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!

 

 

Lunch!

Let's Get This Thing Started!

So, I'm basically brand-new at this blogging thing. And even if I hadn't told you that up front, I'm sure you'd be able to tell. Something else that you've probably already figured out by now is that my ramblings will be based on my running adventures--both training for and the actual races. I figured since I've spent so much time reading others' blogs that it was high time that I return the favor and start one of my own. Though I don't know how much of a favor it will actually be! And I hope that you don't mind that more than likely, I'll be including some other day to day aspects of my life as well.

I suppose that since this is my first post, it would probably be a little helpful to tell you a little about myself. My name is Missy, and I'm a pretty down to earth 32 year old, born and raised here in the Peach State. I love living here and pretty much consider myself a country girl at heart. I was raised around dirt-track racing, so that's always been one of my passions. I also love Country music, and it's pretty much all I listen to 99.9% of the time. My hubby, Mike, and I will celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary on September 11th. We both love to travel, and as you will come to see--our favorite place in the world is Walt Disney World! We love it there and it's definitely our "Most Magical Place on Earth"! Nothing beats being able to "escape" the real world and being able to be a kid time and time again!

Now, I should probably get on to the actual subject of this blog and explain why I've decided to share my adventures with you. All of my life, I've been out of shape. And while I was never actually overweight until adult hood, I could never run more than 30 seconds without feeling like I was going to fall over and die. I remember absolutely HATING the time of year when it was time for the Presidential Physical Fitness tests roll around. Though I did consider myself "somewhat" of an athelete, I never had any sort of aerobic ability. Running the bases in softball was as much as you were gonna get from me. So somewhere during adulthood when the extra weight settled in and I began to realize that I was no longer happy with myself is when the battle began. Of course I would diet for a couple weeks and lose a few pounds only to gain it all back, plus some. I'd get a tiny bit of motivation and decide to join a gym or fitness club only to pay my monthly dues and only get my butt in the door maybe once or twice. Then came the time when I had to be put on 2 medicines because of my eating habits and my weight--one to control my blood pressure and one for my extrememly high triglycerides. At one point in time I was very much against being on medication for anything that I could control myself, but then I just got too lazy to even care. I went on being fat and on medicine for a while, until one day when I was on these fabulous message boards called The DIS. It's a message boards that are pretty much nothing but Disney, and I happen to love it there. Well, I happened upon a thread that mentioned the "Princess Half Marathon" and it immediately caught my attention. Ooooh...a Princess themed race in Disney....so what if I have to run 13.1 miles...it still sounds fun! So, I talked to the hubby and he said, "go for it!" So, I did! And to make an already long story short...that race lead me to where I am today. I did successfully complete the 2010 Princess 1/2, but I fell right off the running bandwagon very shortly after returning home. And even though finishing those 13.1 was a very tough challenge for me, I decided that I wanted to do it again for 2011-and I did! I once again finished and have the medal to prove it.

2010:

2011:

 And again, I bet you can guess what happened after I returned home from that Princess...yep, I fell right off the wagon again! But before long, I knew that running was the one thing that caused me to push myself to get to a goal like nothing else ever had before. So, I decided to start the C25K method in hopes of becoming an actual true-blue runner. I did complete the program, and while I have not ran a race since, I did sign the hubby and I up for the Inaugural Tower of Terror 10-mile race, once again in Walt Disney World. (Anyone sense a theme for my running destination of choice?) And that my new friends leads us to the present day and where I am at this very moment. I am down to 45 days before we leave for the race, and am working hard every week on being prepared and well-trained. For both of my Princess races, I chose to train by the "Marathoning for Mortals" plan, but this time I wanted to try something different. After starting off using a 1/2 marathon app and not feeling very comfortable with it, I decided to try the highly praised Galloway method. I never thought that running small increments could actually make you faster, but after having trained with it for a few weeks, I'm a believer. I just hope that on race night I will still be a believer.

So with all that rambling being said (and if you're still reading along, then bless you), my future posts will include updates on our (me and the hubby) training along with actual race reports. I also want to mention that not only do we have the Tower of Terror race coming up, but we're also registered for the Athens, GA half at the end of October. So I know that will help hold me accountable once we return from the ToT race...I will definitely have to continue training to make sure that I'm ready for the Athens half. It will be the first time for me, but I'm very excited about the course as we'll be running through the hedges of Sanford Stadium--and being a big UGA fan, that totally excites me!!