Mommy friends and a new 5K PR!

Mother's Day generally involves breakfast in bed, maybe a pedicure or a massage.... what did I want to do on "my" day? Run, obviously!  Ridgefield, CT (along with cities in 10 states) have an all-female race on Mother's Day, and it was awesome.   (To clarify: they also have a kid's race, which was SO cute, I can picture Oliver doing it someday!) 

Never turn down a cute race tshirt! (Baby blue, well-cut cotton shirt!)

A bunch of friends ran it last year, before we moved back up here, and I was very excited to run it this year.  I signed up last week, once the move was finalized. It was only about 25-30 minutes away, and it made me realize just how much I love doing smaller races.  I got to the race 45" before start, a friend picked up my bib for me (thanks, J!), and it was super easy to get to and from the start/finish. 

We ran like mothers!

I hadn't seen some of these awesome mums in 6+ months (K/J - how did that happen?), but it felt like we had just done some Rail Trail training runs together... glad to be back! :)

I ended up finishing in 23:18, new PR! It breaks down to 7:31/mile, which I'm pretty psyched about. (LOOK!)I do have to say that having trained on some serious hills (for our 10K in 2 weeks), I felt awesome with the rolling hills and even passed a few people going up some hills! 

Team SS ready for our 10K race!

Upon crossing the finish line, we were all handed a very pretty red rose! I hung around a little and waited for everyone to finish, then Kerry and I headed over to check out the results.  Well.... I made the first printed page. Then, I looked over at the place in division. #2! WHAAAT?!?!?! How did that happen? 

Anyway, I was going to head straight home to shower (and then off to IKEA), but clearly wanted to wait around and see what I 'got'! They were announcing the division winners, and said some other girl's name for #2. (They read them in 3rd, then 2nd and 1st). Felt like a dummy for sure, until they read my name for having come in FIRST. [The girl who 'beat' me was 2nd overall, so I guess they pull out of division for that? This is all new to me....]

My first time placing in a race!

In addition to this beautiful bouquet of flowers, I got a free race entry into next year's race! (Ben was hoping for a cash award, not something that will just feed into my 'addiction!')

Happy Mother's Day to all of my Mum friends (runners and non-runners), as well as my three moms! I hope you all did whatever makes YOU happy today!