The totally awesome t-shirt.
This race is ten minutes from my house, so I really have no excuse to not participate. The course is easy (no hills) and the views are great (we run over the dam that holds Lake DeGray). The race always draws a crowd and this year was no exception. There were 716 registered participants (376 women).
I got to run with my mother-in-law again this year. If you remember, last year this race was her very first 5k. In one year, she shaved a little over 15 minutes off of her 5k time. That is so awesome. It makes me happy when folks (especially family) not only start running, but stick with it and make consistent improvements. She has raced a lot of 5ks and two duathlons over the past year and also signed up for a 10k this Fall and a half in the Spring! So, if you are using age as an excuse, she is 51 now and started running when she was 50. She has also made a ton of friends! I got to be in their picture (top row, far right in the pink). My mother-in-law is the young looking lady in the bright yellow t-shirt, on the far right. 
Anyway, back to my race. I made a huge novice mistake (I should know better!). Two hours before the race, I ate a 6oz steak and a huge portion of grilled veggies. Super healthy, but about 1.25 miles into the course, I felt like I was going to hurl and had to slow down. That kind of made me sad, because I was comfortably cruising to a PR. I should have stuck to my normal pre-race small snack and ate dinner afterwards, but oh well. I still did ok:
I placed 76th overall and 18th in my age division.
What do you think?