Friday
6:18 pm Touch down at ATL, rent car, check into the Westin Peachtree Plaza. Highly recommend this hotel for the race – it’s a block away from the Expo and walking distance to the start/finish line.
8:30 pm Dinner at Trois (see separate post)
Saturday
8:30 am Breakfast at Ria’s Bluebird Café (www.riasbluebird.com)
Pancakes with caramelized bananas were delish, and the service was super nice. If I had it to do over again, though, I’d ask for the syrup on the side instead of having my pancakes swimming in it. Go early – when I got there at 8:20 there was already a line.
10:00 am Oakland Cemetery (www.oaklandcemetery.com)
Conveniently right around the corner from Ria’s. Beautiful historic site where both the famous and infamous of the South are buried. Luminaries include golfer Bobby Jones, Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell, and the guy who owned the drug store in which the first glass of what would become known as Coke was served (a customer asked for his headache syrup to be mixed with carbonated water). I highly recommend taking one of the tours – they have a general tour as well as specialized ones like the Symbolism tour, the Jewish tour, the African-American tour, etc.
12:30 pm High Museum of Art (www.high.org)
Renzo Piano’s expansion of Richard Meier’s original space is an architectural masterpiece. The three buildings on the High “campus” are as beautiful as their contents. The museum has partnered with the Musée du Louvre, and is bringing masterpieces across the pond for the next three years for the Louvre Atlanta exhibit. They’re currently showing works from the royal collections of the Kings of France – Louis XIV, XV and XVI. Especially loved seeing La Infanta Margarita by Diego Velazquez.
3:00 pm Afternoon snack at Table 1280 Restaurant & Tapas Lounge (www.table1280.com)
Table 1280 is next door to the High in the Woodruff Arts Center. The lunch and dinner menus looked great, but since I arrived between the two services, I was limited to the very limited “lounge menu.” Nonetheless, the crab cake I ordered was probably the best I’ve ever had – big chunks of fresh crab – and light, rather than heavily deep-fried.
4:00 pm ING Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon Expo
Oh yeah, I’m here for a race! As soon as I arrived at the Expo site (AmericasMart 3 – 1 block from the Westin) I realized I should have come first thing in the morning. Not only was there a line to pick up bib numbers, but they were also all out of goodie bags. How does that happen? Don’t they know how many people are registered? Unfortunately it was a bit of a foreshadowing of the race. (This was the first year of this race, and they had a few beginners’ kinks to work out.)
8:00 pm Dinner at a totally forgettable Italian restaurant near the Westin. Wanted a quick, convenient carbo-load – and that ‘s what I got, but at a place that doesn’t even offer Parmesan cheese grated on top of the spaghetti marinara.
Sunday
6:45 am Run out the door of the Westin and make it to the starting line just in time. I immediately noticed how much warmer it was here than in Phoenix, or even Austin. During the race I realized I was almost the only person wearing long running pants instead of shorts. I was also sporting hot orange shoelaces courtesy of my $10 donation to Run for Something Better, an organization that fights childhood obesity. (Get your laces at www.ingrunforsomethingbetter.com)
7:00 am We’re off! The course took 13,730 runners through Atlanta’s beautiful neighborhoods. The weather was lovely, the sun was shining, and the crowds were out to cheer us on. The race also started on time, which is rare. Unfortunately since this was the inaugural race, as I mentioned earlier, they still have some other kinks to work out. First, even on wide streets, the race lanes were too narrow. I was crowded by other runners for the entire race, which is rare – usually I can shake ‘em by Mile 3 at the latest. Second, they didn’t have enough volunteers at the water stations and they placed them right next to the port-a-johns, so every two miles or so there was a huge crowd you had to maneuver through or around. The finish line area was super-crowded, but they did have a good supply of water, food and post-race photo-booths. The medal was also quite nice! My chip time of 2:26:42 was my slowest so far this year, so I look forward to improving in the months to come.
12:30 pm Brunch at the Sun Dial Restaurant in the Westin Hotel. Located atop of the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere, the Sun Dial is a rotating restaurant that gives you a 360 degree view of Atlanta as you dine. The 72-story elevator ride is not for the faint of heart! I had Bananas Foster French Toast with Sweet Mascarpone … very well-deserved after running 13.1 miles!
I had planned to go to Phipps Plaza Shopping Center, the MLK museum, the Aquarium or one of a myriad of other Atlanta attractions, but those will have to wait for my next trip. After the race and brunch, Sunday was all about relaxing, including my favorite Sunday ritual, coffee and the New York Times.
6:45 pm Dinner at Restaurant Eugene (see separate post).
Monday
6:40 am My [insert favorite obscenity here] Treo alarm clock didn’t go off – so I woke up at 6:40with an 8am flight to catch. By a stroke of luck or an act of God (or both) somehow I drop off my rental car and make it to the airport lobby by 7:20. This is in spite of the fact that the Westin bellhop gave me the wrong directions to the airport! So I’m feeling great until the United E-Z Check-in touch screen tells me my flight departs at 7:50, not 8:00. I dash to the security line to find a gazillion people (think Vegas CES). I weave my way towards the front and ask a security guard if I may go through in order to make my flight….he obliges and I think I’m home free, until I realize it’s a huge trek from there to the gate. OK, enough of the suspense…I make the flight and arrive in SF with great memories of a wonderful trip.
All things considered, I’d definitely recommend doing this race next year!
Additional resources:
- Rand McNally – I’m so geographically challenged that one of my best friends calls me Alice (as in Alice in Wonderland, down the rabbit hole…) I was also warned that almost every street in the city is called some variation of Peachtree. So I ordered a laminated fold-up Atlanta map from RandMcNally.com and plotted out my activities, pasting tiny cut-out Post-Its along the route. It may sound a tad obsessive-compulsive, but I’m proud to say that on this trip, Alice didn’t get lost once!
- Google Map -- I've created one for the places you've just read about, in case you want to do this trip yourself.
UPDATE: My photos and finish line video are now available! (Click on the photo to view them on Webshots)
by laurajf1
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