Day 1,574: I've registered in the lottery for the 2012 London Marathon!

I didn't get in for this year's marathon, so I might as well try for the next year. Realistically though, my chances are slim -- I think they only pick about 1,000 overseas runners.

But unlike other marathons, the lottery for this race is free and they only take the 65 pound fee when you are accepted.

Today's run took me down Ponce de Leon, through the Whole Foods/Home Depot shopping center to the Midtown Art Cinema shopping center, through Midtown and around Piedmont Park.

Very humid.

Time: 7:30 a.m.
Temp: 66 degrees
Gear: Technical T-shirt, short (Charles Harris '11), shorts, Nike Air Pegasus+ 27.

Day 1,571: Beat the Street for Little Feet 5K

Pete the cat is pretty well known around these parts and when we saw that the Beat the Street for Little Feet 5K would have him on our race shirts, we knew we had to run in it!

The 5K course is pretty nice, starting around Coan Park in Kirkwood and goes out on part of the Trolley PATH trail and on DeKalb Avenue. The last half mile is all downhill, which gives you a screaming finish.

We started out on a pretty regular pace and the course soon goes uphill pretty quickly. I ran very comfortably and it wasn't too long until the end was near on the PATH trail. I kicked to the finish in the last .5 mile to make sure I wouldn't get outkicked at the end.

Great weather, nice course. My Garmin data shows 3.11 miles, so pretty accurately measured for a community 5K as well!

Time: 8 a.m.
Temp: 57 degrees
Gear: short-sleeved T (Carolina grey), shorts, Nike Air Pegasus +27.

Day 1,567: Jesters Creek Greenway

MORROW, Ga. -- Last week I'd done a bunch of running near the house. Today I went down to Morrow to look for some geocaches along a greenway in Clayton County called the Jesters Creek Greenway.

What I liked about the trail is that you can access it from a library parking lot off of Battlecreek Road. It isn't too long before you get some really nice scenery, including some boardwalk bridges, lots of trees and some pretty cool rocks.

I turned around about at 1.65 miles off of Mt. Zion Road and then did .4 mile past the turn off for the library on the way back to give myself a four mile run.

I saw a few runners and walkers along it so it didn't feel isolated at all.

That's part of the fun of geocaching, to find new places, especially to exercise!

Day 1,551: Cherry Blossom Ten Miler

Standing in front of the Washington Monument after running in the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten-Miler
WASHINGTON -- Last year when I ran in the Cherry Blossom Ten-Miler for the first time, it had been only three weeks since a pretty hard ING Georgia Marathon in which I suffered calf pain at mile 15 and had to gut it out to the end.

This year I was coming off of a half marathon in which I felt like I couldn't accelerate very well.

The race started fine, although the first mile was amateur hour in that there was a lot of people cutting in front and jockeying. Didn't anyone tell them this was a ten-mile race?

So I basically took it easy. By mile 3, I was surprised where the time had gone. Around mile 5, I was introduced to the bitchiness of the region when I accidentally dropped a pen and slightly turned around, only to have some girl kick the bottom of my shoe. Pretty ridiculous when she complained.

But it fired me up. I decided then I was going to have a nice race. When we got into East Potomac Park for the last half of the race it was beautiful. Cherry trees line the road on both sides.

At mile 9.5 with the incline, I had a bunch of energy to speed up it and it didn't feel as daunting as the year before (where was all this energy previously?)

But the one thing that mattered was that sweetie and I ran through the finish line hand-in-hand.

The funny thing about this race is I ran it 2 seconds faster than I did the year before. How's that for consistency?

Time: 7:42 a.m.
Temp: 41 degrees
Gear: Tech T, long (Kennesaw Locomotive Half Marathon), Tech T, short (yellow), shorts, Nike Air Pegasus+ 27.

Day 1,551: Wilbur Farm Trail (Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve)

LITHONIA, Ga. -- Today's run took me to a spur of the Arabia Mountain PATH trail, the Flat Rock Spur off of Evans Mill Road.

Off of the bike path is a 1.6-mile trail that leads to an old farm that was purchased by the Nature Conservancy and added to the Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve.

You go on a trail that leads up a hill and then you're let out onto this green, grassy clearing with an old silver barn at the bottom of it.

It's a trail that easily I could see as part of a state park or even a national park but here it's a county gem that you can access for free.

The trail goes right by a ruined farmhouse (I'm a little surprised it isn't completely fenced off) and then an idyllic pond.

The Wilbur Farm Trail then connected with the Boomerang Trail that I passed yesterday on the PATH. I took it and then jogged back to the Flat Rock Spur.