I was not in a good mental frame of mind for this race. I had a total shit week, was sleep deprived, and my allergies were raging. I seriously contemplated a DNS and just crawling back into bed to sleep. The only thing that kept me from doing that was knowing my friend Darla was going to be out there wondering where the hell I was.

All in all, the race itself went pretty well. It was a big loop through neighborhood streets. The worst part was the last 1.3 miles or so which was running directly into the morning sun. Thankfully, I remembered to put on my sunscreen even though I was running late!

One of the highlights of the race was at about the halfway point. Since we were running through neighborhood streets, lots of folks were sitting outside their homes cheering us on. One family had hooked up a water mister to a garden hose, so we got a quick mist shower as we ran by their house. It was awesome! Too bad no one in that last part of the race running into the sun had done that. I know most of us BOP runners would have definitely appreciated it! LOL

Even though I came in DFL in my age group, it was still a new 5k PR for me by 1 second. This is the first time I've actually finished a race faster than the races I did before my spinal fusion surgery last year.

Keep losing weight so I don't have to lug so much of it around when I run. Avoid races near the end of July. The temperature was in the low to mid-70's which was pretty nice, but the humidity was over 70% which made it feel like it was the mid-80's. Yeah, that wasn't so nice.

Walked around for about 1/2 mile then hit the food area for a 1/2 banana and a popsicle. Yes, they had popsicles for us! It was, without doubt, THE best popsicle I have ever eaten! There's nothing quite like some frozen icy fruit goodness to help cool you down after a race. It was only 90 calories as well which made it even better in my book. :)


My weight