Happy Birthday America

Since 2010, but minus last year, I've been heading down south to take part in the largest 10k road race in the world, the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, Georgia. It's held annually on the 4th of July. The race is fun and festive as runners and spectators are decked out in red, white and blue and having such a blast running and cheering through downtown Atlanta ending at Piedmont Park. The expo is by far the best expo ever with some freebies, but it's the post race festival that is amazing with twice as much freebies for over 60,000+ runners, and you receive all you can eat sweet Georgia peaches and ice cream. I can't even begin to tell you how much free stuff you get. Well... that's if you go back 3-5x like we do-haha!

Post race freebies

In 2010, the weather was unseasonably cool, and so far my time from 2010 is my current 10k PR (44:43). In 2011, the weather was Africa hot and I had to stop at every water station to dump water on me to cool off. My time was so miserable that it set me back a corral. I did not race in 2012, but this year, in 2013, the weather was awful as it rained (heavy at times) so much that we almost did not run it. While I did not PR (45:59), I'm glad we saw it though even though it was pouring heading down to the race and right before the start. God must've heard the prayers from everyone because it stopped right before the race gun went off and held off for the entire 45-55 minutes it took for all 3 of us to cross the finish line and receive our shirt. It began to pour again a few hours later after we had already left-thank goodness!

Now I don't normally carbo load for a 10k, but Mark's mother made us salad and meatless lasagne to make sure we had enough fuel to run the 6.2 miles. She knows how important this is as her husband used to run the Peachtree Road Race in the 80s and 90s. He no longer runs Peachtree, but he's very happy to see his sons continue this tradition.

Mark's mother is a great cook. She likes to cook simple no fuss dishes that are very tasty and hearty. This is just one of the many reasons why I love coming down south. There is one dish in particular that is my ultimate favorite that she's been cooking for us for years called broccoli pie. It started out as one of Mark's favorite dishes, but the very first time I tried it, it quickly became my favorite too. I finally acquired the recipe this time around, and while I'd like to share it with the rest of the world, I want to be that cook when people say at a gathering, "OMG who cooked this? It's delicious!" Although, Mark's mom truly deserves all the credit.

Remember the "all you can eat Georgia peaches" I mentioned above? Well if you don't eat them within a few days they go bad, so since we had so many, I thought it would be a good idea to make a homemade peach pie. Mark was up to the task and I'm so glad he was because it turned out so beautiful and delicious unlike what you would get at a store. He made the crust from scratch and used about 10 sweet Georgia peaches for the filling. There was a perfect harmony of tartness and sweetness.

In addition to make the homemade peach pie, Mark made a banana blueberry loaf from the bananas we received from the post race festival. While it wasn't his best loaf as it was a bit dry and you couldn't really taste the blueberries, I did enjoy the moist banana chunks and the softness of the loaf.

No trip down south would be complete without eating my favorite food: fried chicken. Yes, it's the south, and yes, it's known for its fried chicken, but you would not believe me when I say that my favorite fried chicken comes from Publix Supermarket, a large grocery chain located only down south. How dare I say this, but it's better than Popeye's, KFC or any fried chicken I've had in NYC. Really. The meat is moist and flavorful and the skin is fried to perfection. It's not salty nor tough, and you can taste and see the seasonings they use in the skin. While I'm not adverse to eating white meat, I have an allegiance to eating dark meat.

So you can clearly see that I carbo loaded, and then some, but it was kind of nice to take a break from all the training and calorie counting. It's difficult for me to restrain from eating fried, processed, sugary and high caloric foods, but sometimes I just give in because life wouldn't be fun if I didn't. I'm just glad that my 3rd Peachtree Road Race is in the books and I earned my shirt.

Hope you all had a good 4th of July.