You Know Your A Runner When You Plan Your Vacation Around a Race

I had been trying to get down to Atlanta to visit my friend and her husband for a while. We had tossed a few ideas back and forth but none of them ever really panned out. But then she mentioned that over the 4th of July the largest 10k in the world is held in Atlanta every year. It is called the ACJ Peachtree Road Race and got its title of worlds largest by attracting 60,000 runners annually. Once she explained that I was sold! But there were a few things I had to take care of before I could fully commit:

• Convince our other friend, Alex, to join us for a post college reunion
• Run a qualifying race for an early wave
• Casually mention to Alex that the vacation would be based around a 10k
• Get guaranteed entry since Peachtree is lotto based

Number one was pretty easy to do, but the other three took a while to check off my list.

For those of you who are familiar with the Bolder Boulder, the Peachtree is structured similarly. It has multiple waves with the first handful being waves that need to be qualified for. Getting in an early wave is key to avoid weaving in and out of slower runners or walkers. Thankfully I ran a 10k in January that not only gave me a qualifying time good enough for Wave D, but was also a PR!

At this point I realized that Alex would also need a qualifying race as well. So I had to break the news to her that while in Atlanta we would be running a 10k on the 4th of July. Lucky for me she was already training for her first half marathon so it was easy to convince her to run a 10k and for her to run a local 5k to get a qualifying time.

Last was making sure I got a guaranteed entry into the race since I was traveling across the country and booking my travel before the lotto occurred. To do so I needed to join the The Atlanta Track Club. This was easily done online, but I am pretty sure I procrastinated until the very last day to do so to get entry into the Peachtree. Now all I had to do was contain my excitement until July.

10 days out from heading to Georgia the weather forecast predicted a temperature of 81 degrees around start time. This worried me. Not only was it going to be HOT, it was going to be humid as well (and as I learned on the trip, humidity and I do not get along). I braced myself for scorching heat and the preparations I would need to take to keep cool and run a solid race. But as the day got closer the forecast began to change to nothing but rain, torrential downpour rain. I went from thinking about heat exhaustion, sunburns, and chafing to focusing on keeping the rain out of my eyes, blisters I was bound to get on my feet, water logged shoes and again chaffing. The day we arrived in Atlanta I was worried. The rain was coming down in sheets of water and rivers were running through the streets. I was not looking forward to the next day. I just kept thinking that my time would be slow. However when we woke up the next morning we were greeted by a slight drizzle! Perfect running weather! It was perfect enough to keep the humidity down and the temperate cool.

ACJ Peachtree startline

Course map and elevation profile.

As we made our way to the start line I started to get more and more anxious. There were so many people around and the energy was high. I kept thinking about the advice Mike have given me the day before I left. I knew that if I focused too much on what he was saying I wouldn’t run a solid race so I just kept his words in my back pocket for when I needed them:

• Use the first mile as a time to feel out your legs since it is a slight uphill
• Miles two and three are downhill so open up. At this point I wasn’t going to be using a lot of energy so I just needed to trust that my legs would carry me.
• Mile 4 is going to feel weird since you will be running straight uphill but just keep your turnover.
• And finally hammer out the last two miles

Alex, Kimi and I started at the same time but agreed that if we needed to drop back we would or push ahead if we were feeling it. We stayed together for about the first half a mile and then Kimi and I pushed ahead. At Mile 1.5 when the downhill really starts to happen I heard Mike’s voice saying “open up”, so I took off. The next to miles flew by and I felt great. And then at Mile 4 I felt it. The uphill hit me like a ton of bricks. My legs didn’t know what hit them. But thanks to altitude training I cruised up the hills. And then it was almost as if the next two miles never occured because I was tyring the corner and the finish line was staring me in the face. I crossed the finish line with a time of 56:50. A minute off of my PR. But I felt good! This is a race that I definitely want to travel to again to try and better my time!

Finish line pictures! Got lots of compliments on my Run Colorado gear!

The rest of the very rainy vacation consisted of a few training runs, a Braves firework game, seeing Despicable Me 2, and much needed girl talk with my two best friends.