13 miles of running + Lots of Champagne = A Really Good Time

So we decided a few weekends ago to do a half marathon in Champagne, France. This run was advertised as a good way for people that want to run in costumes to do so and drink champagne since they offered champagne at every water stop. We found that appealing so we signed up!

I have been continuing to run at least 1 mile everyday and made it to day 85 but my hip started to hurt about a week before the marathon. I thought I would just cut back my mileage a little bit and add in more yoga and weight training and be fine. But it was a little bit more bothersome so I wasn't sure if I was going to run it. But then my friend Abby was also a little skeptical too about running it since she just signed up on a whim and has never run more than a 5k at one time. We decided we would just do it for fun and if the time was really bad we would blame it on the champagne. You guys might remember Abby as one of the bikers from Sardinia.. so we figured if we could get through that we could take on a half marathon with a bum hip and a lack of training. Albeit sans Schieze the dog!

We got there and immediately felt a little disappointed that we did NOT dress up. Well, one of us did (I am sure everyone could guess who from the pics) but it would have been fun to do a group costume. My favorite group costume was a group of about 10 people that dressed up as an African tribe with spears and body paint. People really commited to their costumes.. it was quite impressive!

The race was pretty hilly because they brought you up a hillside of vineyards and then through some extremely cute French towns. But the most amazing part were the water/champagne stops. They were PARTIES!!! You were suppose to stop and dance and drink champagne and enjoy yourself. You couldn't walk and get though the pit stops even if you wanted to.. unless you were one of the fast runners in the front. Abby and I actually hung out at one for about 20 minutes. You can see the pictures of Abby at the water stop parties not believing what festivities were going on in the middle of this half marathon.

The other amazing thing was that the champagne went down extremely easy and was refreshing. I was a little skeptical about drinking champagne and running.. I felt it might be a recipe for disaster but I was extremely mistaken... it was a recipe for awesomeness. I did make the mistake at about mile 7 of taking a small amount of red wine because they were handing it out and that was too much but the champagne was really amazing.. better than oranges!

The weather was beautiful and everyone finished. Abby and I actually did pretty decent and had a lot of fun. It was a great way to see some of the Champagne region. It also made us realize how close Champagne is to us.. .about a three hour car ride. We didn't get to tour a Champagne cave so we will have to go back at a later date.