Race & Relax Recap – Part 1

Our first Get Moving! Race & Relax event took place this past Saturday and I’m thrilled to say it was a huge success! Eighteen lovely ladies joined forces to run in the Virginia Highlands Summerfest 5K then celebrated in style at a scrumptious brunch. To keep things simple, I’m going to split my recap in half.

Part 1 – Race

We gathered at 7:15 a.m. to meet up before the 8 a.m. start time. Thankfully, the weather cooperated with us, we had threats of thunderstorms, but it was sunny and somewhat cool for Hotlanta so we couldn’t complain. It was fun to put faces with blog and twitter names as many of the ladies hadn’t met before. Some of us did gather the night before for an impromptu Tweet up to celebrate the race and welcome our contest winner, Fiona Bryan of Bantering Blonde and MomActive, who we flew in from Denver for the race. We had a blast at Buckhead Pizza Company where we mingled, had a drink and had the lovely Funkidivagirl and her husband @KeyInfluncer come through and do his Friday Night Mix live from our little soiree. Good stuff!

Back to the race, it was a beautiful course through the residential streets of historic Virginia Highlands in Atlanta. It was rather hilly, ahem, but the ladies did awesome – some of them even PR’d! We had runners, walkers and even “woggers” – a new term coined by the fabulous Broke Socialite. I ran with my sister, Nicole, who totally rocked it. This was her first time running since giving birth to my beautiful niece, Haven, and probably sometime before that. I decided not to pay attention to my time for this race but to focus more on making sure everyone else was happy, motivated and moving. Once Nicole and I crossed the finish line, Fiona and I went to find the walkers and finish the race with them.

I’m so proud of the Race & Relax Beauties and all that they accomplished. While a handful of them have run 3 miles before, this was a first for many and a huge notch on their belt. With that said, they definitely deserved the “Relax” part of this journey. More on that in Part 2, but for now here are some pics from the Race.

Our contest winner, Fiona, arrives to the race in style! Well, we couldn’t let her walk to the race.

Lisa C. Writes and @TheGreatDanaJ were chatting it up while we waited

Krystal Grant and new mommy Joan of All Trades were ready for their first race

The Race & Relax Beauties before the race

OK, so we were pumped and a little silly before the race, too

Me and my BlogRollin’ partner, Christie

Getting my music right, this was my new baby’s first race

The slim and trim Renee J Ross taking pics and cheering folks on after finishing the race (She PR’d – Yay, Renee!)

Me getting ready to cross the finish line. Aren’t our Powered By Red shirts cute? A huge thanks to the Cherry Marketing Institute!

All the Beauties afterwards

Still Smiling and having fun

Race & Relax had several wonderful sponsors including The Cherry Marketing Institute, Walt Disney World Resort, The Wine Sisterhood and Pampered By Adrienne. A huge thank you to them and the lovely participants for making it happen; and another big thank you to our wonderful photographer (and my brother-in-law) Corey Shelton for caputuring the morning in pictures for us!

Stay tuned for Part 2. We all had no problem Relaxing …

Winks & Smiles,