Lace Up Son 5K

We got up bright and early on Memorial Day to participate in the Lace Up Son Family 5K out of a local YMCA.  This 5K benefitted the Steve Smith Foundation and Steve Smith himself, and his family, completed the 5K as well.  I covered this on Instagram, but wanted to highlight our morning, too, because it was such a fun event.  Steve Smith makes himself so accessible and we basically hung with him in a small crowd at the starting line for a good 30 minutes or so.  His wife was very pregnant at the time so he walked the race with her, after getting a 2-minute head start from the rest of us, so Steve actually stood at one point along the race course giving high-fives as runners went by.  It was very cool to get a high-five from a Pro Bowler.  Jonathan ran the race at an impressive clip and actually won first place in the Men’s 35-39 age group.  The kids and I did the first mile or so together, Jack got really far behind Ella and me, we lost sight of him, ran back a good quarter mile or so to find him, and somewhere in the mix he passed us and ended up finishing almost 4 minutes ahead of us.  I was relieved to see him at the finish line, but also kind of wanted to wring his neck for losing us.  Regardless, it was a fun event, a great course, and I finished it hoping we’d sign up for more family 5K’s in the future.  After the race, we stuck around for a pancake breakfast, the awards ceremony to see Jonathan get his medal from Steve Smith, and then to get a family picture with him as VIPs (when I signed up for the race, we’d just gotten through Tracy’s whole ordeal and I was kind of in a “Carpe Diem” kind of mood, living life the fullest, so I signed us up for the VIP family package…true story).  We’ll miss Steve Smith on the Panthers this year, but hope it holds true that this race will be an annual event here in Charlotte.



{i’m having knee issues so i was wearing a compression sleeve.  it actually did help and i didn’t have any knee pain during the race (i had just been told by the ortho about a week earlier not to run more than about 3.5 miles and knee replacement is probably in my future).}





Also, Wilson of a local television station’s Wilson’s World fame was at the race and our whole family was on the show a few times—we were all there for his intro (Ella in the front and Jack, Jonathan, and I to the left) and then they also caught Ella and me crossing the finish line.



Wilson's World - Lace Up Son 5K from Tricia Williams on Vimeo.