Canton Road Race was great - but that incline was nuts!

So, this morning, Emily and I ran the Canton Road Race with our friend (and giveaway winner!) Ally. It was a little chilly this morning (45 degrees when we arrived) and we were SO glad that we went on Friday afternoon to pick up our race bibs.

The Canton Road Race, in its 12th year, starts and finishes at the Reebok World Headquarters which is a pretty neat place. I had the pleasure of checking out the campus on Friday afternoon when I picked up our race bibs from the friendly volunteers. It couldn't have been easier!

The 5k started at 9 am and we arrived around 8 am to get ready. I had a banana as my pre-race meal and Emily had toast with PB and cheese. Just enough fuel to get going. I was wearing new running pants along with KTTape underneath to support my knees and leg sleeves to support my calves. Crazy what you have to do to take care of your body...

We warmed up and chatted with our friends before getting in the back of the pack for the start. Once the race started we casually drifted back since we knew that we were just in it to finish it. I cannot believe how strong and dedicated my wife Emily is for training for and completing a 5k just 6 weeks after giving birth to our second child.

The race was a beautiful 3.1 mile run through Canton and nearby Milton on 138 and we were able to go at our own pace. There was a 10k that started 5 minutes after our race and soon the 10k runners had caught up with us and passed us. We just enjoyed going at our own speed. We found the first few inclines to be fine but then were met with quite the steep incline through the Blue Hills area and had to walk quite a ways.

Over the past few months as you know if you've read this blog, I'll admit, I've gotten lazy when it comes to food choices, exercise and taking care of myself so I've put on quite a few points. Now I am energized to start losing weight and hopefully keeping it off. I've found it is increasingly difficult as a parent since you're taking care of the kid/s. But it is certainly important to care for yourself first so you can model good behavior and practice.

As the race finished, we were greeting to the sounds of cheering and the race DJ even announced my name on the speaker as I finished which was pretty cool. I was wearing a GoPro camera to be able to make a video and also capturing it on my iPhone in case the video didn't come out and wouldn't you know it - the DJ saw this and even joked about it. We laughed!

After the race, we went to visit the many sponsors. Some of the highlights were some fresh fruits from Wegmans, Jerky from KRAVEJerky (who even gave you a sample pack if you tweeted a hashtag for them) and TreeTop adventures which is a local obstacle course located in Canton. We hope to be able to try that soon! There were some physical therapy places, norwood hospital and a bank along with Reebok. The coolest part of the event was that you could shop in the Reebok Corporate Store after the race and you would get 50% off the listed price. You can't normally get in there unless you work for the company, so that was pretty cool.

Overall, we had an amazing time and hope to come back next year and get a better time!

I made a quick video of the run... Hope you enjoy it!

Here are some pictures from the day:

NOTE: We were provided with complimentary bibs to run the 5k and gave one additional bib away through a giveaway Congrats to the winner, Ally. No other compensation was provided. We had an amazing time and as always, all opinions are our own.