8 February 2020 - New Orleans, Louisiana USA - Rock and Roll 5K + Half

It's time for Rock and Roll series race #2. This one finds me in a city I have dreamed of visiting for well over twenty years, New Orleans! The timing couldn't be better. Hurricane season is over for the Gulf of Mexico and the Mardi Gras festival season has started.

We started our weekend on Friday with some exploration of the city through the usage of a Hop on Hop off bus. We also attended the race expo to get our race packets for the upcoming days. I opted to do a Remix Challenge where I would run a 5k on Saturday and a Half Marathon on Sunday. I love race challenges! After the expo, we continued our exploration of the city finally ending up at the French Quarter for what was the first walking parade of the season. We made a shortstop in the tourist trap of Bourbon Street.

Saturday started with a nice 5k run/walk and then continued with more exploring, touring, shopping and a little bit of drinking.

We took a tour of Mardi Gras World, a factory/art studio dedicated to the creation of parade floats and other sculptures. 

Sunday was half marathon day. What a perfect race it was! The run along St. Charles street yielded a tour of amazing historic homes. The return trip through the French Quarter and on to City Park rounded out the course nicely. We did take one last foodie trip downtown enjoying some Bengiettes, boiled Crawfish, and some oysters. This trip was a success and we plan to return for the bigger parades next year or the following.