Bear in mind I ran the Peachtree 10k last year and completely melted!  Holy Cow that was one hot race! It was sooo much fun so it wasn’t too tough to twist my arm into putting my name into the hat for the lottery to run it again this year.

 

I told MFH (My Favorite Husband) that I entered the lottery and he said, “Why!?!”

“It’s the largest race in the WORLD!!!”

“60,000 runners!!!”

Etc….

“….and besides, what are the odds that I’ll get in?”

We left it at that and on lottery day, they drew my name.

YAY!!!

I had mentioned this race to a lot of my friends and they had entered the lottery as well…and gotten it!  It was exciting!

A friend of mine from Arizona had her name drawn so we decided to share hotel to keep expenses down.  Keeping expenses down is a good thing so this was wonderful!  All of us started making plans to meet up in Atlanta come July 4th.

Finally, the day for the Expo arrived.

At very(!) early o’clock, I hopped in the car and started driving towards Atlanta, Georgia.

MFH had been awesome and gassed up the car before I left home but I decided to stop and top the tank in Alabama.  I had two reasons for doing this.  I didn’t want to have to stop for gas in Atlanta AND I wanted to stop and see #1 Son!  I would be driving right past the town he has been doing his internship this summer.  The internship is the last step towards his Master’s Degree.

I stopped and popped in to say, “Hi!”  *Yes, I am one of “those” mom’s who embarrass their kids.*

Finally, I pulled into Atlanta and headed to the Expo.  What a fun time!  I met up with some Mississippi running friends!

I also met up with my friend from Arizona!

We did the Expo thing until it was time to pick up our last friend at the Atlanta airport.  After checking into the hotel, we drove over to the airport to pick up our friend.

After dinner and dessert,

 

race day arrived!  YAY!!!

 

Off we headed towards the corrals. Immediately I spotted this guy.  He was awesome!  Instead of talking, he had a kazoo in his mouth.  He didn’t talk at all…just made noises with that kazoo.  We took a pic and I have to say this is my favorite pic of the entire weekend!

Pretty soon it was time to run!

 

As always, Atlanta was hot, hilly and hard!  Gotta love it!!!

You can’t beat running with 60,000 other runners!  Running the same race with elite athletes and people like yourself who train hard but are just the average joe runner and also running with people just getting into running or those who are walking….we’re all out there covering the same miles to the best of our ability.  That is soooo awesome and I dearly love it!

At mile 2, there is a Catholic Church.  Every year, the Priest is out at the side of the road with his bowl of Holy Water.  As you run past him, he sprinkles you with the Holy Water with, “Bless you my child.”

I love that so much!!!

This year, the heat got me after “Cardiac Hill” and I found myself doing more walking that I would have liked but I also found myself running strong across that finish line!

BOOM!!!

Would I run it again?

You betcha I would!!!

What a fabulous time!!!

Huge thank you’s to all the shout outs and encouragement along the way!!!

Now, it’s time to turn our focus 100% toward that December 100 Miler.  We have the Chicago Marathon in October as a training run for that race.  After the 100 Miler we’re looking at a January 50 Miler and then a marathon in February to bookend the fall/winter racing season.

Dark o’clock long runs are going to be the norm now.

Let’s go grab some miles!!!

#IRun4Aiden