7th Annual Road to Wellness 5k

COVID-19, “ The Rona Era”

Today is the DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! So happy. It’s RTW day. The weather is perfect and this year we are running in person, with COVID precaucious of course. Last year was virtual and I had virtual races. Over the summer, this year, we had our live - in person Saturday Free running clinic trainings. Every Saturday from June to August, women and men came out and were committed to learning how to walk and run. Basically, they wanted to improve their physical health, which improves their mental health.

Over the three months we build a community of runners and walkers. We laughed, smiled, sweat, curse, encouraged and motivated one another. It has been great to see the progression from day to to now. Even with me as well. Going through radiation and dealing with pelvic floor, this helped to build my running strength back too.

On a beautiful race day, there were so many volunteers and over 400 folks came to run/walk. The engery was so infectious. The bonus was see my sole sistas and other community of color running groups that came out , showed up, and showed out. There was pioneers, trailblazhers, BGR, BMR, AKA’s. It was lit. I got to hug BGR members that I haven’t seen in over 10 months, if not longer.

Today, my girl Liz showed and we ran together. My Iowan came to support and hold everyone’s bag since we couldn’t put our tent up this year. We also had a dance party warm up by Brandi.

This year, they asked everyone to put on a mask at the start line and the race start was staggered. Volunteers held signs with time paces. Folks gathered behind their time .

Race day was amazing. I didn’t bother to listen to my music since Liz and I talked the whole time. She was giving me great running coaching advice while running. She pushed me to run a 9:50 ave/pace, my fastest post surgery for a 30 min 5k finish.

Afterward, we cheered on the other walkers and runners. So much joy today!! This is what running and community is all about