san antonio!

most of you know that i was in san antonio over the weekend doing the rock n roll half that took place on sun, nov 15th. i first flew to houston and then my parents and i drove about 3ish hours to san antonio. on the way we stopped at buc-ees. buc-ees prides itself on fabulous bathrooms, tons of gas tanks, tons of food, and pretty much anything texas you might never need to buy! once we got to san antonio, we went to the expo to pick up my packet. my parents had never been to one and they wanted to check it out too. at one point we saw registration for the race and my dad said i bet i can beat your time walking! i told him to register and try it! my mother poked me in the ribs and told me not to encourage him to do it as she didn't want him to have a heart attack from lack of training even though he walks 3-5 miles almost every day. that evening we walked to the river walk which was a short distance from the hotel and ate dinner at casa rio, a restaurant that has been there since the 40s i believe.


the alamo at night...


the restaurant, casa rio, as seen during the day time (duh)

the river walk is basically a path that meanders and has loads of shops, restaurants, hotels, and tourists.

on saturday, we walked to the new portion of the river walk which just opened in march of this year. unlike the older portion, this portion is not built up at all. about the only thing on this path is the san antonio museum of art which was in a former life a brewery.


me and mom on the river taxi. much cheaper than the actual guided tour.


along the new portion are various art installations... we liked this one a lot. a bunch of giant fishies! they light up at night.


views along the river

at this point we were getting rather tired and mom was getting snippy and in return i was getting snippy and dad was just trying to not get yelled at. turns out mom was tired, hot, and had enough of all the noise. luckily, we passed by an ice cream shop and in her words 'ice cream makes everything better' and it did. i had blue bell (the best ice cream in the country! - their slogan and it is) - in cake mix flavor. YUM! and then we passed a shop with sweatshirts for 10 bucks so we got one for the race in the morning so that i could just discard it when i got hot. it was a fun shop with all kinds of funny t-shirts. i got one for my brother's present for xmas. it's great. too hard to explain tho. and while we didn't get them... my dad thought it would be funny for me and mom to get the shirts that said "if you think i'm a bitch you should meet my mom" and "if you think i'm a bitch you should meet my daughter". he thought it would be funny for us to wear them around together. and that just cracked us up and our whole snarky moods were all forgotten.


mom and dad and me in front of the alamo!

sunday: the race!

i woke up super early to be able to get to the busses where we had to load up and get to the start line. it was a 45 min long line!! then once there, we had to walk a ways to get to the start... then the line for the port o potties... my word!! but, in each line i found interesting people to talk to so that was ok. the course was super interesting - we went past all kinds of neighborhoods and thru the older areas of town and past the alamo. they even had professional photographers to take our pics in front of it! since there was no line - luckily they had enough photographers there... i took one!


little photos were *borrowed* from the official photographers...

it was a great course. so much fun! like i said - tons to see and look at and also fantastic amounts of people cheering you on! there were also some slight hills - the up stunk, but going down definitely helped me make up some time!


love the pony tail action!






dad holds up my cheer signs


mom was never quite ready for the camera so every time i saw them i had to kinda stop or slow down so she get take a picture



at the end! it's a fantastic medal to add to the collection!

the worst part of the race was the disorganization at the end. it took me forever to get out of the corrals to take a pic, then to get out of the race area, then to figure out how to get to the meet up spots, then actually get to the meet up spots. i had to go up and down stairs and while they had signs, they weren't easy to follow as there were so many people around. so, great course, terrible organization. they def needed more port a potties and a start line not requiring busses!


at the end of the course, i found them again. aren't the signs cute?!



awww... me and my daddy

i will def be back for this race next year. i had so much fun!!! my parents are awesome cheerleaders!! and btw, i've convinced them to train for dallas in march! it's another rock and roll event - but it benefits komen!