Running Georgia - Snickers Albany Marathon

Georgia race #3 was the Snickers Marathon in Albany, GA.  This race does not offer race-day packet pickup, and is far enough away that you have to drive down th day before and stay overnight.  Since the purpose of me running all these Georgia marathons is to save my PTO and money for the adoption, I had to wait until after lunch on Friday to leave to head down.  I was planning on leaving at 2:00, but my boss was nice enough to encourage me to leave at 1:00 to beat the Friday traffic.  I'm so glad I did!  There were still two slow spots getting onto I-75 south, but I was able to make the drive and get to the expo by just before 5pm.

The expo was held in a hotel in downtown Albany.  I believe it was a Hilton Garden Inn, but am not sure.  I think that was also the official race hotel. The expo did have booths and merchandise that you could purchase, unlike the other races I had done thus far, but it wasn't huge.  I didn't have much time to check it out, because on my drive down, my maintenance light in my car came on, and I needed to find an oil change place before the city shut down for the weekend.

After finding a place open at 5pm on a Friday (that charged an arm and a leg) and getting my oil changed, I headed to my cheap hotel.  I stayed in the Baymont Inn.  It was cheap (remember the goal is to save PTO and money and still get to race), but functional.  The hotel actually gave the runners a nice welcome packet with bottled water and some other goodies.  It was across the street from a Publix and Target, so I decided to walk across the street to buy my typical race morning breakfast in case the hotel breakfast was not acceptable.  The hotel had a refrigerator to store my cold drinks.

After buying my breakfast, it was time for my traditional pre-race dinner.  I headed to the IHOP to meet my co-worker, who was also in town to run the race.  I had my pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast, and it was delicious, as usual.  Afterwards, I walked across the street to Walmart to buy some sunscreen and a throw away jacket (which I got for $3!).  Then it was time to go back to my hotel, set my clothes out, and get some sleep.

The next morning, I ate breakfast in the hotel lobby and headed over to the start line.  It was very easy to get to, and they had plenty of parking.  I parked close to the start line and waited in my car until it was close to start time.

They had music blasting and plenty of porta potties at the start line.  The problem was the placement of the porta potties, though.  The line for the bathroom was basically the same place as where the runners line up to start.  You couldn't really tell where the line started and where people were just standing and waiting to start.  There were no corrals, but they did have pace groups.  I found the 4-hour pace group and hung out.  My co-worker met me at the pace group, and we started together.

The four-hour pacer was very excited and talked a lot - almost too much.  So we moved ahead of her and ended up in the 3:55 pace group.  I was pretty impressed with the number of pace groups.  They had one for every five minutes under the 4-hours.  We stayed with the 3:55 group for almost half of the race.

The first part of the race takes you into a small college in the city.  Then you go out onto a long stretch of a somewhat busy road for several miles.  After what seems like forever, it turns into a nice neighborhood area.  The houses are nice, and the road is lined with trees.  The course gets a little hillier in the neighborhoods, but the hills aren't bad.  They are gently rolling.  That is about the halfway point, so the rest of the race is making your way back into town.  Once you get close to the finish line, you run thought an old train station and downhill into the park.  The race ends in the park under a bridge close to downtown and next to the river. The walk back to the car is a short couple of blocks, and passes by the Ray Charles statue.

The water stops were well supported with volunteers and plenty of cups with water and Gatorade.  I don't remember any times when I couldn't get what I wanted.  There were pockets of fans throughout the race that cheered for all the runners.

The park at the end of the race had tents set up with beer, food, and water.  There were tables under one tent with chairs so you could sit and eat the food.  The medical tent was nearby and ready to tend to any runners needs.  There were plenty of people hanging around the finish and cheering the runners on.  

The metal was a number 10 (it was the 10th anniversary of the race) with a snickers bar as the one, and it was pretty big and heavy.  The shirt was a gender-specific dri-fit shirt that looks like a snickers bar.  They also gave you a snickers bar in the race packet, a water bottle, and a magnet to save the date for the next year's race.

This was my favorite Georgia race thus far.  I give this race 4.5 out of 5 stars.  I would definitely do this race again.

Running Georgia - Callaway Gardens

Race number two of the year was the Callaway Gardens marathon in Pine Mountain, GA.  It is the last weekend in January.  This marathon is also about two hours away, south of Atlanta, so I drove down the morning of the race.

Parking was easy.  They had someone at the entrance to the park that directed you to the parking lot.  They offer race-day packet pickup, although they ran out of safety pins.  Luckily, I have my running belt, so I don't need them.  I also found four in my car from a previous race that I donated to the cause to help someone else.  The packet pickup was located in a building that kind of looked like a circus tent.  (It may have actually been one, for all I know.) The line got pretty long, and they didn't have a whole lot of volunteers handing out the packets.  There were only three people in front of me, and I probably waited in line for 15+ minutes.  This race's SWAG left something to be desired.  The shirt was a cotton t-shirt, and that was it.

The morning was chilly, so I stayed inside the circus tent building until right before the start.  The start/finish was right outside, so a few minutes before the start I was able to walk out of the building and into the line.  They had pace groups, so I found the 4:00 pace group and stuck with them for awhile.

The Christmas lights were still up in some places, and there weren't any flowers blooming.  The park was pretty empty of guests, so it was a perfect time for the race.  The roads weren't closed to traffic, so every now and then a car would drive through the course, but it wasn't too often.

The course was pretty hilly.  It went past some lakes, around the park streets, and then into the woods on a bike (?) path.  It was a double loop course, so the half marathon turned off at the halfway point, and us crazy people continued on for another lap.  The scenery was very nice, and I'm sure it would be even nicer in the spring with the flowers blooming.  There was an out and back portion near the back entrance of the park in addition to the double loops, so you got to see and cheer on the other runners quite often.

I stayed with the 4:00 group for about three or four miles before a huge downhill took me ahead of them.  I'm a downhill runner, and I can't help but fly down the hills.  After that, I decided to stay ahead and try for a sub-4 hour race.  I felt good, and passed a bunch of people in the beginning of the second lap.  My middle miles were my strongest.  I would have my eye on someone ahead of me and see if I could catch up to them.

The water stops were well manned with cheering volunteers.  There was water, Gatorade (or some other electrolyte drink), and Coke at most stations.  They also had chips and pretzels.  I'm not sure if the chips were for the runners or the volunteers.  I'm not sure how you eat chips while you run.  But I did take a pretzel around mile 8 and 21.

I started to get tired toward the end when I was on the bike path through the woods.  Three or four of the people I had passed in the middle miles passed me back.  I couldn't keep up the pace in those last hills, and was glad to emerge from the woods and head down the last path to the finish in under 4 hours.  I finished in 3:52:59, which was good enough for 3rd place in my age group, 7th female overall.  The age group awards were beer mugs with the race name, age group, and place.  They are very nice!

I met some great people at this race.  One of the girls I passed in the middle who passed me back at the end was Shannon Hays.  Shannon had also run the Museum of Aviation marathon and snagged 1st place in our age group in both races.  She introduced me to Bob Kennedy, who heads up the 50<4 marathon club (for people who have run or trying to run a sub-4 hour marathon in all 50 states).  They convinced me to sign up for the club.  I also met Loren Starr, who, at the time, was close to a 100 marathon milestone (He was since crushed that goal).

Another small Georgia race in the books.  I give this one 3.5 out of 5 stars as well, although the scenery might tip the scales toward a 4.

Some of the "fast women" in the race.  We all finished right under 4 hours.

50<4 Marathon Club members with our awards

Shannon and me with our age group awards. That girl is amazing!

Running Georgia - Museum of Aviation Marathon

As many of you know, my husband and I are in the process of adopting.  We will be adopting a child from Albania.  We are in the waiting phase, where we are just waiting for a match before we travel to Albania to pick her up.

The trip to Albania will be about a two month ordeal.  Because of that, I have to save all of my PTO this year in case it happens this year.  Normally, my PTO would go to either a Friday before a race or a Monday after a race, since I'm trying to run in all 50 states.  I have already run in most of the states that are close enough to drive to without taking time off work, so I decided to put my 50 state dream on hold this year and run all of the marathons in Georgia.

My first marathon this year was the Museum of Aviation Marathon in Warner Robins, GA.  WR is near Macon, GA about two hours south of where I live (in the northern suburbs of Atlanta), so it is pretty convenient to drive to the morning of the race.  For anyone traveling from out of state, it would be easy enough to fly into Atlanta and make the short drive down to WR. They offer race-day packet pickup, which is very convenient if you want to stay in Atlanta and just come down the morning of the race.

The race is typically held on MLK weekend, so it allows for extra recovery/travel days before going back to work.

Parking was very easy, and the volunteers helped us see where to park in the dark.  They could have used more signage to guide us to the right door for the museum entrance, but we were able to find it. The museum building was open for us to stay warm before the race.  The race organizers require that you provide your ID to participate.  They keep it until you finish to make sure that all civilian runners are off the base after the race.

Before the race starts, they have a small ceremony in the museum with the National Anthem, music, and a short speech by the race organizer and museum employees.  They have chairs set up for everyone to sit in to watch the ceremony and wait for the start.  There are bathrooms indoors, but if you get there too late, there will be a line.  But they were very nice to change in after the race was over.

The course is a double loop course through the Air Force base.  This allows for the full and half marathoners to run together for 13 miles before the split, although the half marathon starts 5 minutes after the full starts.  The first half of the loop is pretty flat.  It goes past the landing strip, so you may get a glimpse of some of the planes taking off and landing.  The back half of the course has two pretty decent hills.  After the first hill, you pass a couple of lakes and a horse pasture before heading up the second hill.  

The course is run almost entirely on the base, so spectators are rare.  I believe you have to have a military ID to get onto the base, so most spectators are limited to water stations and the start/finish, which is located just off the base.  This is not an ideal race if you depend on fans for motivation.  But the volunteers are great, and will cheer you on as much as they can.  On the back half of the course, before the hills, there was a DJ on the side of the road playing rap music.  I'm not sure if that is a normal thing, or just a random 2016 thing.

The water stations are about two miles apart the whole way.  They did have bananas at one of the water stations.  I believe the electrolyte drink was Gatorade.  The water stations were well stocked, and I never had trouble getting the water or drink that I needed.  After the race, they had pizza, cookies, and other goodies in the museum waiting for us as we picked up our IDs before we left.

As far as SWAG goes, this race is lacking.  The shirt is a regular cotton, long-sleeved shirt.  There wasn't much else to it.  The winners (both overall and in age groups) did get a very nice trophy.  To were very good about mailing it to you if you weren't there for the ceremony as well.

Overall, this was a nice little race, and very convenient to the city.  I ran with a co-worker, and we finished in 4:10, which was good enough for third in my age group.  Race #1 in Georgia is done.  I give this race a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Dossier Sent!

After five long months, we have finally sent our dossier to Albania for review/approval!

The international adoption process comes in various phases.  The first phase is the home study.  We completed that January - June of this year.

The second phase is the dossier.  The dossier is a collection of documents that proves who you are and what you said in the home study.  They all have to be official documents, certified within the past six months.  Most of the documents have to be notarized and apostilled.  Most people (including the attorneys I work with) have never even heard of an apostille.  The notary certifies that the signature is yours.  The apostille certifies that the notary is certified to notarize.  Apostilles are generally only used for Hague country adoptions.  Apostilles have to be done in the state in which the document originates.  For example, I was born in Ohio, so I had to have my birth certificate apostilled by the Secretary of State in Columbus, Ohio.

Because we had to get documents from out of state and also because of my name change, the process for compiling all of these certified, notarized, apostilled documents took quite awhile.  We were notified of the home study approval in June.  As soon as we were notified, I ordered the documents. My name change caused some major confusion for the company that we used to order the documents.

• Georgia couldn't locate our marriage certificate because they were looking for an Elizabeth as a first name (my first name was Janet back then).  
• North Carolina sent the incorrect divorce certificate, because, again, they were looking for an Elizabeth.  

When we finally thought we had everything, the apostille office wouldn't apostille the copy of our property deed because it wasn't an official, signed, sealed version.  So Rob spent some time driving back and forth getting all the last-minute paperwork completed.

But it's finally sent!

So what happens next?  The Albanian office of Bethany will have all of our documents translated into Albanian.  This will take about a month.  After that, it is submitted to the Albanian Adoption Committee for review.  The Albanian Adoption Committee then matches our dossier with waiting children and decides whether or not to give us a referral.  They have cautioned us that the waiting period for a referral can be up to 2-3 years.

So now, it's a waiting game.  We don't even expect to receive a referral before end of January at the very earliest, as the translation process takes that long.  And it could be up to 3 years, as they said.

Be praying for patience as we wait.  Pray for wisdom for the Albanian Adoption Committee as they review our dossier and match us with a child.  Only God knows what child is the right one for our family.

Chadron, NE marathon

Well, I did it!  I finished four marathons in five days.  I did this crazy thing to raise money for our adoption.  See the story here:  http://anython.com/running-for-sissy-simon.

The last marathon (for me) for the week was in Chadron, NE, population 5,787, which makes it the biggest city yet.  It actually even has a Wal-mart!  That's "movin' on up" for this part of the country.

The marathon was held in Chadron State Park.  We went there yesterday to check it out.  The park was nice, and there was a pretty lake, that made me think that the course would be very scenic.

Unfortunately, the course didn't even pass the lake.  It was the most brutal course I have ever run.  The course ran down a paved road, turned onto a gravel road, and then went onto a grass path through the woods, down a muddy hill, over a rickety bridge, through more grass, back onto a paved road past the campsites, and turned around and came back the same way...16 times.  

The weather was cool and rainy, which made the course muddy with lots of puddles.  Here are some pictures on the muddy, narrow path we ran through, along with some great runners who have now become friends.

The course was probably like heaven to trail runners, but a nightmare to road runners like me.  I have always avoided trails like the plague.  My ankles are weak, and at least three times along the course, I stepped into holes and felt pain surge up my foot and leg.  I was so busy concentrating on where my feet were stepping, that I barely looked up to cheer on runners as they passed me or take in any scenery.  The rickety, narrow, slippery bridge apparently went over this beautiful creek, which I didn't see even one time, as I passed by 38 times because I was so focused on not falling off the bridge.

Since this was my last race and I hated the trail course, I ran as hard as I could, just to get it over with as fast as possible.  I managed to pull off a 4:12 finish.

One of the best parts of these races were the people I met along the way - people who I hope to remain friends with for a long time after the races are over.  Spending a week with the same people, eating dinner with them, and running with them really helps form bonds that cannot be broken.

After cooling down and stretching, I was so cold, I just wanted to get someplace warm.  We left the scene of the race for the last time this series and headed to the hotel to shower and pack.  We grabbed some lunch and ice cream at a local fast food place called Donald's Burgers before hitting the road to start the next phase of our journey:  sightseeing.  Over the next three days, while I recover from my races, we will be seeing the sights in western South Dakota before heading home to Atlanta.

Here are some pictures taken as we traveled to Keystone, SD.

Thank you for following these posts of the journey to run to raise money for our adoption of Sissy Simon.  See more about our adoption at http://anython.com/running-for-sissy-simon.  We would love for you to join us on our next journey of adoption, and encourage you to share our story with your friends.

Sundance, WY marathon

Today I finished my third marathon this week.  It was in beautiful Sundance, WY, population 1,222.

As usual, I laid my clothes out the night before.

The weather was cold at the start, and wasn't scheduled to get any warmer than mid-60s, which is actually pretty good running weather.  The wind wasn't as strong as the day before, but was definitely there, which kept the run cool most of the way.  The sunrise over the lake was very nice.

Unfortunately, the lake was the only nice part about the course.  Although there weren't any major hills, there were some minor inclines that got worse as you got further into the race.  The race was a 20-lap course.  We went out one direction, turned around and came back.  Then we went out the other direction, turned around and came back. I firmly believe they measured the course incorrectly, too, because my watch said 27.62 at the end of the race.  It was definitely quite a bit longer than a marathon.

Here are some pictures along the way.

As you might be able to tell, they are all centered around the same spot, the lake.  The rest of the course was miserable.  They had us running past a construction site on broken pavement/gravel, down a gravel street (with lots of large rocks and potholes that had to be avoided), over grass, and over a very broken patch of pavement near the lake.  I felt like I was running a trail race instead of a road race.

Despite the miserable course, I managed a 4:40 time.

The organization and water/food stop was fantastic, as usual.  They had everything you could possibly want to eat and drink, and the volunteers were great.  My water cup was filled every time I passed.  (In these races they encourage you to write your name on a cup and reuse the same cup throughout the race.  They set up all the cups on the table, and you can just grab yours as you go by.)

The company along the way was just as great!  I have really come to love these people over the course of the week.

After the finish, we had to rush back to the hotel so I could grab a shower before our noon checkout time.  Once I was ready, we hopped into the car to find some lunch.  We found it at a hole-in-the-wall place called the Dog Pound.

We were a little hesitant when we pulled up, as it doesn't look very good, but it did have a TripAdvisor sticker on the door, so we thought we'd try it.  We were pleasantly surprised.  Grandmommy and PawPaw shared a patty melt, and I had a cheeseburger.  We all got some of their homemade chips, which they cooked just as I like them, not crispy.  Everything tasted great, and we were fueled to hit the road for Nebraska.

The race tomorrow is in Chadron, NE at the Chadron State Park.  Once we arrived and checked in, we went to the site of the race.  It looks like it will be a beautiful race, but a little hillier than the others.

Finally, we closed out our day with a meal at the Country Kitchen with the group.  I finally got my pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hash browns that I usually eat the night before a race.  And with good company!

Tomorrow will be the conclusion of my week-long marathon journey.  Read about why I'm doing this here:  http://anython.com/running-for-sissy-simon.  Please share my story and support us in this longer journey ahead.

South Dakota Sightseeing

Today I sat out of the race (by choice), and volunteered at the water station instead.  The race was in Belle Fourche, SD (population 5,725) on a cement path that ran along the river.  

My job was to ensure that everyone's preferred drink (water, Gatorade, chocolate milk, and/or Coke) was filled when they ran past and needed it.

It was interesting to see the aid station from the other side of the table.  I was happy to cheer everyone on as they passed, and make sure everyone had what they needed.

After my "shift," we went sightseeing in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  We started out at Deadwood, which is a historic miner town.  We toured the Adams House, which was a state-of-the-art (in its time) house built in the late 1800s.  When it was built, it had plumbing, electricity, and phone service, which was almost unheard of back then.  

We then took a walking tour of the city and learned about the gold mining that helped found the city.

Then we drove the three miles to Lead, which was another mining town higher up the mountain.

We then took the scenic way back to Sundance, through the Spearfish Canyon.

We finished the night at the group dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse and Saloon in Sundance, WY.  

Tomorrow is marathon number three this week.  I'm feeling good, and not too sore.  We'll see how I feel once I'm on the road running again.  http://anython.com/running-for-sissy-simon.