Travel and Leisure just called Atlanta a Dump ... seriously

Welcome to Atlanta, where the players play err, where the players are dirty and have not culture?  Read this article (AJC) and now look at the numbers (all out of 35). Atlanta ranked:

• 30 out of 35 for dirtiest (we beat New Orleans, Baltimore, LA and New York) ... ouch
• 29 out of 35 in nightlife - ouch ... I bet the hip hop community is pissed
• 30 out of 35 for cultural getaway -- shocked we didn't get 35 but then again, the High Museum had a Monet not to long ago so that's gotta get us in the top 30.
• 31 out of 35 for dining -- I'll actually argue this one b/c we do have some fantastic restaurants.  I travel a lot and would certainly put us above some of the other cities mentioned. Then again, there is an Applebee's and Ruby Tuesdays every mile or so which could have contributed to the poor ranking.
• 32 out of 35 for shopping -- Ever since they turned Lenox into a club, I can't argue. Perimeter and Mall of Ga are good but who goes to malls when you have Amazon, Eastbay and North Face.com? 

Back to the article - I feel bad for the spokesperson for the Mayor's office. She's great and I can only imagine the difficulty to come up with some of those responses.

The sad part, Travel and Leisure has a point. Kinda curious about the nightlife but if you aren't to sitting on a porch or going to a "hip hop" type club, then maybe they have a point.

I work Downtown and the street are either under construction or gross / covered in lots of disgusting garbage. I regularly walk to another building across Downtown and frequently pass by homeless sleeping in the streets, people doing meth next to abandoned building across the street from the court house (ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE COURTHOUSE), lots of abandoned buildings, dead rats, restaurants with health ratings in the 70s ... none of these things really dispute what T and L said and don't really inspire me to spend anytime in Downtown Atlanta unless I'm at work -- and most of us are lobbying that we move to midtown.

Atlanta does have some great restaurants, shopping and what not, but none of it is in Downtown Atlanta.  I've said it before and will say it again, Downtown Atlanta would be greatly improved by gutting everything, bulldozing what's left and starting over.

So ... who's coming to visit?

The Peachtree Road Race ... 2011 Recap

Each year on the 4th of July, I wake up early and run a 10K with 60 - 70K of my closest friends. Its a really amazing experience and very patriotic. As I'm sitting here with my right leg covered in ice, I thought I'd give you a few play by play moments of the race:

• It was hot ... probably the hottest race I've ran in years. The humidity was just down right nasty, but the spirit in the air kept you moving. 
• Prior the race, three Raptors did a fly over which was pretty amazing and raised the hair on the back of your neck.  Call me a kid, but I still get excited about military fly overs. 
• Most of my running partners and friends bailed, so I ran with one of Retired Sorority grirls friends (Nikki) and caught up with Chuck and Sarah (old friends from Furman). 
• The first mile ... well, was too quick.  When you pace around 10 minutes and you do the first one in 830, its not a bad thing, just not overly good.  Probably because I was too busy talking, I stopped for water and a bathroom break at mile one that allowed me to finally stretch out. Also a good point that I'm taking much more time off in June of next year. The 80 hour work weeks clearly don't help with the training process.  
• Finally going well on Mile 2 and 3 -- good rhythm, lots of cool people out ... 
• Right before the hill at the Sheppard clinic, I encountered a behemoth of a person (good double deuce and a half fo sho) who decided to fall in front of me. As I darted to the right, my angle decided to go left ... body went right ... snap, crackle, pop -- the race is no longer fun. 
• I power walked through the rest of mile 3.5 - 4.5 trying to figure out if I needed to stop.  I had this really neat tingling feeling in my ankle and it decided to swell up quickly.  
• At mile 4.5, I took a pit stop, stretched out my ankle, ate one of those vanilla instant calorie goo things (totally unnecessary for a 10K but I took it to distract the the behemoth caused) and the carried on.
• I slowly jogged all the way to the finish line and limped across -- needless to say, I was not as thrilled as all the other people around me. In fact, I was down right pissed ... I finished in about 80 minutes which isn't very good, but it was also the first race I've done on a bum ankle.  At least I finished, I could have (and thought about ) giving up multiple times.  
• If you have to get hurt, get hurt at these races. Love the medical tent -- everyone is so nice and give you all sorts of ice, drinks, and other fun things (pills, pain reliever, etc.) 

So while the race wasn't great from a personal performance perspective, it was a very cool experience.  I'm certainly motivated to get in much better shape so I can quality in a higher location so I don't spend 1/2 the race darting left to right dodging the giant people -- but good for them for doing it at least.  I know of a lot of others that didn't do the race.  Now to prepare for the 1/2 marathon on Thanksgiving ... me thinks I'm more than motivated for that race.  

Onward and upward ... Happy 4th Everyone. I'm off to replenish all the calories I lost and move as little as possible.