For me, the worst part about training for a half marathon is the weekend long run. It’s not the difficulty, or the pain – it’s the boredom or just the overall time it takes out of your day. Especially in the summer. Training for my first half marathon in Asheville, I remember it being a 3-hour affair to run a casual pace for 10 miles added to the prep time and a post run cool down and shower.

But it’s winter now, and many of us in the Atlanta area and nearby are training for the ING Marathon or Half Marathon. You should be at 6 to 8 miles on your long runs by now. I am not, having successfully blown off the last two weekend runs because of bad weather (in January, I know, shocker).

However, and it’s taken me a while to get here, I have looked forward to the long run because my little running group and I have decided on a theme: The Coffeehouse runs.

One of us picks the coffeehouse and maps out the loop of an appropriate length, and must also name the run. As we go forward, I’ll use this blog to record them in case any readers want to try the course and the coffee. Maybe I should call this the coffee course.

The Dancing Goat 4

A four-mile loop through a few Decatur neighborhoods featuring a cemetery loop and a finish down Ponce in downtown Decatur. RUN: OK, there was serious construction going on at the soon-to-be-renovated Glenlake Park that made parts of the run feel like a hash. Also, the cemetery is very hilly. Coffee: I’ve always been a fan of Dancing Goat, both the coffee and the atmosphere. It was crazy crowded, but we ran into some friends, grabbed a big table in the back. It’s a good place for a post run coffee, especially if you are staying.