" tank Heather made for me. Representin' Abel Township, yeah! So, like I said, it was lovely all around. There was positivity in the air, fun music playing, and then it was time to get started!
The course went up Rte 431/8th Avenue North and then down Broadway, which is a massive tourist area. It looks a lot different when you're running down it in the middle of the road on a Sunday morning in the daylight as compared to driving down the packed lanes at night. Really lovely views of downtown, though. We ran right up to the Cumberland River and turned at 1st Avenue to run along it. This might have been my favorite bit, as it felt like a movie scene with almost no one around and just the river running next to you. From there, we could also see all the backs of the famous 2nd Avenue hotspots like BB King's. What I didn't like was the HILL. I am unimpressed with the placement of this hill. We got through it, though, and then up Union, which is all massive business buildings and intimidating skyscrapers. Again, very interesting to see it from this perspective.
This is also a good time to mention all of the wonderful police officers who were out at the race, stopping traffic for us, and generally looking out for us runners. I made sure to smile and wave and say good morning because I really appreciate these brave men and women. They were also very helpful when we got back to Rte 431, and I started looking around like a lost puppy because I didn't know where to go - I'm the directionally challenged one of the family. Those very nice folks kept me on track, and hooray for downhill bits! From then on, we just followed the same path back to the finish line.
And there I am! Derpy as can be. I'm like a...happy, little, ombre squirrel with a nut.
See the resemblance?
I have to say, though, I'm really quite pleased by my time!
Not too shabby for someone who hasn't run in a month. And you know what was the icing on the cake? Complimentary massages provided by Franklin Massage Center. I know nothing about their organization, but I do know I am not ashamed of the happy little noises I made during my massage. And there was live music to accompany it in the amphitheater. Sorry, I don't know the name of the guy playing, but he was really good!
All in all, y'all, it was a great run. I really couldn't have asked for anything else. I recommend Zooma no matter what you're looking for in a race.
Thanks for reading!
Dana
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