Peachtree Road Race Recap

As most of you know I traveled to Atlanta last week to take part in the Peachtree Road Race. When we arrived in the city we went straight to the PRR expo. It was awesome! 

Tuesday and Wednesday were full of great food and browsing around the Lenox Mall. This was a great way to stay out of the stray rain showers! I say browsing because we did not come away with any shopping bags, this was a strange occurrence for our usual girls trips! We enjoyed several great laughs throughout the two days! Me driving in downtown is enough to make most people that know me well double over in laughter! 

Sadly, while enjoying a great meal at TWO urban licks on Wednesday it began to pour and continued to rain throughout the evening. As we made our way back to the hotel we all agreed that we would run no what matter the weather report may have said about storms. 

Upon waking up on Thursday morning the first thing I did was check the weather report. 

This was the radar... 

The picture on the radar wasn't what we hoped for but we all decided to continue with our plan to just run, not worry about the weather. We weren't overly concerned with this forecast, it was just rain, no red spots indicating a storm. Listen, if there had been red in that radar I would've been headed back to bed not headed to the MARTA station to get to the start line area! We donned our ponchos and rain jackets never giving it a second thought! The Badass Babes were focused on celebrating the traditions of July 4th, the freedom and most of all the ability to run (even in the rain). This was our last group shot as we headed to our various start waves, don't we look thrilled to be in the rain?! 

We arrived at the start line very early as to beat the crowd. Although at one point we felt we were over-thinking the crowd issue, surely people weren't as crazy us to run in this weather! Much to our surprise there was a crowd, a large crowd of 47,000 runners! This was a welcomed sight. The race began promptly 7:30am with the first wave of regular runners taking off, the elites had taken off at 7:15am. Our crew was spread out from Wave B to Wave U, we each had left our PR goals at the hotel and just focused on getting to the finish line. 

As I approached the start line I noticed it had stopped raining. This made me pretty happy; however, it was still very humid. My wave took off and I noticed there didn't seem to be as many walkers to weave through but there were plenty of runners. All seemed to be going well with my pace until about 2.5 miles down the route when I had to get that jacket off because it too hot. It was clear that my prayers had been answered and the rain was giving us a break! I caught up with another Mom from our local Moms Run This Town group and we chatted for a bit. It was nice to see a familiar face amongst the thousands of runners. As we approached the hills of downtown Atlanta I could feel my stomach taking a turn for the worse. Knowing this stomach issue was happening because I was getting overheated I took a quick walk break through a water stop and ditched that rain jacket altogether. It was a cheap one so I didn't mind loosing it along the way! I began to run again; however, I could tell my stomach was just not feeling it so around the 4 mile mark I made my way over to the side and threw up. Yes, for the first time in 3 years of running I got sick in the middle of a race. I was smart enough to know that I'd probably feel better if I just let it go! I had no idea what my pace was at that moment but I was aware enough to pause my Run Keeper. I did manage to quickly get myself together and get back on the route to finish the race. I ran a good portion of the remainder 2.2 miles with only taking walk breaks through the water stops. I reached the finish line with a time of 1:05 according to Run Keeper and 1:07 according to the official PRR clock. 

Once I found the girls in the midst of a very muddy Piedmont Park we all shared a few laughs about the run and various things we'd see along the way. Now, I have my own "I threw up" story including a pretty good finish to share with fellow runners! 

I am not too bummed about my time either. This was not an overall PR but it is a PR for the Peachtree for me!  This moment also reminds me that no matter how well I train and prepare my body for a race or any event that things just happen! I do not doubt my training for this race, I was very prepared. I also cherish the simple fact that I finished, I ran and walked 6.2 miles in downtown Atlanta on a day we celebrate our freedom! That alone is enough for this "Wife, Mother, Runner" to celebrate! 

My finish line shot... lots of people back there! 

The Badass Babes in Piedmont Park

I'd love to hear some other "I threw up" or "I felt sick" during a race stories! Up next for our crew is the Women's Running Series Half Marathon in Nashville, TN. I will spend the rest of the summer weeks focusing on that race and praying I feel just as prepared as I did last Thursday morning on September 28th!