A Day in Atlanta

Last evening I returned from a quick 24 hours in Atlanta. It was a work related trip and not actually a full 24 hours in Atlanta - a 5 PM flight from Washington to Atlanta and a 5 PM flight back - but I did make the most of it.

The hotel was a great hotel. A new building with suite style rooms that are very nice. New appliances etc and a large bathroom. The room was actually larger than my first apartment. It was also located right downtown near Centennial Park which meant it was easy to find a place to grab dinner the first night. We found a nice brew pub that served very good casual fare. Their lamb sliders though were FANTASTIC.

The next morning we headed to our meeting in the northeast part of Atlanta and grabbed breakfast at The Original Pancake House. I think everyone knows I love pancakes and this place had GREAT pancakes. I did get a bit ambitious and had their full stack - 6 large blueberry pancakes - and of course I left a few bites (literally on the plate was 4 small bites).

After our meeting I wanted to have lunch at a place I have been trying to get to for about 5 years - Gladys Knight's and Ron Winan's Chicken and Waffles. Chicken and waffles is a southern thing but done right it is great. Jeff, who I was traveling with, was up for it but wondered how hungry I was after the breakfast I had - but I am never one to disappoint when it comes to eating. We got to Gladys's place at a good time - not too busy and I ordered up their original waffles, a southern fried chicken breast and some house potatoes (shredded potatoes with peppers, onions and cajun seasoning). I can safely say I was not disappointed in having to wait 5 years to final eat there.

So when someone asks what I do in Atlanta for a day I can safely say I eat a lot of good food :-)

Race update ....

The official results were posted and my official chip time was 2:03:20 which is 6:10 faster than the clock time. This was due to the corral start that was used and I had placed myself in the second corral with an estimated time of 2 hours. The 2:03 time meant a pace of 9:25 which I felt was pretty good considering the couple of months without running. Also the course was a fun one which was a bit hillier than I was used to. So now I begin planning for 2009 and trying to see what I want to accomplish for the year.

The rest of the Atlanta trip was fun. We did our Thanksgiving dinner - chicken (turkey was a bit much for two), a nice rice pilaf, sauteed broccoli and a nice wine. Not a traditional Thanksgiving meal but for two after a Marathon it seemed like a good fit.

Friday we headed out to do some site seeing. We walked from the place we were staying in Midtown down to Centennial park to hopefully get to the Aquarium and Coca-Cola World. Turns out the lines at the Aquarium were a bit crazy so we went to Coke World first. It was very interesting and if you ever get a chance to taste one of the Italian Coke products called Beverly I would encourage you to. It is an experience. After we left Coke World we headed over to Centennial Park to walk through it - caught a small water show and then grabbed some lunch before heading back to the apartment to get our act together and head out to do some shopping before dinner.

Saturday we packed up, cleaned up and started to drive back to Virginia. It was a fairly uneventful drive - fun but nothing to cause any pain like the drive to Atlanta. With stops it took about 10.5 hours so sharing the driving did help. Overall it was a great few days - a good race, good company but very nice to get home. Now looking forward to having teh same kind of fun in 2009 with a few races :-)

--- cu

First Half Marathon ....

some other personal firsts and personal records.

First of all HAPPY THANKSGIVING - my first American Thanksgiving as an American.

Of course it turns out I am not doing the "traditional" American thing as today was The Weather Channel Atlanta Marathon/Half-Marathon. This was my first half-marathon and as such a new personal record for distance run. I finished the 13.1 miles in 2:09:30 - a good bit slower than my normal pace but not having run for 8 weeks because of my ankle I will not complain. My running friend Blanche did the full Marathon and set her own personal record running the 26.2 miles in just around 4:24. Of course she was very excited about that.

It has been a pretty great trip so far. We drove from Virginia to Greensboro, NC on Tuesday and stayed with some friends of Blanche. A nice dinner and hung out at Harry's place for the night. He has a great dog, Mel, who is just a bundle of fun. She is a terrier mix, I think Airedale and Jack Russell. We left Wednesday AM to complete the drive to Atlanta, The traffic was HORRIBLE and we were in fact worried that we would not make it to Atlanta in time to pick up our race registration. We did make it - obviously.

So the rest of today will be relaxing and then making a pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner (chicken, rice and veggies). Tomorrow we plan to sight-see a bit before heading home Saturday. Hopefully our legs will hold up for walking :-)

Have a GREAT holiday

---- cu

Next Big Race .....

So this week will be an interesting one - not only is it Thanksgiving week which means a couple of days off - but I am heading to Atlanta to run a half-marathon. This will be my longest race to date.

The motivation for the race is a good friend of mine, Blanche, who is a frequent marathoner (is that a word? I guess so as I did not get a spell check error), wanted to run it and she figured it was a drive down and asked if I wanted to run the marathon as well. I acquiesced to the half as it seemed the next logical step for me in racing. So we are driving down to Atlanta Tuesday afternoon so we can get ready for the race on Thursday morning. I am a little bit anxious as it has been a few weeks since I have run after my adventures on Old Rag but I am feeling great so I think the half will be a perfect race.

I will make sure to post an update from Atlanta - it may be short as I may post it from my cell - depending on if I can get regular internet access.

Have a GREAT week ---- cu