Connor’Smiles 5K Race

Today, I finished race #8 of my racing career! {well, 9 if you count the Virtual 5K…}

We raced in memory of Connor Rice, a 15-year old local boy who was in a tragic car accident last fall. Connor was athletic and a member of the cross country team for Queen Anne’s County HS, so a memorial race to raise money for the Connor Rice Memorial Fund was a fitting way to honor his memory!

The weather was perfect. The race was well organized, but I did experience my first race mishap! The course was a bit of a maze, but there were signs at most turns, and at some points, there were individuals wearing bright orange shirts pointing the right direction.

Except at one junction. I turned right at a corner when I should’ve gone forward.  About .1 miles down this path, I realized that I running toward the finish–but there was no way I had finished 3 miles. A mom/daughter duo ahead of me did the same thing, and after we stopped and stared at each other for a brief moment, we decided we’d made a wrong turn!

This is when I did something silly – I sprinted to the place where I made the wrong turn, hoping to recover my time. Usually, I sprint toward the end of a race, not in the middle. My last mile was tougher than the first two, and there was a fairly steep hill to climb just before the end.

But! I still managed to race a personal best! My self-recorded time was 26:37, more than 30 seconds faster than the 27:10 time I raced last fall. I’ll get the official results to compare!

I left the race before the results to make it back for the Chestertown Farmer’s Market, so I missed the announcement that I won my age group! Pretty sweet deal!!!

Post-race and Market, I whipped up a fabulous Green Monster smoothie – this one has 1 c. milk, 2 c. raw spinach, 1 banana, and 1 scoop of whey protein powder. It was delicious! The chocolate protein powder pairs well with the spinach. Really.

We enjoyed our smoothies on the back porch. What a gorgeous day! We spent most of the late morning/early afternoon in the garden – I transplanted some of our seedlings, and Shane made huge headway with the mulching project — I’ll share photos soon!

Such a full, busy, wonderful day! Can’t wait for the next race which happens to be…next weekend. Eek!