Race for the Cure

I kept myself pretty darn active last weekend and didn't give myself much down-time.  A run-down of the weekend's events:  

• Friday I left work a bit early and enjoyed some time at home with Jason.  I had to get up at dawn to make it to an early-morning race, so I was good and stayed home, made myself a reasonable dinner, got my gear together, hung out with the dog, read my book, and went to bed early.

• I got up a little after 5am and headed out.  I arrived at the race with plenty of time to find a parking space and get a warm-up walk and jog in, and check out all the vendors, goodie-bags and swag they were handing out.  (This is actually a critical point because the Peoria Komen Race for the Cure is an enormous event with approximately 25,000 participants.  Numerous businesses and other local organizations have tents set up and it's an absolute madhouse, really fun, but you HAVE to give yourself time to check it out, roam around, and navigate through all the people!)

• Race results:  totally awesome!  I stuck with my plan of running 10 minutes and allowing a strict 1-minute walk break.  I completed the 5K in 37:41 my personal best for a 5K!! (and a 12:20 minute-per-mile pace!)

After the race

• I called my mom from the finish line and wished her a happy Mother’s Day. 
• Back at home, we took Jason’s grandmother to lunch for her Mother’s Day celebration and then she helped me shop for new shrubs to replace the ones we tore out last weekend.  We went out with friends Saturday night and had a blast.

Brunch on Saturday.  Ummm, Grandma & others were there, but OK you got me, I'm really only including this photo because I look great in it!

• Mother’s Day I woke up to find my step-son had made me breakfast and left is all wrapped up on a TV tray with a lovely card – what a treat!
• After breakfast I spent the rest of Sunday digging in the dirt and setting everything up right with the landscaping. 

A word about the Race for the Cure:  I’ve run this 5K nearly every year since 2005, when I didn’t do any running at all, just walked.  Each year I’ve raised as much money as I could and hounded all my friends and co-workers for donations until they were downright sick of hearing about it.  Here’s why:  My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 1990.  The tumor was found to be malignant and over the next 8 months she underwent chemotherapy.  (There’s probably an entire book’s worth of material describing the experiences of those months, but for today I’ll suffice with saying this:)  It was an incredibly difficult year for my entire family, but this year she is celebrating over 21 years as a breast cancer survivor.  Race for the Cure day is a day for me to remember that time, celebrate my mom, support other survivors, raise funds for further research, and reflect on how far we have come since those dark days in 1990 and 1991.  I always get very emotional during and after the race – I get uncharacteristically overwhelmed at the finish line and I really wish my mom was there with me.  I wish we’d gone together more than just the once before she moved away.  I also wish I wasn’t wearing that ill-fitting hat in this picture.

Me & my mom, Race for the Cure 2006

At any rate, it was a fantastic day, I’m really pleased with my performance, and all-in-all I had a pretty awesome Mother’s Day weekend.