Running in Atlanta, The Blogrollers Style

As I sit here in my hotel room in Atalanta, my heart is filled with happiness, gratitude, and … I’m hearing a beautiful sound.  I think they call it “silence”.  It isn’t something I hear all that often at home in Denver. My precious, yet vociferous, children are far away from me right now and I’m missing them, a lot. So much that I decided to awaken at the crack of dawn to simulate and early morning with them.  At 6am EST this morning I was up and about getting ready to run the Virginia Highlands Summer Fest 5k Road Race as part of The Blogrollers’ Race & Relax Weekend.

When I entered  this unbelievable trip in a contest on The Blogrollers website, I really wanted to win.  I wanted to win for so many different reasons.  First, I love @theblogrollers (Lorraine @askwifey and Christie @chatterboxcgc), second, I had just committed to running The Inaugural Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon and was looking to run a 5k race on this very weekend, Third, well, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to win an all expenses paid trip to Atlanta for an event with the words “Race & Relax” in the title… and did I mention the part about hangin’ with the fabulous social media divas that call this city home?  Winning the contest was so exciting, I NEVER win anything!!   I didn’t realize that I was in a bit of a running rut at the time, but when I started to train to a faster 5k I was definitely recharged and excited. I’ll be posting my race details on MomActive with my weekly “Running for MY Life” post.

I should have guessed that The Blogrollers would pull out all the stops but I had NO idea just how much until I arrived at the airport yesterday and was greeted by Stephen … my driver for the weekend!!!  Stephen drove me to The Hyatt Place in Buckhead, and he arrived bright and early at 7am this morning to drive me to the race start.  He’ll be coming for me at 11am tomorrow morning when I head back home to Denver.  I could TOTALLY get used to having a driver, I think I’ll just bring Stephen home with me!

TWEET-UP! Last night we headed to The Buckhead Pizza Co. where we met up with a bunch of the divas for a little pre-race carbo loading.  We were in the perfect private party room and @keyinfluencer even stopped in and brought #fridaynightmix DJ awesomeness directly to us!  The two hour time difference eventually caught up with me and I was happy to crawl into my king sized and sprawl into a good night’s sleep.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day!  I’ve had so much fun being able to spend more IRL time with my Twiend @krystalgrant – she just acracks me up!  This is her warming up her personality for the 5k race.  She is 24/7 sunshine lady! Take note of the very awesome sporty shirts sponsored by The Cherry Marketing Institute (@choosecherries)!

We headed over to the start and this picture of the crew furiously tweeting and texing probably explains why none of us realized that the race had started until we were swallowed up by a wave of runners!

How social media divas approach the starting line....

The Virginia Highland Summer Fest 5k is a nice course through a really cute Atlanta neighborhood.  I am so thankful for all the trees that provided shade along the way because I was sweating buckets from the minute I stepped out of the car. The HILLS, oh my goodness, I knew that Denver was flat and that I’d likely feel the hills… yes, I felt them, and my hips are still screaming!  I’m pretty pleased with my time 30:33 (was hoping for sub 30 but I’ll take it!) considering I missed the starting gun.  I’ll just say that those hills definitely made it an interesting run!

We were treated to an amazingly yummy brunch sponsored by Walt Disney World Resorts, at a place called Einstein’s Atlanta (@einsteinsatl).  Thank you Disney for inspiring and refueling us! I love how Disney just “gets” moms and social media, fun, families, you name it! Every event I’ve ever attended where Disney was involved, whether it was the lunch at Blogalicious ‘09 or the Disney Social Media Moms Conference, they’ve  always been tastefully done and we moms definitely recognize the support they show us.

And what race could ever be complete without a TROPHY?!!  Yes, my very own trophy!  I love it and I shall sleep with it put it on my desk at the base of my vision board … that I haven’t completed or even started yet.  Now I actually have a vision – I know exactly what my vision board will look like and I can’t wait to get started!

The swag bags were off the hook.  The Wine Sisterhood (@winesisterhood sponsored those fabulous canvas bags!! Hello, pool/summer bag for all my summery things!  I have to confess – I stole this picture off of @krystalgrant – I did tweet her and ask her if I could use it, but she hasn’t tweeted me back yet so if I go missing y’all need to go look up a green gremlin with really big red lips, cause she probably went all gremliny on me for rudely stealing her pictures…. In any case, I’ve already taken a bath with the spa goodies from Pampered by Adrienne (@PBAdrienne) and am chillin in my room thinking about washing my hair.  Did you read that?  I’ve been chillin’!  I had time to take a bath AND I’m going to wash my hair – in the SAME DAY!

This really has been an amazing experience and I’m so very grateful for what has turned out to be a very fun and very relaxing trip!  I can’t wait to run with these gals again soon.  Hmmm I wonder if @chatterboxcgc and @askwifey will just get on with and just say they’ll join us when MomActive heads to Disney in Ocober?  Hmmmm….

Tagged as: 5k, Atlanta, race, Road Race, run, running, The Blogrollers, Virginia Highlands Summer Fest