Month: July 2007

Peachtree Road Race 2007

| patmcg
Today I ran down the middle of Peachtree Road from Buckhead to Piedmont Park with 55,000 other people. I was part of the world’s largest 10k fun run, the Peachtree Road Race. This was actually my first fun run since I was a kid, when I would only occasionally tag along on runs with Dad and Tim.

Technically, it took me two and a half hours to run/walk the 6.2 mile course through the heart of Atlanta. The actual time was not as bad as it sounds. I spent an hour and a half at the starting line, near the Borders where we take Claire for story time with Miss Wendy on Saturdays. I was waiting for 50,000 runners to get going ahead of me. I had made the mistake of entering in the “casual runner and walker” section, which put me in the last section of the race, the “heart and soul of the Peachtree” someone said on a loudspeaker as we finally crossed the starting line. I could have gone a little quicker if there weren’t so many slow people in my way!

That’s nice, you may say, but this is Claire’s blog. What does this have to do with Claire?

Well, in a way, she got me into the race. You see, the first two years we lived in Atlanta, we ignored the Peachtree Road Race entirely, even though it runs only a mile or two from our house. Last year, because we had Claire to entertain and did not have the viable option of sitting around the house on our keesters, we went to watch the race from the sidelines in Peachtree Hills. It was amazing to watch the sea of humanity pass down Peachtree Road, all types of people sweating, smiling, some in costumes, many dumping water on their own heads. I was impressed, and I said aloud that it would be fun to actually do the race next year, before we (maybe) move. Of course, I was not in running shape, and it seemed basically impossible to run six miles. Besides, just getting a number in the race was tough. It was just a nice (abstract) comment.

A few months later, Kit showed up with an application from the Emory hospital. I could get into the race as an Emory spouse. How could I pass this up?

After a very untimely knee injury and the ensuing three week “accelerated” training regimen (at nights after Claire was asleep), I finally made it to the Peachtree sort of in shape and had lots of fun in the race. If not for Claire getting us out of the house, we would have never seen the big race much less been in it. Thanks, Claire, for getting me off my butt.

Curious Claire and the Cat

| patmcg


Claire loves Curious George. She loves the books, and she just discovered the cartoon on TV this morning when I stumbled on it during breakfast. When the show was finished, she politely asked for “more Georgie”, as she always does with things she loves.

Anyways, it’s no wonder Claire loves Georgie. She basically is Curious George. She is a good little girl, and always very curious. She wanders around the house with her big sweet eyes scanning each room for something new to tinker with. She loves to “help” around the house, especially with the dishwasher. Yesterday she helped load some of her clean cups into the dishwasher, and take some dirty ones out. I thought I got it all straightened out, but when I emptied the dishwasher today, Claire’s popping wind-up car was sitting on the top rack, filled with water. I guess it needed a cleaning.

Today after Grace had left and Claire woke up from her nap at 5:30, we saw a black kitty cat out the window relaxing on our driveway. Claire really loves cats, so we decided to go say “hi”. As we slowly approached, the cat looked more and more suspicious, specifically eyeing Claire and occasionally looking at me for some sort of indication that everything was cool. After all, there I was holding this pink and yellow, wiggly, three-foot-tall kid who was pointing and giggling right at the cat. But the cat held her position.

About 10 feet out, Claire was finally in “hi” range. She stuck out her right arm, squeezed her little fingers in and out as if juicing an orange, and said “hiiiiii” in her little squeaky voice. The cat took this threat seriously and jogged off just out of “hi” range. Claire and I slowly and clumsily advanced and repeated the exchange. This exercise went on a few times until we ended up three houses down and the cat finally disappeared into some bushes. Claire looked at me sadly, did the hand sign for “more”, and longingly said “more kitty” a couple of times. But I was not going in after that cat, plus we were wandering uninvited into some unknown neighbor’s slightly creepy yard.

This was a very Curious George moment, and I felt bad for cutting it short. But once we got inside, Curious Claire buried her sorrow in a plate full of four-cheese “patsa”. Yes, fuel for more adventures.