Twenty-Four Hours in Tennessee

I had to drive to Tennessee on Sunday evening for a meeting yesterday. I left at 5:30 PM Eastern and arrived at 9 PM Central. I then left the following day at 4:30 PM Central and arrived at 10 PM Eastern. That means I drove on I-24 in the pitch black dark both nights. It was terrifying. My hands were shaking, my stomach was in my throat, and I was close to tears.

But the trip wasn't an entire bust. I got to see my Volunteer Tennessee and fellow program manager friends. I listened to Barbell Shrugged. I went to an all you can eat Chinese buffet and ate as much as I could. I enjoyed some scattered, covered, and chunked hash browns at Waffle House. And I kicked ass during my drop in at CrossFit Cool Springs.

First off, I'm a big fan of their logo. I am an even bigger fan of all the people I met. Everyone made me feel very welcomed and included. And I accidentally left my old temporary paper license on the ground (I guess it had been living in my gym bag all these months?), and Coach James sent me a text message to let me know within minutes of me leaving.

We had two metcons, and I was pretty decent at both. 

Metcon 1

13 minute clock

800 m run

75 wallballs (kill me)

AMRAP squat cleans (95/65) for the remaining time

I got 35 and those squat cleans hurt after all of those wallballs.

Metcon 2

200 doubleunders

30 KBS

100 doubleunders

30 KBS

50 doubleunders

I finished in 6:33 and felt like a rockstar.

This was plate 1 of 3 at China Buffet in Kimball, TN. It's exit 152B off of I-24. I had just listened to Obese to Beast aka John David Glaude on Barbell Shrugged for the past hour and he talked about his inspiring journey from 360 lbs of fat kid to CrossFitter and physique competitor. He briefly mentioned Panda Express at the beginning of the interview and obviously Chinese food was my primary takeaway.

I saw this Instagram post on Sunday afternoon so I obviously reposted it and then had Waffle House on my mind. But for real, I love Waffle House. One of my favorite things about living in the South.

There's a Waffle House at practically every highway exit but I chose to dine at the lovely establishment in Cartersville. The fine folks were so nice to me. It was clear that I was exhausted, cranky, and starving. I left full, mildly less bitchy, and thankful for my to-go Diet Coke.

And this is me when I arrived home. It was too late to pick up my dogs, the guy I have been seeing had agreed to substitute teach the next morning (?!) and so he was already asleep, and it was just me at home terrified of home invaders. I'm definitely staying an extra night the next time I have a 3 hour meeting.