Catawba County - Conover School 5k Run & Roll - June 17, 2017

The Conover School is a very special place in Catawba County.  The school serves about 150 local students from 3 to 22, all with some degree of cognitive challenge.  Some students also have physical challenges to deal with.  The school has a wonderful adaptive playground that serves all the students, no matter their abilities, and the main funding to keep adapting and updating the playground comes from their summer fundraiser, the Conover School 5k Run & Roll.

I was happy to bring my running team (Kathy and the boy) along for another stroller-approved county run, and it was a lot of fun for the boy to see so many other children taking part in the race on a humid, moderate Saturday morning.  Just about every age group was represented, with some children in strollers, other children and adults in wheelchairs or other assistance, and a happy group of walkers as well.  The event also included a "Maddie's Mile" competition for racers with special needs.

The morning festivities were well underway when we arrived for packet pickup ahead of the race and got Junior packed into his jogging stroller for the morning.  There were lots of strollers that were going to be in the race; they could have had a division just for them!  The volunteers couldn't have been more friendly or nicer to us visitors, and the overall mood was very upbeat and happy for the race.  Eventually Conover's Finest shut down traffic on 1st Avenue and the runners were moved into position for the start, and then we were off!

For a county in the foothills of the mountains, this was a surprisingly flat and fast course.  There was very little elevation change on the lollipop-shaped course, but the humidity and temperatures still gave us plenty to deal with.  The first mile was very fast, straight south on 1st Avenue and then cutting over to College Avenue, where we followed the train tracks.  Fortunately, there was a police car leading the way so no one got lost, and there were plenty of volunteers directing the way on the turns as well.  We also enjoyed some of the encouraging signs folks had put up to perk up the participants.

In the second mile, we looped around Broyhill Park and the ballfields there, and the volunteers had set up a water stop as well to give us some relief from the temps.  Naturally, I got off to too fast of a start with the jogging stroller, so I had some payback in the second and third miles.  But the cold water was much appreciated as we swapped off stroller duties and headed back.  From the park we retraced our steps back along the train tracks and back to 1st Avenue and back to the school, where music was playing as all the finishers passed under the big inflatable arch.  (181 joggers and walkers finished the 5k.)

Post-race, there was a wonderful spread of food and drink for all the participants.  There was plenty to drink along with lots of snacks and a big spread of fresh fruit.  (I have fond memories of the watermelon chunks.)  We met some of the other participants, met some representatives from the school, and the boy got to play on the wonderful playground for a while before we had to pack up all our supplies and get back on the road.  The Conover School 5k Run & Roll was a fantastic and fun event on a flat, fast course, well worth checking out if you're looking to run in Catawba County!