Celebrating the 4th of July - Peachtree Road Race Style!

Everyone I know celebrated the fourth of July with a Barbecue. This year I wanted to celebrate in a healthy way by joining the Peachtree Road Race! This is a big goal for me since I wanted to jump start my new exercise plan by accomplishing a goal from my bucket list. Before walking this race, I had to pick up my racing number confirmation at the free Peachtree Health and Fitness Expo. The expo was hosted at the Georgia World Congress Center, so I decided to go there on a beautiful hot Sunday. This is my first time participating in the world's largest 10K race and the Peachtree Street Health and Fitness Expo. I was excited to what fun activities that were going on at the Peachtree Health and Fitness Expo.

I had to take the public transit for Atlanta called Marta in order to get to the Downtown area since the streets were blocked off for the Peachtree Road Race. Once I arrived there I saw hundreds of people walking in the same direction to the expo. It seem that there was a party going on and people were dancing and laughing outside of the exhibition hall. Before I went into the exhibition hall, I was able to go to the Cliff Bar booth where I took a funny picture with some cartoon runners.

After this I finally made my way went inside the hall, where it DJ was spinning the records on the turn table while racing participants were waiting on line to get there racing numbers. I was swaying back and forth while listening to the pulsating music beats from the number of speakers that positioned all around the hall.

Once I finally got to my designated racing number table (which was the last group Y in the race), I was greeted by some friendly volunteer ladies who were gracious in explaining to me in detail about the Peachtree Road Race and the amounts of years they have been walking in the race. They explained me that I will not be alone in this race since I am a 1st time Peachtree Race walker. In fact there are thousands of walkers in the race who will keep me company through the finish line. Then one of the volunteers gave me my race walk number and told me that even though I am in the last group of racers, I had the most popular racing background number that even the runners wish they could have. The popular background was the American Flag!

As I thanked the sweet volunteers for all their encouragement and assistance, I then made my way through the crowd to signing of the wall stations. Almost everyone who is volunteering and participating in the race signed this wall. I did had a hard time to find a place to write my name on the wall.

After signing my name on the wall, I went with the crowds of people into the vendor expo section where over 100 companies representing the areas of gym equipment, sports nutrition, athletic footwear, apparel, health education and training, fitness analysis and club management software. One of the company booths that I had a chance to stop by was the Lightlife.com - a vegetable protein hot dog.

Being from New York and a former beef lover of Nathans Hot Dog, I was skeptical about the taste of this veggie hot dog. Once I saw the long line of people who were wanting to taste a sample of this veggie hot dog forming in front of the booth, I decided that I would have the courage to try one. I waited for almost 20 minutes and then I finally had the chance to bite into this trendy veggie hot dog. It was well worth the wait because it was surprisingly delicious!

The next booth I went to was the Atlanta Affiliate News station - 11 Alive Team where I had the chance to take a fun selfie with News Anchor Jeff Hullinger and Chief Meteorologist Chris Holcomb. 11 Alive News Station is the station that is going to televise the entire Peachtree Road Race for the whole 4th of July morning!

YAY 11 Alive!!

Another booth, I stop by was the Atlanta Track Club booth to see what up incoming races are happening for the latter part of 2017. After the Atlanta Track Club booth, I decided to make my way to the Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Airport booth where these lovely ladies were promoting the Atlanta Mayor's Race. This race is where participants have the chance to run/walk on one of the Atlanta Airport temporary closed runways. It starts very early in the morning and you may have a chance to see planes land in a nearby runaway!

Next I was off to the Cliff Bar booth to taste the delicious samples of their new healthy energy bars, Whole Foods booth to get their in-store coupon and then to PNC Bank to take a picture with some of the picture runners of the Peachtree Road Race.

Last but not least I race to the finish line to stop by and dream at Mercedes Benz Cars booth!

I enjoyed my time at the Peachtree Health and Fitness Expo! I will come back next year! I am also glad that I had a chance to see a new landmark site on the way home to the Marta station! This new beautiful site is the Atlanta Falcons Mercedes-Benz Football Station and so happy that this new majestic building is here!