Atlanta Weekend Recap

What a great race weekend!!!

The weekend began on Friday morning when I picked up Andrea and we racked up the bikes on the back of my car and headed out of town. We had a rough start to the drive as the bikes weren't intially very secure on the bike rack. But we fiddled around and tied a few things down and then we were back on the road.

We met up with Ann Maria in Knoxville for a quick lunch before she headed to work. We got off the highway shortly after Knoxville and took a nice scenic route to get to Buford, GA (town near Lake Lanier and the triathlon.) It took FOREVER! Between the 45 minutes detour around a sinkhole on I75, the tractor trailer which we got stuck behind on the detour, and the motorcycles which seemed to go slower downhill than uphill through the national park, I was done with the drive by the time the thunderstorm hit. I think at that point, we still had about 3 more hours to drive! We finally made it to  Buford around 6 pm, unpacked, and headed to a really good local restaurant called Parma Tavern.  Mmmmmm.....

Saturday, we picked up the race packets and dropped off the bikes at the bike transition. I'm going to write a post all about the actual race, so I'm going to skimp on details about the race for another day. The check-in was very smooth. While we were waiting in line, Andrea ran into a blog-friend in line (SwimBikeMom, also known as Meredith.)

So, I'm relatively new to the blogging world. I don't have many friends yet who blog and I don't yet follow any one blog significantly enough where I would say that I *know* that person. Andrea has been blogging for far longer (and very successfully) and has been following SwimBikeMom for quite a long time, so meeting her in person was an opportunity that Andrea couldn't miss. More on this in a moment....

After the afternoon at Lake Lanier, we stopped in historic Buford for a lunch at a really cute restaurant t Aqua Terra (I think!) Their food was fantastic although the waitress was just a little strange. We headed back to the hotel and then drove a little bit into Atlanta to meet up with an old friend of Andrea's for dinner.

On the way to dinner, Andrea and I swung by my old house. I found it relatively easily. I was planning to head up the god-awful steep driveway but was stopped by two orange cones and a sign. There was a birthday party and the owners requested that everyone park at the bottom and walk up or wait for the shuttle :) For those of you who never visited me in Atlanta - yes, it really was that bad that a shuttle would be needed for the 50 yard driveway! So I snuck up the driveway next door and scared  Andrea a little bit. I still couldn't see much of the house but it was nice to just be back in the area.

Dinner was at Sage near Perimeter Mall with Andrea's friend (and her husband and adorable daughter.) It was good conversation and good food. A fantastic bread pudding for desert. Not the best pre-race nutrition but worth every bite!!!

There was more social hour the next day when we met up with other bloggers at Taco Maco after the race. That's when we met up with Meredith and more bloggers from the internet world. All were women (it was a woman's race, after all) and it was nice to be around a nice group of genuine women all with triathlons in common. All were connected to SwimBikeMom (again, her real name is Meredith - kinda funny how people's name changes over to their blog's name.) And lo and behold, two Tough Chiks aside from Andrea and myself were there. One (Charity) I ran into on the bike course. More on that later!!!

Andrea and I also popped over to the Mall of Georgia and did some shopping before having hibachi. I've been thinking about hibachi for weeks and Andrea treated me for my birthday. The restaurant was pretty quite so we were on one end of the table and two young (and good-looking men) were sitting on the other side. I had a tough time during dinner trying to figure out what to look at while we were eating. Right before we were done and getting ready to leave, a boy (around 10 to 12 years old) asked to have his picture taken when one of those yummy-looking men. We have no idea who the guy was (and too embarrassed to ask.) I figured out later that they probably interpreted my awkward avoidance of eye contact as some semblance of being star-struck. Nope, I'm really that just awkward sometimes :) Andrea and I stopped off for some local handmade ice cream as desert before falling asleep EARLY! At least, I did. I think Andrea listened to my snoring for a little bit before going to sleep herself.

The drive back to Lexington was relatively uneventful. We ran into some more thunderstorms, one of two of which really were severe with some crazy rain.It was my birthday, so I was serenaded by the typical family happy-birthday singing (which I love!!)

Race report (with pictures!) is soon to come!