4th of July

When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t relieved that I didn’t have to go out and run 6.2 miles.  Nope, I was pissed.  It didn’t help that my Facebook news feed was littered with status updates about the race.  Twitter was filled with tweets from local businesses offering discounts to people wearing their race numbers.  Pissed.

I get that it’s a lottery and, for whatever reason, I’ve gotten the short end of the stick two years in a row.  But here’s the thing – when you register, you are given the opportunity to provide a qualifying time (a time from a race in the past year that’s considered a “Peachtree Qualifier”).  These times determine what start wave you are in.  Faster times equal start waves that are in the front, while slower times are in the middle and those without times submitted are in the back.  Now, I’m not a particularly fast runner, but the time that I submitted would have had me starting in Wave E (it goes to Wave Y). I think, and this is not me being bitter, I swear, that those who submit a time should have priority over those that don’t.  I have done a qualifying race.  I have earned my spot in this 10K.  It’s not that hard to go out and run a qualifying race; almost all of the larger ones in town are.

Unfortunately, it’s not set up like this but I think it should be.  I know in my heart that I probably would have been miserable out there.  They were already calling it a Code Red before all the start waves had even begun.  But I would have liked the chance to actually experience it.  Instead, I went to the [much cooler] gym and ran on the treadmill.  I had originally intended to run 6.2 miles as a way of proving to myself that I could do it.  However, there were a lot of people waiting and I was going way over the time limit, so I stopped at 5 miles.  Still, it’s more than I’ve run in a while, even though I took some walk breaks.

Eventually, I decided to stop pouting and Jason and I got ready to go to our friend Brian’s house where he and Emily were grilling on their barbecue.  I wore my special barbecue t-shirt.

(I’ll have you know that Emily asked me to bring hummus.  I just happened to already have been wearing the shirt.  I also don’t think this is a very flattering picture of myself at all, but I’m posting it so you can see my shirt.)

The hummus:

We also had Utz Crab Chips.  Emily and I determined that you pretty much have to be from Maryland (she and I both are and have been friends since high school) to enjoy these.  Emily is a big fan.

I also made a couscous salad.  It’s really this Grilled Corn and Orzo Salad with Chili Lime Vinaigrette made with Israeli couscous instead of orzo.  (And frozen corn instead of grilled, roma tomatoes instead of cherry and white onion instead of red if you want to be technical.)

There were spiral cooked hot dogs, chicken breast and a Field Roast Vegetarian sausage.  Bet you can’t guess which one was mine!

We also had corn, but I didn’t get a picture of it.  Picture a corn cob.

A few years ago, a friend told me about a secret spot to watch fireworks: The Whole Foods parking lot.

From here, you have a [somewhat obstructed] view of the Lenox Mall fireworks and virtually no traffic or crowds.  Other people know about it, but it’s still a pretty secret spot, if you ask me.

I brought my tripod and zoom lens in an attempt to get some good fireworks shots.  Unfortunately, there was sort of a building in the way.

Happy 4th of July!