48 Hour Book Challenge: Hour One?

Well, I just got home from my fun run ("run" is used loosely - I walked the mile with a friend of mine, and I'm not even going to write our time because it was embarrassing) and I'll have to leave to talk to my Realtor about putting an offer in on a house (hooray!), but I'm finally able to start my 48 hours of reading. Two and a half hours late. Oh, well. Right now, I'm finishing up Under the Tuscan Sun, which is an amazing book. Hopefully I'll have a more informative post later. To the other participants: happy reading!

Registering for the Peachtree

So, I did the Peachtree Road Race last year and it was amazing. I was really looking forward to doing it again this year, especially after my friend Jen (a veteran of 4 PTRR's!) told me the secret: pick up the Early Edition of the Sunday paper (which is sold on Saturday) and get the application in the mail the same day. Genius!

It would have been, had not the Atlanta Track Club decided to modernize the race with online registration. When the AJC first announced the news, there was a general outcry of displeasure and a lot of naysayers predicting server crashes, disappointed runners, and other sorts of sad things. I decided to withhold judgment until the day of reckoning...which was this morning.

I woke up bright and early at 6:45 to make sure that my computer was on and that my credit card was ready for the 7 am registration opening. There was this neat little countdown on the AJC's Peachtree page, and I eagerly watched the numbers reach 0-hour. Clicked on the registration button, and was rewarded with this:


Like, duh, Atlanta Track Club. OF COURSE you're going to be busy this morning - thousands of people are attempting to register for this race. Like a trooper, I kept reloading the page. After about 5 minutes, I got to the actual registration form. Filled it out, clicked submit, and -

I got a page full of JAVA/server errors. According to the page, the only cure was to register again, which brought me back to the busy page. Reload, reload, reload...another five minutes passed, and I got the registration form again. Filled it out again, clicked submit, and -

Right. Error page.

This went on for about 40 minutes. I kept checking the Peachtree main page at the AJC and the fan page on Facebook to see if I was the only one having problems. I wasn't.

Then, a wonderful person named Chris left a comment on the AJC page, telling us all that when we got the error message, we just needed to hit Refresh/Reload until we got a confirmation number. Dubious, I gave it a try. Actually, about 20 or so.

Lo and behold...


I have FINALLY, successfully, actually registered for this year's Peachtree. Hallelujah!

Now I just need to start training. But first? I'm going back to bed.

Peachtree Road Race

A week later, and I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from the Peachtree Road Race. This was the first year I was actually able to be in the race - my mom did it two years ago, she and I both applied last year (and were denied), and we didn't make it this year, either. Fortunately, a friend of hers decided not to go and agreed to sell me her number. Unfortunately, I had stopped training. It really wasn't too bad, just a little over six miles. I didn't even notice "Cardiac Hill" because it was nothing compared to the steep hills in my old neighborhood. The best part was getting to do it with my sister, Liz, and my friend Jen (this was her fourth PTRR). We didn't take a camera with us, but my sister had one on her cell phone.


The starting line, way in the distance...
There were over 55,000 people running this thing. My number put me in group 3, but Liz and Jen were in group 8 so I went with them. The race started at 7 am, but the groups were released every 20 minutes or so, so were stuck waiting around for almost 2 hours. Liz had a stopwatch and pedometer on her phone, too, and she had to restart them four times. We kept thinking, "Okay, we're REALLY going this time!" and then we'd walk about 10 feet and stop again.


FREE BEER!
One of the best perks of being in this thing: random strangers stand on the sidewalks to cheer you on and give you stuff. We hadn't even completed the first mile when a bar started giving out beer - at 9 in the morning! Jen and I ran to get some, and my sister joked that it would be the only time we'd actually run for the whole race. That wasn't entirely untrue.

My mom called to see how we were doing right after this picture was taken. She wasn't quite as excited about the drinking-beer-while-completing-a-10k as we were.

Some people dressed up:


We weren't sure if this was a tribute to Reno 911's Lieutenant Dangle, or just some guys celebrating Pride Week, which was also going on that day.


Guy in a banana suit. Don't know why, but I'm sure he was sweating like crazy...
There were also girls wearing t-shirts declaring their love for Clark Howard, a local radio personality who runs every year. I didn't see him, though. I also missed the pub crawlers, although I saw them two years ago when Mom did the race. Those guys are hardcore; they walk all 6+ miles, stopping at every bar along the way. I'm sure it takes them a while.

And finally...


The finish line!
It didn't actually take us 3 hours. According to Liz's pedometer, we walked 15,675 steps (or thereabouts) in an hour and 48 minutes. I'm not sure if that includes all the stopping-and-starting at the beginning, but it certainly gives me a time to beat next year.

Happy (Early) 4th!

Have a happy July 4th, everybody! I'll be running - aw, who am I kidding? - walking in the Peachtree Road Race tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

Happy Pi Day!

Today was Pi Day, and I almost didn't realize it. mental_floss has a post with lots of neat pi facts. I celebrated Pi Day by participating in a π Run, a 5K (3.14 mile) run - or walk, in my case - to help raise money for graphing calculators at a local high school. And then I went and had pizza and beer, completely negating all the health benefits. Oh, well. It was good practice for the Peachtree Road Race, which I'm hoping I'll be able to do this year.