BamaBoy

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Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, United States
A guy finding out if life really does begin at 50.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

How I spent my 4th of July

A friend of mine, Dexter, invited be down to run in the 2008 Peachtree Road Race. He pinged me back in March , and I sent in my entry form in April. I pretty much had given up on getting picked in the lottery for one of the 55K out of state entries. But I was lucky, and the 1st week of June my race package and number (98411) arrived in the mail. So I drove down on the July 3rd.

I drove to Dexter's house north of Atlanta and met his family. Dexter's brother, Rick, came down from Baltimore to run in the race, so the three of us set out about 10PM for downtown Atlanta to spend the night with Dexter's Dad Roy. We got up at 5:45AM, and Roy dropped us at the MARTA station where we met up with Dexter's wife, Jan, Little Dexter, his fiancée Leila, and Cynthia at the station and rode the subway to Lenox Square which is where the race started. Rick and I had numbers in the same range, so we waited together. We started running at about 9AM , me with cell phone and camera in hand. By chance, Roy and I saw each other as I jogged by, but I missed getting that picture. My camera is slower than me :-(.

I was almost to the 1st mile marker when Dexter called to let me know he was done! He flew.. Sub 59 minutes for a 10K. His group when off earlier. I finished 1 hour 29 minutes 44 seconds... Slow.... 14:09 per mile average. Over a minute per mile slower than my already slow summertime pace. I did take a lot of pictures! I hope you enjoy them.

2 comments:

The Vollmers said...

TOO COOL! I've NEVER run a race that crowded -- was it really 100K people?

My running is currently NIL...maybe this week I'll get the gumption to start up again.

Unknown said...

I thought I saw you running by my condo, Don! Those are great pictures, although you really ought to keep your mind on the road and not the scenery for some of those pics, if you know what I mean....