56:33 (Unofficial)

I'm the guy in the white shirt... 

Well some Kenyan did it in 28:04, but I was still pretty proud of my time for my first Peachtree Road Race. My Goal was to get under an hour, so I’m happy. Really I did not know what to expect. I have timed myself at various distances and thought I could break an hour, but you never know what the course, the heat or the crowds will be like. And let me tell you for my first race (I did a few 5K’s when I was a kid) this one was interesting. If you live in Atlanta and run you have to do the Peachtree, and at least for me, once you do you are hooked. I’m now frantically looking up other 10K’s that I can register for…I have truly caught the bug.

All in all it was a fun event, Sheryl Dropped us off at the start then went to a friend’s house nearby to watch on TV. Misty, Rich and I wanted to run together, so we lined up with the last group, but it was so crowded it was too hard to stay together. Then after the race, we met up (after collecting our coveted T-shirt of course) with Sheryl, Ainsley and their friend Candice in Peidmont Park. They provided us with a few celebratory beers while we exchanged race stories.

One thing I was not prepared for was the crowds. I mean everyone told me, and common sense dictates that the “World’s largest 10K” might get a little crowded. But I figured that after the first mile or so, the walkers would thin out…Or at least MOVE TO THE RIGHT. Sorry to shout there, but you wonder what your time might have been if you didn’t have to constantly play Frogger with the walkers. People were constantly asking them to move to the right, some were polite about it, others where not. Peachtree is a big road, 6 lanes in most places, how hard would it be to keep to the right.

By the way, my playlist was just about perfect: Rocky Theme going up Cardiac Hill, Machine Head after it (breath in, breath out). The only problem was I didn’t give myself enough credit. I made it 1:15 long just in case my time was worse than I thought; I figured I could skip ahead near the end but I didn’t really feel like it at the time. In fact, I didn’t pay attention enough to know that there were marker along the way telling me how far (I never saw them, but my fellow neighborhood runners told me about it after the race). When the finish came up…it kind of surprised me. Next up the 10K Classic.