If you can’t go to Disney, then bring Disney to you at the runDisney Atlanta Meetup!
That is what #OnTheRoadToDisneyParks was all about and Atlanta was lucky to have the first meetup. Even though I’m not running any Disney events this year, we are going down in December. What better way to get me all extra excited about our trip!!!

Amy from Mom’s Magical Miles and I carpooled down to Turner Field, the home of Atlanta Braves (atleast until 2017), also the site of the 1996 Olympics. We were there early enough to meet other runDisney fanatics (Amy knew almost all of them!) and had the awesome honor of being escorted to Turner Field by Jeff Galloway!!

It was a long wait (it seemed so!) in the cold before the 2 mile run through the streets and into Turner Field. Yes, into the field. We ran on the field itself. And as my very first time into Turner Field (or any baseball stadium), it was pretty cool and I had flashbacks of being inside the cricket stadium in India. Jeff Galloway led the run-walk of 20sec:20sec intervals. While it sounded insane in the beginning, I was immediately surprised at how fast the segments were! We averaged around 12min/mile!

One of the speakers was Warren Greene from Runners World. He did a bunch of giveaways of which one was the Runners Rule Book by Mark Remy. Mark Remy, of Remy’s World is one of my favorite writers (He is unabashedly passionate about what he writes and absolutely hilarious!) and Warren happened to mention that he was best friends with Mark (Hey! I’m Mark’s “Facebook Friend”!!). After all the talks, I went over to talk to Warren and … oops … awkward … as I started off with “O Em Gee. I am a huge fan. Of your friend”. Not exactly the best opening line. He  was a great sport though, and listened to me gushing 🙂 .

Other speakers included Barbara Parker of the 2008/2012 Team GB Olympic team (I later looked her up and she qualified in 2 events!! Steeplechase and 5000m!), the New Balance local rep who talked about good form running and Tara Gidus, the official runDisney nutritionist. There was also the unveiling of new unDisney specific New Balance shoes. Jeff Galloway is always a treat to hear as he advised us, “Running keeps getting better. Not necessarily faster, but better. With better experiences.” (loose quote)

The entire day was just a lot of fun and I will let the pictures speak for itself.

Thanks runDisney for bringing the event to Atlanta and giving us an opportunity to experience the magic locally.
For people in other cities, if you want to get into a meetup – follow/set alerts for runDisney’s tweets. They announce the location and the time of signup on twitter. Be ready to sign up and good luck!