Lake Martin Voice Realty
Register For Russell Forest Run
Lake Martin area runners take note – The third annual installment of the Russell Forest Run is scheduled for Saturday, February 25, 2012.
If you have run races before through Active.com – you will be saved a step in registering. If not, that is OK too, an account is free.
The race fee is $40 for the 10k and $20 for the 5k.
I plan to run again this year, it’s my third year in a row. It is the only 10k I have ever run in, so I don’t have much in the way of comparison. I think it’s hilly, but my Birmingham friends tell me it is not so bad. Whatever.
At any rate, it gives me great motivation to stay active while I train for it. Even though it’s not very hilly where I live, and I run only on roads or the treadmill, that seems to prepare me pretty well.
The race is run over the trails in Russell Forest. Honestly, “trails” – is not quite accurate, they are really dirt roads. True, there are sections that are gravelly, but for the most part it is hard packed red clay. The roads meander through the woods by Lake Martin, and are just beautiful. Many moons ago, when Russell Lands still leased that area for hunting, my dad used to take me quail hunting all through there.
I think one of the best parts of the race is the after party. Russell Lands the power of Russell Crossroads and has the Chef from Springhouse there serving tasties (I think they did a squash bisque last year) and the folks at Catherine’s Market are supposed to have cold beer and drinks.
Plug For Runkeeper
To anyone that is training for the Russell Forest Run, or if you like to run or walk in general, take note of the Runkeeper app.
A friend of mine told me about this app for my iPhone. I love it for many reasons.
First, it’s free. Secondly, it keeps up with all of your workouts and syncs them to the runkeeper.com site. You can set your own running routes, and it calculates distance for you. When you start your run, you let it know what route you plan to run, and it tracks the GPS on your phone and updates you with distance, time, and pace announcements through your earphones. You can even select what playlist you want to play while you run, and whether or not you shuffle.
When you are done, you let it know, and it uploads your results to your private runkeeper.com account.
My only complaint is that it is not compatible with my heart rate monitor. I have one of those older chest strap monitors that transmits your heart rate. It works great on the treadmill but my iPhone 4 won’t put it through to runkeeper. Maybe it’s an iPhone thing, I don’t know. It would be really cool to be updated on my heart rate because that’s how I train anyway, not by timed pace per mile.
Enough about me.
I hope to see YOU at the Russell Forest Run. It’s a fun event that shows you that there’s plenty of things to do around Lake Martin in the winter.
Russell Forest Run
The Russell Forest Run is this Saturday Feb 27th.
The 10k starts at 8 am. 10k is equal to 6.2 miles. $40 entry fee until feb 26th it is $50 the day of the race.
The one mile fun run starts at 9 am. Entry fee is $10
You can pick up your packet at the Discovery Center in between Catherine’s Market and Spring House on Friday afternoon between 4 and 6 pm, or on Saturday morning from 6 to 7:30 am. Good luck, hope to see you there.
Inside Catherine’s Market At Russell Crossroads
Lake Martin’s newest deli and grocery – Catherine’s Market at Russell Crossroads – officially opened on Tuesday, December 16, 2008. I went by there today for lunch to check out the inside of the store and deli. It was really nice, a first class operation.
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As advertised, the market section had lots of cool, higher end grocery items. The wine shop was well stocked. I even found my favorite Rioja. I didn’t scrutinize the meat counter very closely, but I am sure that it is nice.
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The deli was rippin and roarin. It was covered up with Russell Lands sales agents and employees. I also saw 2 or 3 tables worth of people that drove down from Alex City, including Mr. Ben himself, one of my fourth grade teachers, and a lady we’ve gone to church with for decades. That’s one thing I like about Lake Martin, I always bump into friends wherever I am eating lunch.
I played it pretty safe and selected the stacked ham sandwich on wheat with pasta salad. It was good. A friend got the 1/2 and 1/2 – the soup of the day was some sort of seafood bisque, which he really liked. You order at the deli counter and then go and sit down, they bring you the food. It took about 15 minutes for them to serve it, which I guess wasn’t bad for their first week. With a sweet tea, I was in and out of there for about $11.00, which is comparable to another one of my Lake Martin favorites, Green Valley Market & Cafe.
My only criticism is that I detected some sort of flavor to the sweet tea, like a peach or fruit or some sort of whang. It definitely has some sort of fancy angle to it, to which I am morally opposed. Just give me some straight up tea, please. If you want to get fruity on me, please put it in a separate dispenser and let me know ahead of time. Admittedly, I am a purist, a stickler for good sweet tea, so maybe I am on the fringes of opinion here. But this is a relatively tiny complaint when put against the entire experience. It really was nice, clean, well run, and tasted good. I expected all kinds of problems as this is their third day in biz. None such. Very professional.
Meat Counter:
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Fresh veggie aisle:
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Lunch menu:
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I wish them the best. I think they are a great addition to the Lake Martin area, I am sure to be back in the future.
Click here for the Catherine’s Market menu
And here for the back of Catherine’s Market menu
Also see:
All of the pics I took of Catherine’s Market, and my entire collection of web photo albums on Picassa, including waterfront property on Lake Martin that I have for sale.
Construction Photos of Russell Crossroads
Russell Lands is building Russell Crossroads – that will be, as they put it, “a ‘town center’ in the heart of the Russell Lands family of developments on 44,000 acre Lake Martin.”
It is being built on Highway 63, just north of Windermere Road. The town center will serve as resource for the neighborhoods of The Ridge, Windermere, Windover, Trillium, Willow Point, and for that matter, anywhere else on Lake Martin. Judging from their plans, and the players that they have committed, my candid take is that this will be very good for the Lake Martin community. There will be a high end grocery called Catherine’s Market, which will also have a deli. The first phase will also include The Springhouse Restaurant – “fine dining in a casual atmosphere.” Future plans call for a Hot and Hot Restaurant.
If I understand their overall plan correctly, in the future all of their area developments mentioned above (except Trillium) will be connected by a trail system so that one could jog, bike, or ride a golf cart to Russell Crossroads, and also go back and forth in between each neighborhood.
I snapped some photos a couple of weeks ago. They are already out of date. I drove by a couple of days ago and saw that they had the roofs on Catherine’s Market and the Springhouse Restaurant. But I will post these here anyway.
The Real Estate Sales office and Discovery Center:
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| Sales Office |
Here is the future Catherine’s Market:
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| Catherine’s Market |
And here is one of the future Springhouse Restaurant:
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| Springhouse Restaurant |
