You made it!

Hey thanks for checking out i run atlanta! I hope you will find this running blog helpful, entertaining, inspirational... hey if nothing else it will make you feel incredibly fast and fit because like I said, I'm the not so serious runner type. I'm in it for the health benefits. I'm in it for the time to my self in the mornings before my family is awake. Ok really, I'm in it for the t-shirts. Nothing makes me feel on top of the world like a nice t-shirt that says "I just ran a half marathon, booyah!"

Which reminds me, let me introduce myself. I am a 23 year old mother to 1 little 1 year old monster, T. A native Canadian, I have been fairly regularly active my whole life but I got serious about running my final year at UGA and joined the Triathlon Club. After a pretty nasty bike accident I decided to ditch the wheels and hit the pavement for a Marathon. After a couple weeks of training for that, I found to my surprise that I was pregnant! T was born July 2007 and my handsome husband got a job in Norcross- Welcome to Atlanta! A new mom with lots of time and energy on my hands, I became determined to become that runner I've always wanted to be. And I'm proud of what I've accomplished! While I'm still not there I ran my first 10K this February, an X-Terra Series Trail Race at Conyers Horse Park, in 1:02:02. I ran my first Half Marathon March 1, another X-Terra Series Trail Race at Ft. Yargo State Park in 2:16:30- during the race I fell and hit my knee pretty hard, which turned out to be a pretty bad ITBand injury that set me on the injured list for the next 6 months.

That brings me to 9 weeks ago when a friend and I decided to train for the Weather Channel Atlanta Half Marathon on Thanksgiving. We downloaded the Ultimate Half Marathon training plan (intermediate) from RunnersWorld.com and hit the streets. We've improved our times from an average 10 minute mile to an average 9 minute mile and we look and feel g r e a t!

As I set out to find great places to run in Atlanta (and when I say Atlanta, I mean all of Greater Atlanta too) however, I struggled to find a lot of really helpful information. It's been my goal to create a website that has all that information I was looking for- I wanted to know where all the great routes were, but I needed to know how long they were. And whether they were jogging-stroller friendly. And what facilities are nearby (water fountains, bathrooms). And how to get to the trail from the parking lot (more complicated than it seems sometimes...). One of my goals for this blog is to showcase some awesome running spots I've come across so that all you Atlanta runners can use and share that information!

And last thing for today, I promise- I want this to be a blog where you can share information as well as find it! Let me know if you know of a great race going on around here, leave a comment, send me an email, tell me about a great route or trail you found last weekend... I'm all ears and hopefully as the blog grows in popularity we can get that information out to all our runners across Atlanta. I also want the blog to be useful to runners in all stations- whether you are thinking about it, just starting or have been running for years I hope you will eventually think i run atlanta is the best running blog ever in the history of the world.