The Peachtree

Spencer and I ran in the Peachtree Road Race the morning of July 4th. I ran it once before and have been wanting to run it again, especially with Spencer, but with being pregnant 3 out of the 6 summers we have spent here and Spencer's crazy weekend schedules it has been hard to make a trip down Peachtree again. Well this was the year to do it. We are leaving at the end of this year so it was now or never. I convinced Spencer that it was super fun and quite entertaining so I signed us both up for the lottery drawing in March. This was the first year they did a lottery because so many people want to run the race. We were excited to have our names drawn and we started, ah hem, I should say I started training, early on so I wouldn't die crossing the finish line. Spencer ran a bit but figured if he can run 4 miles he can run 6.2 so that was that. Let's just go ahead and say I had to carry Spencer's stuff for him after the race back to the car. :) He's still whining today. ha!

Craig and Kasey kindly brought us back Ella-Ann and Rane on Sunday and stayed to watch the kids while we ran yesterday morning. We got up super early and drove to the MARTA station. It was busy but not as busy as I had expected.....
These are not the best pictures because I took them with my phone and was walking while taking them. This was a shot of all the people getting off MARTA at the Lenox station, where we started the race. By the way, this was taken at 6:30 a.m.!

Since 60, 000 people run in the race they have everyone grouped by letters A-Y. We were assigned corral X, yes X...with the blue-hairs and run/walkers. I was not pleased. It was because we didn't turn in a previous race time when registering so we were put in the back. Well in the back we were not going to stay. We arrived and saw they had cornered off the groups of letters and gated passages so you couldn't sneak by. It was hard with all the Peachtree volunteers but we managed to sneak through a Publix, go out the parking garage and be right up with the Js! So we sat down and hid the color/letters on our shirts until it was time to hit the pavement. On a side note, as we were walking to the start I saw someone wearing an "X" tag and I said to Spencer, "Look! There's an X!" Right as I said it I looked up to see the person's face and I kid you not when I tell you the man was at least 75 years old! No way were we running in that group! Plus we weren't scheduled to run until 9 a.m.! It was already in the mid-70s by 7 a.m. So to make an already long story short, we got shoved to the side toward the exit gates THREE times by police officers as we were walking up to the start line with the J group. All three times we just made a big U and stayed with the Js. Literally we were grabbed by the arm and shoved to the sidewalks and were told "Get out of this group! Go back!" Nope, we didn't. We're such rebels.
We waited with the wrong group and ran anyway. This is us waiting to start. This is a shot of all the people behind us...
On the left if Phipps Plaza. I cannot say enough how crowded it was and what exactly it felt like to run with 60, 000 people. Crazy.

I love this picture. They sang "The Star Spangled Banner" before the race, had a prayer and 3 fighter jets flew over. It gave me chills. It was so neat. Right before the race you walked under a massive American Flag. It was held up by a crane.

We were almost ready to start!!! On the left of the picture is Lenox Mall.

Spencer and I ran the race pretty fast, but honestly it was very difficult, as you can imagine by looking at the pictures, to dodge people every 2 seconds, take all the sights around you in and set a good pace. Impossible. Along the way we saw quite a few interesting and funny things....
Like the Fur Bus (whatever that is). I know you cannot see it well, but I had to post this picture. The people on the bus in the back of the picture are, how can I describe it, like strippers. The man singing is holding a large bottle of champagne. Mind you, this is around 8 a.m. Along the way the Catholic church was spraying "Holy Water" and the priest was standing out on the sidewalk in white shorts, his collar and throwing Holy water on people as they ran by. We saw people in costumes, full body paint, tutus and headgear. I passed a man drinking beer, dressed as the Statue of Liberty and standing on stilts (He wasn't running!). Instead of water being handed out as you ran by, one restaurant was passing out slices of pizza, shots of beer and margaritas. Not only could you get a large slice of pizza along the way, but you could grab a bagel, fruit, burrito, cheeses, Popsicles, smoothies, pretzels, breakfast sandwiches and the list goes on and on. Who could eat a burrito while running? I guess the walkers in group X! Ha!Just look at the sea of people in front of me. I could see the road directly in front of me but if I looked ahead all I saw were people and more people.

This was the finish at Piedmont Park. I ran ahead of Spencer during the race and, even though we tried to keep track of each other, we eventually lost sight and he didn't have his phone so I was thankful to spot him cross the finish line. It was weird to see the park like this...it was hard to get our bearings because we didn't recognize anything. The balloons are for shirt pickups. That is how many people were there at once. They had to have huge balloons in the air to mark the tents for the coveted Peachtree Road Race shirt!

Spencer and I had so much fun doing this, or at least I did! It was fun to do something like this together and I am glad he finally got to experience the Peachtree before we moved!