Oh, the Hills of Atlanta!

So, Mike and I have finally gotten off our duffs and so I have something to actually blog about!

Yesterday, we ran the Publix Georgia Marathon Luckie5K!

Our alarms went off at the very early hour of 3 a.m. Granted, we only live about 45 minutes from the city, but we wanted to make sure that we had plenty of time to get ready, then get there and find a parking spot. We left home around 4:45, and made it to Atlanta a little after 5. There was a bit of traffic once we got off the exit, but thankfully we were early enough that it wasn't too bad. I was relieved when we were able to park in the Philips Arena deck, which was $10 by the way, but was pretty much across the street from Centennial Olympic Park, so it was well worth it.

The 5K wasn't set to start until 7:30, with the Marathon and Half starting at 7, so we were instructed to remain in the park until then, which worked out great. There were tons of porta-potties, which I thankfully didn't have to use, but Mike did. It was definitely cold out, and neither one of us thought to bring any "throw away" clothes, so we stood close to one another as long as we could.

A few minutes before 7:30, we decided to walk around as the anticipation was beginning to build.

I took the opportunity to get a shot of the beautiful skyline. Then a super nice lady passed by and offered to take our pic.

And just like that, it was time to head for the starting line. There weren't any corrals, so we just lined up there in the street. And I have to say that our fellow runners were some of the most courteous that I've encountered. No one felt the need to crowd one another, or try to push their way to the front which was really nice!

Just a very few minutes passed, and then we were off and running the streets of Atlanta! Though I've never ran this particular race before, I knew that the hills can definitely be tough at times, so I had already prepared myself mentally. And honestly, I think it helped a ton! Looking back at my Garmin info, our first hill which came just before mile one was the steepest, and I don't even remember it! I guess that's a good thing!

Before this race, we'd only been on our training program for a couple weeks, and the longest that we'd ran was 1.25 miles, so I honestly wasn't expecting much from this race. But, we had planned to stick to our 1/1 intervals for as long as we could. And by the time that we reached mile 2 I was somewhat shocked to see that we were just at the 30:00 mark!

It's always been my goal to finish a 5k in 45:00 or less, and that had never happened. And with our lack of training and the hills that I knew we'd be climbing, I didn't even bother thinking about a goal for this race. Honestly, I thought we'd be doing good to finish in the hour time limit that had been set.

We continued on, still running each interval and only walking when we were suppose to when out of nowhere the finish line came into sight (what I thought was the finish line anyway)! Once we were within a 1/4 of a mile or so from the finish Mike asked if I wanted to run it on out. Of course I was doubtful and asked if he really thought we could make it. I mean I could see the finish yes, but it wasn't THAT close! lol So, we ramped it up a bit and once we got even closer, I told him to pick it up and that's when I ran as fast as I could. Of course I was then a bit confused as we passed under the time clock, but yet it didn't seem to be the actual finish. It was then that I heard the course marshal yelling that the finish was around the corner! Eeek! That made me a little nervous since I didn't know exactly how far right around the corner really was. But, in his defense he was telling the truth, and it really was just that close. So, we continued our sprint and when we finally got to the official finish, it was all I could do to fight back the tears when I saw that the clock was reading what I thought to be 44 minutes!

Moving on through the chute, we were given a bottle of water and then received our medals followed by my favorite post run drink--chocolate milk. We stopped for a minute to chug our treat before we continued on for an official finisher photo, then finally on to the food tent. There we were handed a cute little reusable bag that contained a banana, pretzels, cookies, granola bar and mandarin oranges.

As we made our way back across the grass, I noticed the results tent and headed straight there as I wanted to see our official times. This was the first time we'd ever been given our results in this manner--they simply noted our bib number, typed it into their computer and it spit out a little piece of paper that contained all our info. Our official finish time was 43:00!!! Oh, I was so happy.

Finally, we stopped for one more pic before we headed back to the car for the ride home.

I think this was definitely my favorite 5k, thus far! In fact, I'm even thinking of registering for next year's Half!! We were both very impressed with the way this race was ran--everything seemed to have went smoothly--from the expo right down to the finish. I sure hope we can make it back next year to take on more of the hills of Atlanta!