Oh, did I mention? I did another race.

Did you ever have that thing where you were working hard toward something, then once it was over, you collapsed into a giant pile of torpor? Like maybe, for example, you were struck down by a nasty, respiratory infection of some kind, unable to motivate yourself to do much more than dragging yourself back and forth to wherever you absolutely had to be, and spending the rest of the time flaked out in bed or in front of the television?

Why do I bring it up? Oh, no reason.

Ok, obviously this is my stated excuse for only now getting around to blogging about my latest race, which was over two weeks ago. Seriously, I ran a little harder than I really intended, so I was pretty winded after running, and I thought that was why my lungs felt a little rough, even the next day. But, when my breathing felt even rougher by the morning after that, I realized it wasn't the race. I don't know what it was, exactly, except that it's still not all the way gone, so I haven't run again yet, but I'm going to try soon. Maybe even tomorrow?

Enough about my health woes, though. On to the race ...

It was a gorgeous day in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, if a little gray and chilly. This was also my first race where all three members of my immediate family (Mom, Dad, sister) were there to cheer me on. Mostly, they were there to wave and clap as I rounded one of the last turns, and belatedly snap one photo of my back after I'd passed, but I'll take it!

It makes a great Facebook cover photo, anyway!

To be honest, although I'd had some great training times leading up to the race, once I was in it I thought it was going terribly. I felt tired and slow, and was a little worried about getting through in under half an hour. So, imagine my surprise when I rounded the corner toward the finish line and saw that I was coming in under 28:30! Official finish time, 28:25, which was good enough for 64th place out of 134 participants. This is my second-best time ever—I will probably throw a raucous party if I ever beat my Gaspee 5K 26:59 finish—and was good enough for a top-half place, so I'm plenty happy with that!

After the race, the rest of the weekend was dedicated to family time, focused in part around my sister's Christmas present to the rest of us, which was tickets to an amazing production of Julius Caesar by the Royal Shakespeare Company at BAM. But we also spent some time checking out the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and enjoyed seeing some of the flowering trees at the peak of their bloom. For example ...

... and it wasn't just the trees that were in bloom ...

What more could I say? Even with the transportation concerns (which were nicely managed by driving to New Haven and taking MetroNorth, something I'll have to remember as an option for future visits to NYC), it was a fabulous weekend!

Next stop: probably Vermont on July 20, possibly in Shelburne, although I haven't decided for sure. And Ohio and Minnesota are on the horizon ...

For now, I'm just hoping to breathe well enough to run again soon! Wish me luck!